Coventry - the Beauty and the Beast. (Photo heavy post)

Coventry has some beautiful buildings.  Even after the bombings during the Second World War, some fantastic Georgian, and even older, buildings remained.

But these are being dwarfed by the influx of garish student accommodation.

A timber framed building built in the 1930s to blend in with the surrounding properties with 2 garish blue and red student properties in the background.  The nearer one, a former gym and university offices, the further one the former AXA insurance building.

The Old Cathedral - St Michael's, a 14th century Gothic church later designated cathedral, that remains a ruined shell after its bombing during the Second World War.

The Council House - Built in the early 20th Century in a Tudor Style.  It is Grade II listed.

The rear of the former main post office in Hertford Street - built in the early 1900s it has since been converted to student accommodation.

The former Penny Black Pub - an essential stop off on a night out back in the day.  Now converted to student accommodation.

Broadgate, or 'the top of the town', as it used to be.  Spent many a happy lunch break sitting on the grass to eat my dinner.

Broadgate as it is now.

The Old Grammar School in the centre of the shot, currently being restored to be used by the Coventry Transport Museum, in the background is the former Post Office sorting office, soon to be replaced by student accommodation.

Another view of the former AXA building.

Previously offices, Dial Direct House (formerly St Georges House) is now also student accommodation.

The former Leofric Hotel, one of the first hotels to be built after the Second World War and a symbol of Britain's recovery - now student accommodation.

Former Belgrade Theatre accommodation for out of town actors, now student accommodation.

Ending on a positive note - two of Coventry's spires in the morning sunshine.

Ibis Bordesley Circus, Birmingham

I spent 2 nights here, and the only thing that let it down was the location which was slightly desolate, the civil engineering works going all through the night didn't help.

On first sight the outside was a bit shabby and uninspiring and was right next door to a 24 hour McDonalds, but as soon as you entered the lobby it felt welcoming.  The staff were attentive and check in was quickly sorted.

Due the high number of foreign visitors, all signs were pictorial which was a nice touch.

I was on the 3rd floor and the corridor was not inspiring, it looked very much budget and council flat inspired so I wasn't expecting much from the room.  

But the room was large, airy, bright and clean.  

The bathroom was a bit of a shock, it was a prefab built offsite and installed as a single unit, despite the feel of being in a caravan, the vanity was large with plenty of space for toiletries, make up, etc.  The shower was large, the water hotter and more powerful than I have experienced in some so-called 'premium' hotels.

Soap and shower gel were supplied and the towels with the thickest, fluffiest and softest I think I have ever had.

There was 24 hour food service, the menu dependant on the time of day or night.

There was an airy bar on the ground floor, but the prices seemed very high, but this is probably standard for a hotel in the UK, a bottle of Cava was £23.  There is a Morrison's supermarket 10 minutes walk up the road, so I bought sandwiches and a bottle of Cava (£5) there for my dinner.

St Andrews football ground is a 5 minutes walk away too, so the hotel is very handy if you are attending a function there.

The hotel was very quiet overnight, this is probably due to it not being right in the city centre, there was no-one running up and down the corridors, shouting and banging doors.

Free wifi was available in all areas of the hotel, something that other hotels could take note of.

All in all, I enjoyed my stay at Bordesley Circus, and should I have cause to visit the area again, it will certainly be my first choice of hotel.

Ramada Hotel, The Mailbox, Birmingham.

This weekend I stayed at the Ramada Hotel at The Mailbox in Birmingham, and I was a little disappointed, both with The Mailbox itself and the hotel.

The Mailbox seems to be the place to be in Birmingham so I was expecting a little more from a hotel in it.

It is a beautiful walk up from across the canal and over the footbridge where lovers and couples have placed padlocks signifying their love but the hotel entrance was pretty difficult to spot.

I had booked an executive room.

This was my view.

Admittedly it is unusual these days to find a city centre hotel in the UK which does have opening windows, so that was a bonus.

The hotel was quiet, less so the other clientele.  I was awake most of the night thanks to the next room who seemed to feel necessary to make as much noise as possible at 11pm, 2am and 4am.  The noise outside started about 5am.  As soon as my alarm went off at 6am everyone went quiet.

There is free wired internet available in the rooms but wifi is only available downstairs in the public areas of the hotel.

I would stay here again, but it would not be my 'go to' choice of hotel.

Novotel Birmingham Centre, Broad Street, Birmingham.

The Novotel is a 4 star hotel situated right on Broad Street in Birmingham city centre.  It is a short walk from both the ICC and the NIA as well as all the bars on Broad Street itself.

