I recently spent one night in the Langstone Hotel, as a spur of the moment thing. The thrills of a "staycation" had been wearing a little thin and when I came across this hotel via www.laterooms.com, we decided to use the hotel as a base for the coast for one night. For this purpose, and for a bit of luxury, The Langstone Hotel proved to be an excellent and good value choice for us.

Location:

The hotel is situated at the very entrance of Hayling Island, which is a road connected Island just off the Portsmouth peninsular. It is easily accessed from the M3 and A27, for us it was a short hop of one and half hours from the Reading area. The outlook of the hotel is stunning, and you are near to Bognor Regis, Chichester and the beaches at Wittering, and of course the attractions of Hayling Island.

Hotel:

On outward appearances given the absolutely beautiful bay outlook, the hotel is nothing special. I think it must have been a 70's creation - even on the hotel website they have chosen to picture the hotel from afar. Given the absolutely stunning location whoever designed the hotel should go straight to the bottom of the class at architects' school. However inside, and at the entrance, a recent £2million makeover have made the hotel rather boutique hotel in feel and there are good facilities, and 148 rooms. There is a brasserie, health club with swimming pool and gym and several function rooms.

As you walk down the very long corridors the newly re-furbished part, in which our room was located, is obvious as they have chosen a rather brave orange shapes and brown shades carpet to complement the bits of art dotted around. A sundeck with comfy seating and the very contemporary-looking brasserie and bar add to the feel of nice hotel.

Our room:

We had reserved a triple room with an extra bed, I phoned the hotel and they were happy to tell me their best rate, which for our stay in peak August was £100 for a family of 4 with 2 under 10's, including breakfast. I felt this was good value, having unsuccessfully surfed the internet for a while to find anything on the south coast that looked like anywhere I would like to pay to stay.

Our room came with a double, single and z-bed and was light and airy. There was a fancy-pants 7 jet walk in shower in the ensuite bathroom, a fridge and the usual coffee making facilities. Internet access was free (but not wireless) for the duration of our stay, and the lcd tv had access to pay films. Decor wise, that orange carpet, or its long lost brother, featured again, very "now", but might look dated before long, it did clash a bit with the red curtain, however the latter did keep the room very dark even in the bright morning sun. The bed was very comfortable, the shower could have had a bit more of a powerful pump for my liking, but basically a nicely featured and comfortable room as you would expect from a 4 star hotel.

For sleeping the room was fantastic - I have a bug bear about noisy airconditioning or shower extractors, none of these problems here. Air conditioning there was, but the room was blissfully quiet, all night long. There were a few people staying down the corridor, on the evidence of the complimentary newspapers outside the next morning, but I didn't hear a thing.

There was no lift access to the top floor (the hotel is on 2 floors only), apart from for wheelchairs, so that may be a problem for anyone who struggles with cases and the like, but was no issue for us.

Overall I was very pleased with the room, it didn't feel cramped at all and there were plenty of nice touches - though for some reason they felt the need to provide us with the world's most bizarre vacuum packed shortbread. It looked like it had been on Scott's artic expedition, all crumbled and strange looking and I did wonder how many guests had spurned it and quite why they had bothered.

Over aspects of our stay:

The pool was lovely, and had restricted times for children, which is fair enough for everyone I feel, there was enough access for children and also ample opportunity for adults to enjoy a more peaceful time.

Breakfast in the brasserie was copious and buffet style. It is free for under 10's, though now they have seen our children eat maybe they will change this policy - they enjoyed the sausages and mushrooms the most, but there was a good range of bacon, beans, eggs and toast as well as a selection of cold items and pastries. Probably the breakfast was as good as any I have had at a hotel.

I do not think the hotel caters for dogs, as there is no reference of this on the website, but it might be worth contacting the hotel about this. On our stay we found the guests to be mainly business types but there were also a fair few families - a nice welcoming touch for children is that they gave us free colouring packs for our children, and we felt welcome.

Food:

As mentioned breakfast was outstanding, we didn't dine in the brasserie but the menu was in the £10-£15 mark for main meals, and there was also a menu of slightly cheaper fare available to eat in other areas of the hotel. We ate at the Ship Inn, just across the road bridge, where the fish was fresh and it was slightly easier to feed the kids. A rather poised young 10 year old in the pool who befriended us did tell us that the food was "very nice" and that she recommended the puddings, so had we been staying longer we would have tried the brasserie.

Overall:

For a short stay and as a base to other places I thought this hotel was excellent. The staff were lovely and welcoming and everything was clean and comfortable. Such a large hotel is never going to feel very intimate, but we felt welcome by all the members of staff we spoke to, and better still not disturbed at all at night. I would stay again.


http://www.langstonehotel.co.uk/