I tend to decline party invitations that require spending the night. If I’m at the host’s house, it will be too late before I get home (and I have no will to say no to nightcaps). If I was staying in a hotel, suddenly everything turned into an expensive mini-vacation.
When my niece got married recently, I took a taxi home from the middle of nowhere and it was still half the price of the hotel option. But when I was invited to a costume ball in Dover with a group of my favorite people, I had no choice.
The Premier Inn next to the East Ferry Terminal was a four minute walk from the lot and the double room was £39 which I couldn’t believe. That’s the price of two poached eggs with avocado on rye bread at Claridge’s. Or a 15-minute Uber
it’s raining. I was wondering, how can a room be available for such a price? Are there definitely dragons here? Maybe not.
Where did the brand last win the Best Hotel Chain award? It’s been at the top of the list every year since 2015, with the exception of the awards in November (with the exception of 2020, when Sofitel poked), and it’s also been named best Budget Hotel in the UK at the Business Traveler Awards for the 11th year in a row. . They have fans.
My experience just wasn’t good. I found myself evangelical about the brand and would not stop going about it. “Breakfast was under a dime and unlimited! All sausages included!”
I can be easily pleased, but I can also eat lots of bacon smothered in ketchup and sandwiched between two slices of toast. I calculated that if I ate 16 hot dogs, I would get my 2,000 calories a day before 10 am and with a £10 change.
Everything about my stay at the Premier Inn was positive. Check-in was easy. The room was spotless, with simple decor. It was also twice the size of very expensive luxury city hotels.
Everything was crisp and white, with lovely purple accents and a tastefully striped rug. Lighting was gentle and everything was functional – self-operating reading lights on either side of the bed and well-placed electrical outlets.
Most importantly, the bed was perfect. Premier Inn’s confidence in its product is that it has an independent website called premierinnathome.com that sells mattresses, duvets, pillows (£30 each) and mattress protectors.
I’ve encountered this before. I remember once being so impressed with a Four Seasons bed in Marrakech that I did some research and found the brand selling them online, but a king size bed would have cost me £3,500.
Premier Inn is selling Hypnos-made king-size beds for £599, but interestingly, the brand recently announced it’s switching to Silentnight, and the new beds will go on sale online later this year. Such is the popularity of the name, it was selling a duvet and a pair of pillows every 60 seconds during the last Black Friday sale.
Which one? The Award, the result of a survey of 4,447 organizational members and the public, noted that prices at Premier Inn rose an average of 35 percent, but the chain is still the second-cheapest chain in the country after Travelodge. . Average stay per night is £89.
Detailed review showed what was most appealing about the Premier Inn – it received five out of five stars for the room description, which matched the cleanliness and reality. Guests said they felt the quality was “almost guaranteed.” Compare that to the Britannia chain, which was last in the survey for the 10th consecutive year and earned two stars in all categories, including cleanliness and bathrooms.
The Premier Inn is a huge lodging machine, and its efficiency has you wondering why other budget hotel chains are doing it wrong. Its most recent opening was in Canary Wharf with 400 rooms on 28 floors, bringing the total number of Premier Inns in the UK to 840.
It has more than 82,000 rooms and welcomes around four million guests each month. Lots of bacon and eggs are served every day. In fact, about 40 million eggs a year. And a very special repeat. Also added the option of Premier Plus rooms with Nespresso machines, chocolate bar, fridge and “ultimate Wi-Fi”. You pay an extra £20 for the Premier Plus, but I’m not sure I’d bother considering the entry-level offering is perfectly fine as it stands.
My only Premier Inn experience before Dover involved the Brewers Fayre dining offer at the hotel next to Margate station. Whenever I visit my friends on the beach, I always seem to miss the train home by about two minutes, and I find myself eating a large gin and tonic in what was essentially a relaxingly simple, well-furnished chain pub.
The cafe itself in the station is disgusting so I’m always glad Premier Inn exists. It’s an extremely inviting place with mass appeal and a stand-alone visitor with half an hour to kill, but lacks the misery-inducing ambiance of the generic Wetherspoons that open at 8am.
You can also get a large sauvignon blanc for sub-five. I recently paid £12 for something with gooseberry and white from New Zealand at my local bar in Hackney and I’m still in shock.
Apparently the reason people love the Premier Inn so much is because it does one thing, does it well, and does it cheaply. Brewers Fayre makes no claims to be anything more than a functional watering hole. And no one is going to have breakfast in bed at a Premier Inn. It will never be a place for a special occasion.
But it’s also the perfect complement to a party. If no one wants to be a designated driver, Premier Inn is exactly where you want to be at 1am.