The foyer is light and airy, there is plenty of seating available, a play area (this seems to be compulsory these days wherever you go), and the reception staff are friendly and efficient.  Check in was dealt with very quickly, you have the option of 1 or 2 keycards for your room which is a very good idea.

The corridors are clean and brightly lit, there is a shoe shine machine on each floor.

I had booked and paid for a single room, but was given a room with a double bed, the double sofa bed had also been made up meaning that as well as not being able to use the sofa, the space in the room was reduced.

The bathroom was bright, however the sink drained very slowly due to the strange shape, I prefer proper bowl shaped sinks but that is just personal preference.  The shower screen was a bit narrow which allowed some of the spray to escape onto the floor.  However, there was plenty of hot water and the shower was easy to use compared to some places I have stayed.

The toilet was separate and did not look like it had been updated since the 70s, but it was clean and fit for purpose, there was also an energy saving light in there which didn't really reach full brightness until you were just about to switch it off.

There were the usual tea and coffee making facilities along with the added benefit of a mini fridge, which I imagine was originally the mini bar.  Unusually for a UK hotel, there was also a safe.

The television was fantastic, better than my home set, there was the option to plug your ipod/iphone into the set if you wanted to listen to your music.

My main concern was the interconnecting door with the neighbouring room with what seemed like quite a flimsy lock, it was opposite the bathroom.  I am not an easily scared person, but there is something about interconnecting doors in a hotel which I do not like.

Breakfast was served from 7am which is fantastic for early risers.  There was a central island with all variety of cereal, fruit and fruit juice.

On a counter along the side of the room, were various cold cuts of meat and cheese, there was also buffet style hot items if you prefer a Full English breakfast.  Unfortunately, these items were lukewarm at best.

Coffee or tea was made on request and brought directly to your table.

Overall, it was a well appointed, clean and friendly hotel.  Would I stay there again?  Yes, but only if the price was right and I would eat breakfast elsewhere.

My Holiday Complaint, a further update.

As you will recall I have been trying to have the difference in cost between the hotel I booked and the hotel I was actually accommodated in refunded by the travel company, this is for a holiday booked back in April of this year.

The latest reply from Somewhere2Stay, via Alpharooms, advises that they are not going to increase their existing offer of £50 and if I want more compensation then I should continue with my claim via a third party.  

Very professional.

And is a refund of an overpaid amount really compensation?  I don't think it is.  Yes, I would like compensation, more for the fact that this has dragged on for so long, but primarily I am just trying to collect money owed.

I discovered this week, that Somewhere2Stay is a sister company of Monarch Airlines, and this really surprised me as Monarch have always been completely professional in all the dealings I have had with them, I think that for my next flight I will be returning to EasyJet even though that means a 2 hour journey to the airport instead of 20 minutes up the Birmingham road.

ABTA have been as helpful as the travel company so now I have contacted Watchdog to see if I get any joy there.

The only step I have left is the Small Claims Court.

The Hotel Star Rating System

Following the issues I had on my last holiday with my hotel being changed at the last minute to an inferior establishment I have been looking into the star rating system.

And it is confusing to say the least.

There is no set or approved system which has every country's buy in.

The European Hotelstars Union is used by over 20 European countries and it makes for interesting reading.  Some of the most ridiculous items are needed to hit a grade.  For example, one of the 3* requirements is a three piece suite in reception.  Really?  Does that actually add anything?  Does it add more than a set of individual chairs would?

For a 5*, a hotel needs to provide shower gels/shampoo in bottles, rather than sachets.  Yes, they look better, but does is make any difference?

Briefly, the requirements are

1*

• 100% of the rooms with shower/WC or bath tub/WC
• Daily room cleaning
• 100% of the rooms with colour-TV together with remote control
• Table and chair
• Soap or body wash
• Reception service
• Facsimile at the reception
• Publicly available telephone for guests
• Extended breakfast
• Beverage offer in the hotel
• Deposit possibility

2*

All of the above, plus

• Breakfast buffet
• Reading light next to the bed
• Bath essence or shower gel
• Bath towels
• Linen shelves
• Offer of sanitary products (e.g. toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving kit)
• Acceptance of Credit Cards

3*

All of the above, plus

• Reception opened 14 hours, accessible by phone 24 hours from inside and outside, bilingual staff (e.g. German/English)
• Three piece suite at the reception, luggage service
• Beverage offer in the room
• Telephone in the room
• Internet access in the room or in the public area
• Heating facility in the bathroom, hair-dryer, cleansing tissue
• Dressing mirror, place to put the luggage/suitcase
• Sewing kit, shoe polish utensils, laundry and ironing service
• Additional pillow and additional blanket on demand
• Systematic complaint management system

