Thistle Exeter Rougemont Hotel, Exeter

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	In city centre, large comfortable rooms good breakfast
Disadvantages:	poor parking, small towels !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I stayed for one night with my wife when attending a friend's wedding which was held here. we had a special wedding price of £85 inc. breakfast which was very reasonable when you consider the normal price is £160!.

We booked over the phone and the staff were very helpful, confirmation arrived in the post a couple of days later including directions and facilities, this is when we learnt of the parking. There are 30 spaces at the hotel at a cost of £5 per night, with 90 rooms you can imagine that they go quite quickly. If you don't get a space there a map showing other available car parks close by is shown, although the prices aren't given.

Check in is after 2 pm and we arrived at 3 the staff were very friendly and although it was very busy they were very attentive to detail. My credit card was pre-authorised for £30 more than the cost of the room and we took a lift to the 1st floor room.

The room was fairly large and well set out with a nice sized bathroom with shower and complimentary toiletries, there were only 5 very small sized towels which would just about have managed to dry my face!

In the bedroom was a decent sized TV with desk and chair, also there was a coffee table with two leather armchairs and the view looked out onto a block of offices. The bed was comfortable but smaller than we are used to having, so it was a bit snug. The room would have benefitted from a larger bed, perhaps by losing one of the armchairs.

I went to the reception desk and asked for some larger towels for the room, 4 extra towels were delivered but they were no larger than standard bath towels, I like the feel of a large bath towel from a towel warmer so it wasn't brilliant, but I do like to feel a bit pampered when in an hotel.

The overall feel of the hotel is very nice, it is clean with many period features, large rooms and hallways and a lovely staircase. There are 3 bars that I found all well stocked although quite pricey by local standards.

The room was very quiet and relaxing and we had a good nights sleep when we finally got to bed!

The breakfast was great, as it was a Sunday morning it was served until 11am which allows for a very relaxing time, especially as checkout time was 12pm, quite unusual times for hotels. It is a self service breakfast with a good selection of cereals, pastries, fruit, condiments and fruit juices. There is also a self service cooked breakfast section with sausages, bacon, fried or scrambled eggs, hash browns, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried bread. There was no one checking what you got so I was able to get a very large hangover cure breakfast! Tea and Coffee is brought to you.

All in all a very comfortable hotel in an excellent location (Exeter central train station is literally over the road) for the price it was very good although this was a special deal. I would definitely reccomend it for a stopover.

We stayed at the Hotel in September 2006.

I hope this review is useful, it is my first one so any tips would be greatly received.