The Hotel on the Park, Cheltenham, Cotswold England. Positives and Negatives?

by Gary Bembridge · May 24, 2012

I have blogged about Visiting Cheltenham, and why it is not a waste of time. Here is a review of the hotel we stayed at.

On TripAdvisor, the vast majority of people staying at The Hotel on the Park in Cheltenham give it a fairly rough time in reviews and ratings.

It seems the hotel may have created a bit of a monster by using deal sites like KGB to get people to stay and also to use the restaurant. It seems that most of the negative reviews are from people going to the hotel via such deals.

So we were a bit nervous about going to the hotel based on the reviews we had read. Overall we were pleased by our stay, with the hotel looking much better than we had expected. Though there were some issues that would likely make us not return if we came back to the area.

We had decided to upgrade from the deal offer to a “Spa Room”. We realised once there that there are only actually 2 of the rooms (out of 10 in total) that are within the category in the offer. And so the offer at its inception is designed to get you to spend more. This is something one should always expect when visiting any hotel through one of the deal sites. Of course they will try and make more from guests once there.

What were the positives?

Design and decor. The hotel has some flair in the design. This is true of the public areas and the rooms. It has more of a “wow” factor than we had expected. The hotel is in a large house typical of the surrounding area that has been extended. You do feel like you are staying as a guest at someone’s house rather than a regular hotel. This for some is a positive, but it is important to think of this as a guest house versus a hotel
Distinctive rooms with names. Instead of room numbers, the rooms have names of people with historical significance from the area. This is a nice touch, but the only thing linking to them is one short page in the guest book. So not sure that it works entirely. The room we stayed in was the Thomas Phipps Thomas on the 1st floor (watch a video below). A good sized room with a small dressing area and good bathroom. The bed was a standard double. Smaller than I like when staying at a hotel! The location was not great as out the back there is a garden and when they have functions (as they did on the Saturday night) it is very noisy with people talking and music.
Clean. The place was clean and well maintained.
Location. This is god, easy to find and is within easy walking distance into town where there are good restaurants (like Jamie’s Italian), the Theatre and main shopping.
Reception staff. They were all friendly and welcoming.

What were the negatives?

Breakfast. Included in the price is “continental” breakfast, with a charge of £6 to have a full English. The breakfast is not great. You get juice, coffee/ tea, toast and one small bowl of cereal.

Drinks and coffee prices. These seem very high for such a hotel. 2 coffees are £8 and 2 drinks were over £16. We did not eat in the restaurant, but overall seems very pricey for what it offers.
Noise and attitude. It is seems that the restaurant and events are important to the hotel, and as noted above out of the back you risk noise from events (and in the front people comment on traffic noise). On the events it would be better if the hotel was more up-front about if an event will run and what time it will end. We called down and asked, as we could not go to bed until it ended, and were told “soon”. But went on for hours.
Parking. There is very limited space for parking out the front, and this is exacerbated when the restaurant is open.

In summary, a pleasant surprise versus the expectations and reviews but we would not hurry back.

Video of the Thomas Phipps Thomas Room: