Vacanze Blanchland

Just stayed on a room only basis so cannot comment on breakfast. Hotel has an Indian restaurant but there are also a number of restaurants on the same street so you do not need to go into the city centre. 5-10 minutes walk to nearest metro station at West Jesmond. This is a long stay car park close to the station at £5 for 24 hours which was great as hotel has limited car parking and all streets around are resident permits only 7:30-9:30 am and 5-10 pm. It’s a friendly hotel and great location for exploring the city or surrounding area. Metro will take you directly to the coast if you don’t want to drive.

I stayed here previously last year but since then, standards of cleanliness and general upkeep seem to have fallen. In the bedroom, three of four pillows on the bed had brown marks on them; the dressing table chair had a long brown streaky stain on it (looked like 💩) and in the bathroom, there was no rubber seal on the bottom of the glass shower screen, so water poured out onto the floor when showering. Other minor cosmetic issues included missing tiles under the bathroom sink, and scuffs on walls and furniture. When I checked out and made the staff at Holiday Inn aware (not sure if they own or just manage the property) they were very apologetic and said they would look into it, so I cannot fault their customer service. If the apartment had been properly cleaned and maintained, I probably would’ve not even noticed the minor issues that were there, but it’s hard to overlook basic cleanliness and maintenance.

So so stay in hottest week of year. Room size good but design of room let it down. Restaurant not opened on Monday/Tuesday evening ( in a 4star hotel!) and bar in hotel disappointing. could not get room to a comfortable temp during whole stay, whatever we tried, and fan in room was completely useless.

Clean Room

New refurb and staff just lovely. Excellent VFM!