Savoy review is no surprise

YOU WOULD have thought with a name like Britannia that a hotel chain would exemplify the truest of British values throughout its accommodation. Well, you might actually be right according to Mr and Mrs McEwan who slammed one of the group’s Blackpool hotels as ‘filthy’, ‘really dirty’ and ‘covered with mould’.

The Savoy hotel, which sits on the Promenade just north of Gynn Square, looks from the outside to be particularly grand. Similarly, the Metropole is another that they own which fits nicely into this description. This is common throughout the Britannia chain and does make a change from these prefabricated budget travel hotel chains, but that is where the romance ends.

When I heard about this story, despite the manager’s aggressive response denying that the hotel was a dump, I knew there must be truth in it. I’ve stayed in a couple of Britannia hotels before, and they’ve all been dumps. They also own the Norbreck Castle which is beyond horrific.

Anyhow the manager, who looks like he’s just finished moonlighting as an actor in Carnesky’s Ghost Train, insisted that they had 150 weddings booked over the next 5 years and are a popular hotel for ‘Lodge dinners and meetings’, which I can only assume to mean stuff like Rotary club.

I’ve had a quick look on the Savoy’s website and whilst the rooms look better than in the Britannia hotels I have stayed in, they are still dreadfully inadequate for modern clientèle. Dracula insists that millions of pounds have been spent on doing it up since 2006, but I am really, really struggling to see where this money has gone. Seems like a similar approach to that of Blackpool Council: keep telling us that millions of pounds have been spent without showing us any end product.

"We've spent a fortune on it!" says Neo

What modern hotel still has 14 inch portable TVs in the rooms? This alone gives the game away that the bedrooms need some serious modernisation. The saving grace is that the beds don’t look that old.

The conference room looks more like a school assembly hall with half the chairs positioned on some sort of dancefloor and the overall decoration looks like it was done by a blind person. If they were trying to make it look as tacky and old fashioned as possible, they have succeeded.

Only a month or so ago I stayed in the Britannia hotel in Manchester near Piccadilly Gardens. I had heard that it wasn’t the best, but crucially it was incredibly cheap and I did concede that a large hotel like that couldn’t be that bad. The room I booked was an ‘executive double’ room, which before a suite is the best room they do if price equals better.

It might not be obvious based on the things I write but I don’t hate everything in the world. Staying in the Britannia hotel did test my mettle though – and they even provided an iron hook outside my window in case I couldn’t take any more.

The underlying problem that I had was that the room was so unbelievably neglected: it had a horrible musty smell, the walls were filthy, the bathroom ceramic badly damaged. As soon as I saw that the mattress was collapsed in the centre I dropped to my knees and wept.

Some might say – as they have in response to this story on the Gasjet – that because a place is cheap you should accept it being in poor order. Whether you agree with that or not, the reality is that the Savoy is not a cheap hotel to stay in anyway.

The cheapest I could find was £90 per night including breakfast for two adults – their published rate however is £140. This seems quite a lot, considering for the same requirements I could stay in a decent B&B such as Moorbank House for just £55 and get a flat screen telly in my room!

Most visitors to Blackpool would be more than happy with the Savoy and I am sure their staff and service are fine. But behind this story there could lie a monster: we have all watched Fawlty Towers after all!

The manager is defiant that his hotel couldn’t possibly be mouldy, but this could easily be a front to deflect from the truth. A commenter on the Gasjet who claims to work for the Britannia group says that the cleaners only get 15 minutes to clean a room due to the workload of 25 rooms per person that they have to do.

This doesn’t sound a lot, but I do wonder how it compares to the likes of Travel Lodge. Either way the Britannia group of hotels is one I would avoid.