On first impressions this hotel is clean, conveniently situated for motorway travellers and modern. There is free parking at the rear and it very easy to pull off of the motorway and strait into the grounds of the hotel.
If I am to sum Hotel Venlo up in one sentence it would be this; A posh looking Travel Lodge without the tea/coffee making facilities. Although it may look nice inside, this is not a 4 star quality hotel.
On arrival we parked the car and carried our luggage to reception where a rather gloomy looking young man began to check us in. Hotel Venlo had been booked online through booking.com and the hotel had seen fit to take payment at the time of booking from our credit card. It took the receptionist 10 minutes to figure this out at which point we were asked for ID and passports and then a signature. We had booked 2 rooms, one had been paid for at the time of booking and the receptionist insisted that we pay for the second before we went to our rooms, eventually we were given our room keys and were told that as we had already paid, we would be required to pay for everything in the hotel separately by cash or card but not on our room (Rather inconvenient).
We found the rooms to be very clean and smartly presented, the Bathroom has a shower and bath and the usual complimentary soaps, the TV has some English language channels and there is a mini-bar with a dreaded (break at own risk) paper seal on it. Room service is available but there is nothing in the hotel info folder to indicate this or the prices. I had to ask at reception but there were no published prices on display.
The rooms have no coffee and tea making facilities so you need to go to the restaurant to get a caffeine fix if you desire one. The bed is reasonably comfortable although I didn’t sleep well.
Be wary of the Air-Con, it dries the air in the room quite quickly but you can’t open the widow because of the noise from the motorway.
The restaurant is rather expensive for a tarted-up motorway cafe, the food is mediocre at best, I had steak, the waiter couldn’t tell me what sort of steak it was and he didn’t try to find out when I asked? It turned out that the steak was a large sirloin but of very poor quality, dry, tough and tasteless. They don’t offer steak knives and the side orders of potatoes or fries are pathetically small.
It was attention to detail that spoiled the experience for me, although my main dish cost £18 alone, this did not include ketchup if I had wanted some, an extra 75p is charged for this condiment!
In my opinion, a restaurant should offer drinks ready poured and delivered to your table unless your preference is wine. Unfortunately, Hotel Venlo brings a coke to your table in a bottle that you pour into a wine glass, no clean glass is offered no matter how many cokes you have.
My partner’s meal was Lasagne, £16 (Main course only) and was almost all Pasta (Vegetarian) and no vegetables, she didn’t enjoy it and left the majority of the meal.
When we paid the bill we had already decided that we weren’t going to leave a tip as the service had been poor and the food was overpriced, tasteless and insufficient in quality. The waiter hadn’t smiled at us once of even asked if there was anything else that we required. The waiter loitered for a tip for a moment by trying to make conversation, too little too late.
The breakfast was good, we sat at a table that was not reserved but were told to move as that particular table was not used for breakfast?
This is a non-smoking hotel, however, guests are invited to use a small balcony at the end of each corridor to smoke if they wish. I tested this balcony by exiting through the door onto the balcony only to find that when I had finished my cigarette I was locked out, there is no door handle on the outside of any of the balcony doors.
I believe that the worst part of the whole experience was the lack of friendliness of the hotel staff, being asked to pay before occupying our rooms made us feel as if we were not trusted and were of a lower class although we were smartly dressed and polite at all times.
On checking out the receptionist asked us to return again, I replied “Not likely”.