White Swan Hotel - Alnwick, United Kingdom 

I stayed at the White Swan in Alnwick with my wife for 3 nights in mid June 2008. Cost was around ?120 per night. For: Nice hotel, and it manages to maintain some charm of an old coaching inn. The lounge is a nice place to while a way a few hours reading the papers. For: Friendly staff (on the whole), especially in the Bar (a guy called Yannick makes friends with everyone, not in a pushy way – he’s just good with people). For: Our room was clean and the bathroom generally OK. The room was a little on the small side BUT this is a coaching inn in the centre of an old town so I think it’s par for the course – space is restricted. For: Breakfast was good – I’d give it 3 out of 5. No chance to have poached eggs, only fried, no pastries, but what was out was good enough. For: The Bistro is pretty good, although we only ate there one night. The food is simple and well done. The meal was enjoyable and good value. For: Digital TV with most freeview channels. Against: Housekeeping could be better. Tea not replenished in the room, and when it was we only had Earl Grey tea which is not to everyone’s taste. Other things were never replenished, like biscuits, soap, shampoo and shower gel. Against: My wife had pea soup there. This was nice, home made soup but it had an elastic band in it. She was eating and suddenly went ‘yeuch’ and pulled this elastic band out of her mouth. The manager was mortified, and they reduced the bill accordingly. Against: The shower was ‘fussy’. Sometimes it would not switch on, but if you kept trying eventually it would switch on. Against: The website says ‘Our bathrooms are luxurious with power showers over the bath, thick towelling robes, toiletries and bath salts.’ Not true, we had no towelling robes. Against: the website says ‘All rooms include LCD televisions with DVD players, tea and coffee making facilities, hairdryer, iron and iroining board, a work desk and free wireless internet connection.’ Most of this is true, except the wireless internet is only available on the ground floor, according to the staff, and we were on the second. It didn’t work for me. Against: Like many town centre hotels, parking is tricky. Parking in the small hotel car park is horrible, but there is a car park nearby you can use for just ?2.