I’ve just come back from my 6th stay at a Thistle Hotel this year. This is because I have a mad passion for travelling up and down the country staying in various hotels that belong to the Thistle chain; quite fascinating once you get into the swing of things. I love the same old set out of the rooms and same old extortionist prices that always seem to equal horrible tasting food.

I’ve stayed in the London Queensway, London Bayswater, Bristol, and Birmingham and have typically found the same service up and down the country and the hotels are pretty much identical! The service and rooms up and down the country are all a mirror image of each other. Initially I found this bizarre but now I’m used to the same spiel I get and automatically answer “no” to “Would you like a wake up call?” and “Ok then” to “Would you like a complimentary paper?”

I arrived in the evening and entered what was a pretty grand looking foyer leading up to the reception desk. The whole hotel has a cream and beige look complete with pine furniture and green carpets, this is one of the nicer Thistles I’ve stayed in.
I checked in at lightning speed as the bright red lipstick woman whizzed through the whole procedure (with an “enjoy your stay” of course) and I made my way to the 2 lifts. By the way, this is a 4 star hotel and I half expected a porter to rush up to me and carry my bags for me. Fortunately I didn’t wait around (how embarrassing would that be) and made my way to the 2 lifts I could see. One was out of order and being desperate for the loo and very hungry I wished the other one would hurry up!

I was pleasantly surprised at how nice my room was (but still not worth it for £110 a night) : all pine furniture with a nice white bathroom that with towels that didn’t smell bleachy as I usually find. Thistle has a tendency to lean towards the heritage room rather than the contemporary and this time was no different. For those that don’t know a ‘heritage’ room is basically filed with old looking furniture like big oak or pine desks, old looking wardrobes and, to be frank, old looking everything! The contemporary room, you’ve guessed it, has a more modern feel to it and is my preference. For those of you that hate heritage rooms then I would steer clear of Thistle and stay at a Premier Lodge instead.

Actually a lot of the prices in Thistle are pretty steep and the prices alone would definitely put me off staying here. For example a local/national call costs 37p per unit and a fax will cost £2.00.