You get what you pay for! (Etap Hotel)

Member Name: roversjenny

Product:	Etap Hotel
Date:	05/05/09 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Price

Disadvantages: Just about everything else

My experience of Etap hotels extends only to the hotel in Cardiff.

The first time I booked the Etap in Cardiff was when my football team were playing a game at the Millenium Stadium and we wanted somewhere reasonably cheap to stay for the night. At £35 a night, this was by far the cheapest hotel and we booked 2 rooms, and another family member booked another 2 (independant of my booking). We arrived at the hotel around 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, and it was bustling with football fans and the check in took longer than it would normally.

The hotel had just opened and when we finally got to the front of the queue we found out that they had had booking problems, and our reservation was showing as being a month earlier, as was the other family members. As we were 'together' they tried to make out in was our fault despite the fact that we both booked at totally different times. As it was a busy weekend, they couldn't find us a room, and the only thing they could do is point us in the direction of the Ibis hotel (their sister company) who offered £10 off each room, but this still meant that we were paying £80 a night instead of £35 and it left a very sour taste in the mouth.

Undeterred by this, we went back to Cardiff earlier this year, and booked the Etap once again. This time, our reservation was on the system!

The hotel is easy enough to find and not far from the city centre. It has a small car park with space for around 30 cars at most. The car park has barriers to get in and out, and everytime we left the car park and came back, we had to jump out of the car and ask them to open the barrier as they never responded to the buzzer. The car park was not free, however, we were not told this at the time of booking, and they simply added on £3 per car to the room bill.

The rooms are very basic, they sleep 3, in a bunk bed style way. On the bottom is a 'double' bed, and on the top is a single bed. The 'double' bed is not a full sized double bed, I would say it is around 4ft wide. There are only 3 pillows in the room, and the duvets are not very thick, and also not very wide, if you are sharing, expect one of you to wake up cold in the morning!

Also in the room is a small desk, and an LCD TV that only has the standard channels.

The rooms are ensuite, the toilet is separate to the shower, the shower is a very small cubical with a glass door, which can be embarrassing if you are not sharing with your partner, or people you are comfortable getting naked infront of! As the cubical is small, there is also not a lot of room to get dried inside of it.

The rooms do not have any drinks making facilities.

In the hotel lobby there are fridges with drinks/snacks in, which you can purchase but they are very expensive, as you would expect in a hotel.

The hotel in Cardiff also seems popular with stag/hen/single sex parties, and therefore can be very loud, we struggled to get some sleep, and was woken up in the small hours of the morning by people banging on our door.

I guess this review has focussed on the more negative side of the Etap hotel, however, the one good side is the price, at just £35 a night, it is just over £10 a person if there are 3 of you sharing, and if you are only looking for a bed to sleep in, then it would be ideal.

Personally, I would rather pay more in the future to stay somewhere a bit more upmarket.

Summary: Great if you want a bed to crash on, don't be expecting anything better!