4*

All of the above, plus

• Reception opened 18 hours, accessible by phone 24 hours from inside and outside
• Lobby with seats and beverage service
• Breakfast buffet or breakfast menu card via room service
• Minibar or 24 hours beverages via room service
• Upholstered chair/couch with side table
• Bath robe and slippers on demand
• Cosmetic products (e.g. shower cap, nail file, cotton swabs), vanity mirror, tray of a large scale in the bathroom
• Internet access and internet terminal
• "À la carte"-restaurant

and 5*

All of rhe above, plus

• Reception opened 24 hours, multilingual staff
• Doorman-service or valet parking
• Concierge, page boy
• Spacious reception hall with several seats and beverage service
• Personalized greeting for each guest with fresh flowers or a present in the room
• Minibar and food and beverage offer via room service during 24 hours
• Personal care products in bottles
• Internet-PC in the room
• Safe in the room
• Ironing service (return within 1 hour), shoe polish service
• Turndown service in the evening
• Mystery guesting

So, a star rating will not guarantee the quality of the hotel, or the standard of decor, fixtures or services provided, just that they provide the items require to reach the standards.  The best way to select a hotel is by recommendation, or if your travel to the area regularly, check out the hotels yourself for your next booking.

Hotel Santa Monica, Calella de la Costa

The Hotel Santa Monica in Calella is not the most attractive of hotels.

Nor does it have the best views in town.

Nestled between the main Calella road, wasteland used as council storage and a Youth Hostel it really does not sell itself.

Check in is from 12pm, I arrived quite a while after this as I was still at Barcelona El Prat airport at 11.30am and then had to walk from the coach drop off point, however checks still had to be made as to whether my room was ready.  If check in is from a certain time, then the room SHOULD be ready at that time.

My passport was held onto, something that I have not experienced in many years.

I am not sure what the hotel was trying to achieve with the decor, I kept expecting HAL (from 2001:A Space Odyssey) to speak to me.

Despite the futuristic type decor, the hotel still uses keys rather than key cards.  Also, every hotel that I have stayed in supplies a lock and anonymous key type contraption for the in-room safes, again the Santa Monica supplies a key with a big room number key tag.  I know that some of the holiday makers take the tags off as they do not want to advertise their room number incase they lost their keys.

The black key type thing works the electricity in the room, this was not explained to me and I spent a good 5 minutes when I made it to the room, the lifts are quite slow, trying to work out how to put the lights on, I had to prop the door open with my suitcase.

The room felt quite small, the twin beds were made up separately but had to be pushed together to fit into the room.

There was limited clothes storage too, I was on my own and ended up putting some things in the cupboard under the television, so two in a room would really struggle for space.

The bathroom was a good size, no bidet though, and the towels were stored over the toilet, generally hand towels are by the sink and bath towels over the bath at the opposite end to the shower.

The shower was strange too, the head was on a pivot, so too much pressure and it shot up and just sprayed the opposite room, so if you wanted a bit of pressure in your shower you had to hold the head down and wash with one hand, the other option being that you had a very weak shower.

The room definitely needed some TLC.

The balcony was not swept until the day before I was due to leave, presumably ready for the next guests.  The shower curtain was also changed.

There is a tv in the room, but there are no English language channels, most hotels offer at least BBC News 24 or CNN.

Wifi is available but has to be paid for.

The hotel offers room only, bed and breakfast, half board, full board and all inclusive.  The restaurant is laid out in military type straight lines with tables joined together in groups of 2 or 3.  Each meal time you have to show your dining card to the greeter, you are then given your table number and a hand waved in the general direction of the table.

Although it clearly stated 1 person on my dining card, I had to confirm that the table was for one every time.  Being a single traveller meant that I filled gaps in the seating, being stuck in the middle of groups and families made for uncomfortable eating so despite paying for half board I only suffered through breakfast choosing to eat elsewhere for dinner.

There was entertainment in the bar every night, with children's shows starting at 8.30 and adults at 10pm.  And it was loud!  Luckily it could not be heard on my floor which was 4 floors above.

There were events during the day for both children and adults too, all of these, apart from the ones centred on the swimming pool, were held underneath my balcony, so no siesta then.

The swimming pool was a decent size, though the strange shape made lap swimming pretty hard, and there were plenty of sun beds and chairs around the pool and outside bar.  I do not know what time the pool opened as when I left to go to the beach, generally around 10am, it was still being cleaned.

Most of the staff were pleasant, including the lovely Scottish lady who was on reception one day, the only person letting the team down was the restaurant seater.