Travel Inn are brill (Travel Inn in general)

Member Name: dan 2000

Product:	Travel Inn in general
Date:	23/03/03 (696 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Comfy Rooms, Stylish Restaurants, Great Service, some packages now include breakfast

Disadvantages: Um, I don't know, does this include small soap.

I have just recently stayed at the Heathrow Travel Inn (24th April - 25th April 2004) so I've decided to change this review on the Kensington one, to a Travel Inn in General, funny that that is what the subject is about isn't it!?

WHO ARE TRAVEL INN?
Travel Inn are the largest hotel group in the UK, with just over 310, as of Spring 2004. A couple of years ago, there were over 250, and they are growing all the time, wherever you go, you can expect to see a Travel Inn close at hand, although some places like Mid Wales may not have any at all, like all other hotel chains. They are part of Whitbread plc, so that's one reason why most Travel Inn restaurants and bars are whitbread. They ALL have a restaurant though, I think the non-Whitbread ones are Two for One Restaurants, which are also great! Whitbread also own UK&IRELAND Marriott Hotels. In Travel Inns, you will have en-suite bedrooms, with ultra-comfortable beds and more, which I will talk about later. Every Travel Inn has it's own Restaurant and Bar, most are licenced, with the possible exeption of Road Chef service stations.

BOOKING
Do you need a place to stay? Then, booking is easy at Travel Inn, every time we have booked, which we have done a lot of times, Travel Inn have been friendly and helpful. Or why not book on the net? To book online, log on to www.travelinn.co.uk and there us an easy book feature, select your hotel, select the type of room, the dates, and the purchaser details with payment details, and you've booked. Or ring up Central Reservations, which is one place to book for all Travel Inns across the UK. Call 0870 242 8000 from 8am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 9am to 8pm on Sundays. You can also call or fax your chosen Travel Inn direct. The international booking number is +44 1582 414341, but remember, Travel Inn currently only have hotels in the UK

HOW DO I GET A LISTING OF THEM, HOW DO I RECOGNISE THEM
Why not order one of the informat
ive guides. On www.travelinn.co.uk there is also plenty of information and a very good search feature. To order a directory, go onto www.travelinn.co.uk and there is a link at the bottom of the homepage. If not, if there's one around your area, pick one up from the reception. Travel Inns logo is very distinctive, with the purple colours and the moon logo. Travel Inn have split their hotels up into 3 sub-brands:
-Travel Inn - over 250 Travel Inns riced from just £45.95 per room per night

-Metro Travel Inns- in major city centres, NEAR London (not in London though), close to main UK airports and around the M25. Priced from £45.95 per room per night

-Capital Travel Inns, in central London, including London Heathrow, and London Docklands Excel.

In the directory, Travel Inns, are indicated by a purple band, Metros by an orange band, and Capitals by a red band. They all have the same purple logo with the moon though!

RECEPTION
Receptions are usually fairly small, although the new one (opened Spring 2003) at London Heathrow, which I have been to, has a large atrium look, and a very large reception with a purple wall behind the desks and information screens. All of them look fresh, clean and contemporary, especially with the new style of Travel Inn in most Travel Inns now. Staff are very friendly and helpful, and you can ask for a hairdryer at reception, or buy toiletries, at reasonable prices, like a long tube of toothpaste at £1.00

SECURITY
Security is taken very highly at Travel Inn. To get to the lifts or stairs, you need your key card. This means, only someone with a key can get even into the lifts or up to the stairs. So keep yours with you AT ALL TIMES!!!

ROOMS
All Travel Inn rooms are almost identical, with only the size and layout changing. Actually, a few years ago, Travel Inn began a program into changing the furniture and styles of the rooms into an even more modern style. Most are now in
the style. Previously, they had zig-zag duvets and curtains, with more basic furniture, and gold picture lamps above the mirror, but now, they are more modern. The duvets have red squares with purple diamonds in the middle now, with yellow on the ends and the curtains have purple and red squares. The carpet is purple, and the bathrooms have a storage unit and are peach, with purples in. The furniture is more modern, and the rooms, whilst modern/contemporary, are much more welcoming. I'm sure most, if not all now have these rooms, the rooms are shown in the current guide.
But what about the facilities? Well, you have an en-suite bathroom, with bath, shower, toilet and sink. They provide you with toilet roll, and towels, although the bath ones could be a bit bigger please! Also, one of the biggest critisms is the tiny soap in a packet they provide you with, oh well, you can BUY some from reception (shampoo, shower gel ect). The beds are really comfortable, with duvets changed between each customer, and pillows. Curtains are blackout, and there is a large desk area with mirror on the wall, and there is a remote control colour TV. Hairdryers are available at reception. There is a shelf in the room with tea, coffee and hot chocolate and biscuits (although on one day at the Heathrow TI, they forgot the buscuits!). There is also a wardrobe and bedside tables. Everything is modern in design and style, which is good for people like me. The bedrooms and bathrooms are really comfortable. The rooms have always been spotlessly clean, however, in 2000, at the London Gatwick one, the room was a tad bit grubby, but nothing really horrible, after a clean! This was also before the new rooms, although the older rooms are slightly modern and cosy. There are family rooms with a double bed and a sofa usually, but sometimes they have two double beds (like the one at Heathrow)

Only Travel Inn Capitals and most Metros, have telephones in room, standard Travel Inns don'
;t.

The London Heathrow Travel Inn has 555 bedrooms, but some of them are inside, but as there are glass windows from the top to the bottom on both sides of the hotel, they looked OK, but fortunately, for me, I had a Partial Runway room, and I saw lots of aircraft landing and taking off, it was great when I saw Virginia Plain of Virgin Atlantic, which I flew to New York 2 months previously! However, the sound-proofing was very good in all Travel Inns!

100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE
On arrival, you are introduced to the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, which means, if there is a complaint to make about the hotel, they will refund your money (so they say) but I don't think this was put in place when we stayed at the Gatwick one, but at the London Kensington one and London Heathrow one, it was.


RESTAURANTS AND BARS
Every Travel Inn has inside, or attached a restuarant with a bar. Some are located at Roadchef service stations. Restaurants include Brewers Fayre, Brewsters, Beefeater, TGI Fridays, Out & Out, Two for One, and Travel Inns own restaurant brand- SLICE. Some also have Potters restaurants, but they are being replaced with SLICE I think. The Kensington Travel Inn had a SLICE, but we only went into the bar, which was excellent. The Heathrow Travel Inn also had a SLICE, which we ate and drank at. The food was ample, not tiny like some hotels, and was really tasty, great value. All SLICE restaurants are the same in design, really modern, with purples and reds, and are very contemporary in design. At the London Heathrow SLICE Bar, there was also a Costa Coffee area, which was great, not bad prices either, it DIDN'T COSTA lot of money! The Heathrow Travel Inn was really large, with plenty of space it was an atrium, with some bedrooms looking inside in the in the atrium, but, the atrium went right to the top, and was really spacious, so I don't think it would be too bad.

Breakfast is great value. A choice of cumbe
rland sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatos, baked beans, bloomer bread, toast, criossant, preserves, Marmite, yoghurt, fruit salad, Kellogs Cereal, juices and tea and coffee are available for £6.95. Continental consists of all of the above except for the sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans at £4.95! We booked a package with Superbreak once with breakfast included, but we would have paid for it, at least you know you can have a great breakfast! In-fact we have paid, and it is good value! Travel Inn also do some packages themselves with free breakfast like London packages and Airport Hotel Parking Packages.


Well, I hope the newly refurbished review was good enough and is just as good (or better!) than before. So, I hope that the review gave a good picture about Travel Inn and I reccomend them very highly.

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