Hotel review : Best western Glasgow

Posted by admin on December 28, 2011
Hotel reviews / Comments Off

So my last post was really just about general travel advice but this time I wanted to do another hotel review just to show people what kind of cheap hotels Glasgow has to offer.

The hotel in question this time around is the Best Western on Elmbank Street. So if you’ve been to Glasgow before you will know that Elmbank Street is right in the heart of things, you can’t really get much closer to the city centre than this. However even though the location is great the main reason I went for this hotel was the price (I’m all about cheap here lol) as you can grab a single room £49 and a double for £55 out of peak times (I’m not sure about their weekend rates but they should be reasonable too).

It’s worth mentioning that even though this is a chain hotel it’s not actually that big, only 50 rooms at present. Whether that’s a good or bad thing I’ll leave up to you but some people might say they manage to retain the charm of a smaller hotel while adding the facilities of a larger one. For example they have free WIFi in the hotel throughout and also satellite TV in every room. Also if you need it they have off-site car parking but it will cost you around £15 a day so may be cheaper to fly instead?

I’ve always thought that one of the main benefits of a chain hotel is that they have a certain level of service that they need to maintain though-out their chain. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed no problems but it in my experience its much less likely, also Best Western do have quite a good name globally so that’s a plus too.#

Again I suppose it all comes back to price since that’s one of the main reasons most of you guys have landed on my new Glasgow blog. And if budget really is your main concern when visiting Glasgow then the best Western should be first on your list of places to checkout. Seriously, £55 for a double room in the city centre is great value and will be very hard to beat.

So I hope you guys liked this second review here on the blog. As you can see my main focus is trying to find accommodation that delivers on both price and service. Yes it is possible to get even cheaper rooms than this in Glasgow but I can guarantee it will end up a trip to forget, which kind of defeats the point doesn’t it? So until next time travellers!

Tags: , , ,

Top tips for finding a cheap hotel

Posted by admin on December 25, 2011
Cheap hotels, Travel / Comments Off

So I wanted to include some general hotel advice here on CheapGlasgow.co.uk which can be used in any city. We all seem to be travelling further and further afield these days so hopefully my advice can be applied to lots of different cities. There’s lots of advice out there on finding cheap hotels but so much of it isn’t really practical from a traveller’s point of view, I wanted to boil things down into a quick list of tips anyone can follow:


Always book close to the city centre

So this may not seem like a money saving tip but the reality is that often people spend more on taxis and public transport commuting in and out of the city centre than they save on an out of town hotel. This is true even in small cities and I believe you only ever get a real feel for a city when you’re right in the heart of things. Trust me having to travel 3 miles outside the city away from the action every day can really put a damper on things!

Avoid the obvious booking times

So most people know they need to avoid the school and public holidays if they are travelling on a budget, but what many people forget is that there can be big price differences depending what part of the week you book for. Did you know that room rates for Monday to Wednesday can be as much as 60% less compared to the weekend (because everyone wants to book for the weekend in Glasgow). Also avoiding the crowds by staying during the week has its appeal too.

Check the extras

By extra I mean those hidden costs that you haven’t budgeted for. For example if you’re driving to the hotel then it’s essential to find out the hotels daily parking rate (or even if they have parking). I’ve also heard about some hotels adding on ridiculous extras like “occupancy tax” which makes no sense at all. Also be aware if you’re booking online of the different fees for credit cards that some hotels and booking sites charge.

Sometimes the best prices are off-line

This tip definitely doesn’t apply in all locations because in a big city like Glasgow you can usually expect the best deals to be on the net (though not necessarily on the official hotels site). But in smaller “off the beaten track” areas/towns the smaller hotels and guesthouses can’t afford to spend money on marketing so the only way to find out about their deals is to go direct. I’m a big fan of Google maps in these cases, just plug-in your destination and look for hotels around the central area.

So those are my “general” tips for accommodation at a discount. I hope to be back with another post soon which is more specific to Glasgow and where you should be staying on your next trip to the largest city in Scotland. Until then…

 

Tags: , , ,

Hotel review : Grand Central Glasgow

Posted by admin on December 24, 2011
Cheap hotels, Hotel reviews / Comments Off

As you can probably tell from the name the Grand Central hotel is right in the centre of Glasgow city on Gordon street. This hotel is rated at 4 star by the AA and it’s also recipient of the Glasgow hotel of the year award for 2011 which is quite an honour to get. Of course one of the main plus points of this hotel is how close it is to the main attractions like shopping and the theatre, you’re really within walking distance from 90% of attractions.

It’s quite difficult to gauge prices as I write this as room rates seem to be quite low for Christmas at around £50 – £60, but I am reliably informed that prices year round are very reasonable.  Indeed I think I will probably struggle in future reviews to match this place on price for central Glasgow, in most places you’re looking at £80 per night minimum.

It’s also worth mentioning that Grand central is very popular for weddings as they have a banquet room capable of serving up to 500 hundred guests at a time. When you add in that they have around 180 rooms available too you get the picture of the scale of this accommodation.

Another point that often worries travellers booking in a central location is car parking. However Grand Central do have off-site parking available at £8 per day which I think is quite reasonable for Glasgow. Though at the same time I suppose if you were staying for a week or more those costs could really mount up, I think the majority of people are flying into Glasgow now?

As far as facilities go you have all the usual ones you would expect with a 4 star hotel like free Wifi, 24 hour reception, air con and wheelchair access. The main reason for all the extra facilities is the recent £20 million refurbishment which has been completed. The good thing about the refurbishment too is that they have left many of the original features to keep the character of the 19th century building.

So hopefully this first review here on CheapGlasgow has helped anyone who is looking for that perfect central hotel at a discount. It just goes to show that if you are prepared to look around a bit there are some great accommodation deals out there (£50 is great for a hotel of this quality). Anyway I hope to be back with another review soon.

Tags: , ,

Welcome to CheapGlasgow – Hotel reviews you can trust

Posted by admin on December 23, 2011
Random, Travel / Comments Off

Hello and welcome to my new blog CheapGlasgow.co.uk. This blog is going to be all about hotel deals and I’m going to be looking specifically at finding cheap hotels in Glasgow city centre. One thing I hope to do a lot of is hotel reviews because this allows people to get a real insight into what a hotel is like. Of course it can be difficult to list every detail on any given hotel but hopefully I can get the main information across in an easy to understand way.

One problem I do face is that when it comes to Glasgow hotels everyone seems to be looking for something different, and what one traveller may class as a cheap hotel another may put in the expensive box. I suppose the best I can do is to list the main features + pros/cons of any hotel and let people judge for them-selves.

One of the main points I will be trying to get across to people is how important location is when it comes to choosing where to stay. Picking a hotel outside of the city centre may be cheaper but the amount you then have to spend on taxis and buses to get back to the centre can negate any saving. Many travellers don’t realise that there’s a happy medium when it comes to location, even just a few hundred metres from the centre can mean £100s knocked off your final bill.

I also want to point out some of the problems I see with sites like Tripadvisor which always seem to overload people with way too much information, after all aren’t we just looking for a quick rundown on the main points of the hotel, I don’t see how 399 reviews with varying stars helps! In my opinion it’s much better to have one review from someone you actually trust but at the same time someone who is giving you enough information to make your own decisions.

So that’s about it for this first post. I would also like to take the opportunity to invite people to send me their suggestions of hotels I might like to review (that’s when I get the contact form working lol). It will probably take me a while to get up to speed with some more posts but please stay with me as I’m sure this site will be of benefit to anyone who’s trying to book a cheap hotel. Come back soon :)

Tags: , , ,