The Winchester Hotel

Clean and bright hotel made for a pleasant stay
Would have liked the advertised pool to have been square so I could have done some laps (which I was looking forward to). Instead, was wiggly and suitable for sitting in after a jacuzzi...

The hotel was set in a rather unpleasant urban environment with a massive car park and road surrounding it. However, that being said the interior was very smart and business like and the bedroom was very nice. Nice little touches make you feel very comfortable. The breakfast had a wide varitey of choices and the cooked food was good. Overall, the impression was very pleasant.

Very noisy heating/air conditionning system in bedrooms. In the end we had to switch it off to try and get some sleep, resulting in a very cold room. Hospitality tray in room was definitely minimalistic!

We found the staff helpful, but despite having booked executive rooms they were small and the 'extras' were not provided on arrival. We had to request the extras that were promised. One room had a nasty smell (later found to be due to an old leak) The staff duely took us around the hotel to find another room which prooved to be adequate. It was a shame that when rooms are booked together they can't be next to each other..a minor detail that would make a lot of difference!

Lovely hotel - it's presentation was very impressive! As we were checking in the young girl on the desk wasn't very warming and seemed to want to get the task of checking us in over as soon as possible! A smile wouldn't have gone a miss!
Upon check in the hotel take a preauthorisation from your card which is the amount of your stay plus £25 in case you use any extra facilities such as room service. This wasn't explained to us, we were just told it was going to happen and were a little confused?
Also, the next morning I had a phone call from the hotel asking why I had not arrived when I had a reservation? I informed the lady on the phone that I was in bed in room 226 - she rang at about 8.30am!! This is early to be ringing guests - although she was very apologetic! When checking out another young receptionist asked if we were checking out early on the saturday morning, saying that we only checked in on Friday however we arrived on Thursday! We explained this and mentioned the phone call and she appeared a little surprised but sorted it all out!
Overall, our stay was lovely - these factors weren't particularly damaging to our stay but shows that the hotel and the reception team especially are not very organised and do not seem to be communicating! If they had of communicated with each other they would have known the guest history, as it is called, and had they been organised they would not have needed to ring or check that we are checking out on the correct day!