The meaning of life. (Premier Lodge in general)

Member Name: lord zeus

Product:	Premier Lodge in general
Date:	12/12/03 (644 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fairly cheap., Funtional., Adequate.

Disadvantages: Check the meal arrangements., Staff were like zombies., Breakfast food.

Its not often I get the chance to write a review on a hotel or accommodation as I am usually in my camper. However as the weather is not exactly camping weather and I had not spent as much time with my wife as I wished I could lately, I decided to take her to a local hotel, have a meal, and an early romantic night if you know what I mean. Have some time to ourselves away from the kids, telephone, ops, texts, college work, and generally just have a change of scene for the night. So I chose a Premier Lodge only a couple of miles from my house. Not far, I know but far enough to escape and not have the Mrs worrying about the stepdaughter. She is 17, going on 40 but the Mrs treats her like she is 6. I have more faith in teenager?s ability to amuse themselves when we are not around, high music, television blaring etc.

We arrived about 6.15pm and upon being greeted by a receptionist with a face like a wet kipper, and the niceties of the check in, payment, room number etc, (Although it was hard to communicate with her as the language was a succession of grunts and nods.) She did use the English language at one stage to ask if we wanted breakfast. I said yes, why not go the whole hog. I don?t really like breakfast but the wifey does like her bacon and eggs.
I paid my money which was £56.00 for a double room, plus another £13.00 for breakfast for two. This was for full English, but you get the choice of continental for the same price.

We were told where our room was through a further succession of unintelligible gestures and grunts, and figured out it was just down the corridor on the ground floor. We went to the room and entered. The first problem was the fact it was a non-smoker, I had requested a smoking room. The room was large and spacious, and sported a very large bed which gave me naughty thoughts for later about how I could utilise its size to my advantage. There was a small but functional bathroom and it appeared to have all the modern mod-cons.
There was a shower included in the bath, and this was working and had variable hot water. It was clean which is important to us. Two soap dispensers, both of which were full and working. However it only had one large towel, instead of two although there were two small towels. I suppose we were supposed to share. There were also three faded brown stains on the larger towel, and I did not want to think about what they could be. The bathroom also had plenty of bog-roll.

The room itself had a television, quite a large screen portable. It had a remote control which worked. There were tea and coffee making facilities and a hairdryer, which was strategically placed by the large mirror. Great for you girls to dry your hair. The Mrs was impressed anyway. One of the two mugs supplied was dirty, and had rings around the inside, and then we discovered that although there were coffee sachets, there was no tea. I don?t drink either so it didn?t matter to me but the wifey is partial to a cup of tea or two.
There were various leaflets and stationary useful for the local area, and this would be useful for tourists or strangers. The wardrobe was functional although it had no doors and there were plenty of hangers. There was also an additional two pillows on top of the wardrobe. I hate having just one so this was useful and thoughtful. The heating was very good with a variable convection heater with an adjustable fan. This also impressed the wife and I was pleased as she likes to be warm when we get active, and it meant she would take more of her clothes off for me to have easier access to some of the important things in life to us men.

We then toddled off for dinner. The restaurant is attached to the hotel, so it was just a short walk to the bar. We ordered some pre-meal drinks and sat down to chill out a bit. I was stressed from college, she was stressed from work. Now in this particular restaurant you cannot book by phone, so you just turn up and get a table.
When we arrived in the bar it was nearly empty but lots of people were arriving by the minute all dressed up for Christmas parties. Starting to get alarmed by the amount of people I went to reception and asked for a table. I was then told that they were fully booked and no tables were available all night, as the restaurant was having a Christmas party. I had that sinking feeling that things were starting to go wrong. This hotel does bar food so we asked if we could have a bar meal. Before we had a chance to decide on this the bar was plunged into darkness. They had a power cut. All bar food was stopped. By now my wife could have eaten a horse and I realised that she had to be fed to perform to her optimum.

We left the hotel and went in search of food. We went to two further restaurants but they were both full as well. I was getting thoroughly pissed off. Eventually we found a Chinese restaurant in Romford. We had a good meal although it was a little expensive and we returned to the hotel to complete our romantic evening. The room was cold so I turned the heating up full blast. The wife was shuttling around and I said I would have a shower to give her a chance to get ready. (Put the stockings on, you know what I mean.)
I took my time to have my shower expecting her to be a feast for my eyes when I went back to the room. However there she was lying on the bed, fully clothed and half asleep.
By now it was 11pm. I lay on the bed next to her and started to get her in the mood. A few minutes later her mobile rung and it was the stepdaughter. She had burnt her lip on some hot cheese from a pizza she had cooked before bed. Ten minutes later the wife at last hung up. I expectantly got into bed and patiently waited. Then she said she was really tired and not in the mood, and did I mind if we didn?t. What could I say? She got undressed and lay next to me. I tickled her back and within a couple of minutes she was asleep. I settled down with my book. The meanin
g of life, by Victor Frankl.

In the morning we went to breakfast which is served in the same place as the supposed meal from last night. The service was excellent but the meal left a lot to be desired. Fruit juice, herbal tea, cereal, yogurts, were plentiful and were buffet style. Tea and coffee were unlimited. The breakfast consisted of bacon, (this was very salty) sausage, (that was ok) Beans, (they were cold). Mushroom, well what I could see of half a mushroom. (That was raw). Tomato, (that was raw as well.) Lastly, a hash brown that was greasy and tasted disgusting. I also had toast and that was just like hot bread, not toasted at all. At 7.30 we left the breakfast room and went back to the room. I had a lovely thought about the wonderful drive through the worst of the rush hour to get my wife to work and then myself. We got the keys and went to check out. Dropping the keys into the key dispenser at reception, the receptionist (different from last night.) didn?t even look up and totally ignored us. That just about summed up this romantic excursion.
I dropped my wife at work, and instead of going to work, thoroughly pissed off I headed home and here I am just finishing this.

Overall I suppose for working people, passing through or tourists looking at the local attractions, then I suppose it is ok. I was extremely disappointed with the restaurant and even when I explained I was staying at the hotel it made no difference. The room was adequate, functional and generally clean but nothing special. I personally would not stay there again. The whole night was ruined by having to go out searching elsewhere for a meal.

If you really want to find them you can locate them at Premier lodge.com, and the site is very easily navigated, and is clearly found on all the search engines.
They can be booked by phone and its best to look in the phone book or go to the website to find one for the area you want. They are countrywide.

Regards
????.Tony

Summary: