Newcastle – Premier Inn Newcastle Millennium Bridge

This Premier Inn is a short walk from Newcastle city centre and was also very reasonably priced. They’ve changed the check-in time across all Premier Inn hotels to be after 16:00 to give them time to clean the rooms, but they were all ready just before then when I turned up.

The room, which was all clean and sufficiently modern. The television is quite large for a hotel room and it let me cast my phone so that I could watch Britbox on the large screen. The blackout curtains are very effective, I decided to catch up on sleep (not least because I’ve got an overnight coach to London later today) and my alarm woke me at 09:00. Usually before then the sunlight would flood in, cleaners would clank about or other guests would fall over or something outside my room, but none of that happened here.

As an aside, I wasn’t planning to eat at the restaurant at the hotel, but I liked that they’ve included a menu in the room. Some hotels seem to have chucked all of their paperwork out and blamed Covid, which isn’t ideal if they haven’t provided any QR alternatives or similar.

The view from my room and I could see the River Tyne which was a little bonus. To be fair, I didn’t spend long looking at the river and car park view, but it was better than just having a view over air conditioning units or the like. The windows in this hotel also open and aren’t hermetically sealed as some locations seem to think is helpful.

I asked for a few extra milks and the helpful staff member obliged   🙂

I had a little look at the reviews for this hotel, which aren’t universally positive, but it’s above average. The majority of the complaints are about the lack of air conditioning (although at least a large fan was provided) and the behaviour of other guests, with the problem for the hotel it seems of stag and hen groups. I didn’t have any problems in that regard, although I was pleased to find myself at the end of a long corridor.

The whole stay was faultless and it’s starting to become clear that Premier Inn and Travelodge have been able to have the strength to power through this Covid situation, whereas chains such as Accor seem to be positively falling apart. Very friendly staff, a clean room, a quiet location and a reasonable price, all really rather lovely.