Four UK Hotels -- Rooms and Bathrooms

A first-hand report on four three-star hotels in three places: Windermere, Carlisle and Edinburgh

We are near the end of a wonderful but dismayingly expensive trip to northern England and Edinburgh, Scotland. We tried to be thrifty, using trains, staying in three-star hotels, going for long walks, rationing our museum admissions and not going overboard for dinners. But with £1 = $1.90, everything is expensive. I think even backpackers' budgets must be strained.

We knew we wanted to spend a few days in the Lake District, but beyond that, we traveled free-form, going where the weather promised to be non-rainy. After the Lake District, when we were deciding whether to go north (English border towns, Scotland), we went north, and when we were deciding between Glasgow (west) and Edinburgh (east), we went east. We lucked out and experienced little rain, despite dreary Britain-wide forecasts, but traveling without much of a plan does carry its financial costs.

Just as a frame of reference for the modest hotel report that follows, five-star hotels are luxurious by international standards, and four-star properties are luxurious by most people's standards. Three-star hotels should be beyond basic and more than merely comfortable.

All our rooms have private bathrooms (called "en suite"). In all four hotels we stayed at, the plumbing was downright bizarre. Sometimes the hot water is on the right, cold on the left -- and sometimes vice versa. In virtually every hotel bathroom, it takes a turn or two of the handles or knobs for any water to come out of the faucet, Speaking of faucet, every sink has one hot and one cold. The British plumbing industry seemingly hasn't figured out that mixing hot and cold in the tap is a good idea so that people can adjust the water temperature on a cold to hot continuum.

Whether firm or semi-firm, every pillow on every bad was flat. Not lumpy, but flat. Some people ike 'em flat; some like 'em fluffy. Flat-pillow fans will be happy in Britain. Bed linens were generally smooth and seem to have a fairly high thread count. Hot-water heat prevailed, with individually adjustable radiators in all rooms we stayed in.

All properties included breakfast, and both English breakfasts and Scottish breakfasts, which are virtually interchangeable, can fuel a tourist well into the day. The whole cooked-to-order meal consists of eggs, bacon (like our Canadian bacon or grilled ham) and sausages, perhaps grilled tomatoes and mushrooms and toast, toast, toast. In addition to (or instead of) these hot breakfasts, every place offered fruit juice, two or three self-serve cereals with milk, sometimes yogurt and usually some kind of cooked, canned or sugared fruit.

Every room had a small television -- often with very few channels but always with good color and crisp picture. Every room comes with a very efficient electric pot for heating water coffee and tea, generally with small cellophane packets of cookies.

Generalities aside, here are some specifics about breakasts, details about our rooms and bathrooms, how much they cost and how we found the four places where we stayed:

The Famous Wild Boar Hotel, Windermere

Rambling country inn full of warmth and charm. Located on more than 70 acres with private walking paths, skeet shooting, pond and other amenities. Access to spa and pool at Low Wood, a sister property, several miles away. Acclaimed on-site restaurant and bar. Not convenient without a car. Several miles from Windermere and Bowness (£10+ and £6+ each respectively by taxi). The bus only runs past the inn two days a week -- at least at this time of year.

Breakfast: Real breakfast menu with good choice of hot items, plus cold buffet with self-serve juices, cereals, stewed fruits, cheese, pastries, sliced meat. Good selection of hot breakfasts, including English breakfast and other dishes. Toast. Coffee ( including espresso drinks) and tea.

Bedroom: Room 24 is a very small room dominated by a very large bed. Pretty garden view.

Bathroom: Long, skinny and windowless with a fan that made a terrible racket. Open the door, and there's the toilet, next to which is the only shelf in the room (that's where the liquid soap, bath gel and shampoo dispensers are inconveniently placed). Separate soaking tub and shower. When water is let out of the tub, however, it bubbles up through the shower drain. It could be worse. The hotel makes commendable efforts to be green and save water -- but requiring three or four flushes to get paper down is going too far. We used a toilet across the hall for anything more than paper. It didn't have such a restricted flush.

Booked through: Visit Cumbria.

Cost: Starting May 1 and running through the summer, rates for a "house room," which is what I think ours was, starts at £34 nightly per person. If ours was a "classic room," the per person nightly rate will soon start at £39. For anyone not on a B&B plan or not a hotel guest, breakfast is £10.75 additional per person.

Contact: Crook, near Windermere, Cumbria LA23 3NF; 08458 509 508 (reservations within the UK) or +44 (0) 1524 844822 (outside the UK).

Lakes Court Hotel, Carlisle

Great location in the center of town, right next to the railroad station. Gracious public spaces. Very expensive (30 minutes, £3) WiFi in lobby and bar only. Also, restaurant in hotel.

Breakfast: Crisply set tables. Self-serve juice, cereal, stewed fruit, packaged pastry. English breakfast. Toast. Coffee and tea.

Bedroom: Room 119 sized like a regular US motel room, but with long vestibule. Simply furnished. Front of hotel, so noisy on Saturday night when all of young Carlisle is out, about and loud. Promotional literature proclaims "romantic" hotel; our room not one of them.

Bathroom: Functional, but bizarre retrofit. Walk into the bathroom at bedroom floor level and step up onto a platform (about 12 inches high) to tub, sink and toilet. Potential booby trap that in the US would be lawsuit waiting to happen.

Booked through: Walked in.

Cost: Sign outside said "Rooms from £90." I asked while my husband waited with the bags and was told we could have a double for £70. We took it.

Contact: Court Square, Carlisle, Cumbria CA1 1QY; +44 (0) 1228 531951.

County Hotel, Carlisle

Old center-city hotel. Great location. Creaky, quirky and kind of shabby, but picturesque.

Breakfast: Self-serve juices, cereals, yogurt, stewed fruit. English breakfast. Coffee and tea.

Bedroom: Smile-enducing Room 112. Enormous and yet sparsely furnished in sort of a bordello style -- red velvet and all. Floors creak. Small distant TV and small refrigerator.

Bathroom: Booby prize. Inside bath room with neither window nor vent fan. Stale swampy-smelling air. Brackets for shelf over sink, but no shelf. Pretentious but ill-fitting mahagony panel fronting tub. Possibly the worst caulking job I have ever seen with thick, wavy line of bright white caulk between tub and dark red tiles. Do they allow kindergartners to caulk tubs in Britain?

Booked through: Walked in.

Cost: Double room, £50.

Contact: 9 Botchergate, Carlisle, CA1 1QP; +44 (0) 1228 531316.

Sonas Guest House, Edinburgh

Charming, whistle-clean B&B on a quiet south-side street, just a few doors from an arterial well served by many buses, including routes directly from the old city and the railroad station. Free WiFi.

Breakfast: Serve-yourself juices, cereals and (hooray!) fresh bananas and apples. White and brown toast. Selection of several hot breakfasts, including Scottish breakfast. Coffee and tea. Fresh flowers on the breakfast table.

Bedroom: Room 4 is lovely, bandbox near but very tiny (about 8x10), plus a small vestibule and a bathroom that is just about 5 feet square.

Bathroom: Tub/shower combination. Nicely tiled. Clean and modern. No window. Good, clearing tilting mirror that accommodates all heights. Vent fan a tad noisy.

Booked through: VisitScotland's Edinburgh tourist information office on Princes Street, above the railroad station.

Cost: "Special rate" of £27 nightly per person in a double. Booking agent said it's normall about £35. Booking fee of £4, but most convenient for afternoon arrival in a large city, where the only hotels near the railroad station are luxury leaders, way beyond our budget.

Contact: 3 East Mayfield, Edinburgh EH9 1SD; +44 (0) 131 667 2781.

Summary

Best Room: Sonas.
Smallest room: Sonas.
Biggest Room: County Hotel.
Best Ambiance: Famous Wild Boar.
Most Convenient: Lakes Court and County Hotels, both in the center of Carlisle, steps from the railroad station.
Least Convenient: Famous Wild Boar -- unless you have a car.

Conclusion

Three-star lodgings bring cost of a trip from the stratospheric to the affordable (with prices, if not plumbing, comparable to a high-end motor inn or even a good hotel booked via priceline.com or other discounter in the US).