So popular and well-known are some hotel brand names that they enter the language as the generic name for their particular type of service. Hilton comes to mind. So too does the somewhat lower-market Holiday Inn. And of course Travelodge, a name associated with budget rooms and £5 breakfasts, is trusted to be neither salubrious nor too spartan. Comfortable, clean, functional and safe is really about all you are looking for when you spend your £50 or £60+ depending on area. Two stars maybe with breakfast extra.
A quick trip to Glasgow comes up and the Mistress, the Brat and I elect for a Travelodge. We would give Premier Travel Inn and Holiday Inn a miss this time. We had been to the Paisley Road West branch of the esteemed Travelodge corporation previously. It was fine. Being so central as it nestles almost under the Kingston Bridge, it was handy as well as all of the above. Let us go there. With a Harry Ramsden’s fish restaurant acting as its annexed dining room, we were pretty sure of repeat satisfaction. I booked for three nights.
And I’ll write a wee review as well, I thought.
Arriving mid-evening on the banks of the Clyde, we noticed how dark it was around the Travelodge. Shadowy figures could be seen in the half-light around the car-park. They will be the sales reps checking in with their wives or their bits on the side, I thought. Checking in, we found an over-wrought chap called Daniel fending off two furious women who felt they were ripped off. He wisely put them onto someone at head office who then refused to give the battleaxes his name igniting their fury even more. Checking in over the banshees’ screeching, we tramped upwards to our quarters. They too were far from welcoming.
Our supposedly non-smoking room, ordered and confirmed online, stank strongly of fags and cigars and heaven knows what else. The bed linen was torn. The sofa bed was grubby, unwashed and ripped and the curtains were riddled with holes caused by cigarette burns or some giant moths. It was utterly dismal. The foul air in the room brought the Mistress and the Brat to coughing. It was far too late to start a search for digs at that time. Leaving a window open to ventilate the stinky chamber, we fled outside, past the smashed and long taped-up end of corridor window, to hunt for a meal.
Waiting outside in the car-park for spouse and child to catch up, I noticed out of the corner of my eye an excessively made-up bleached blonde bombshell in a white fur coat slinking up to me. Moving quickly on, I realised the coiffured creature was following me. She caught up and croakily inquired: ‘See you. Youse going ma way?’ Nay, nay, thrice nay, I declared, nodding furiously to Harry Ramsden’s. My refusal to step out with this fetching flurry of fake fur, varnish and peroxide brought from her a torrent of abuse.
She cared little that I did not fancy a bit of business, as she so starkly put it. Her utterances were tailing off into the black night as the Mistress arrived on scene. She was suspicious, as is her nature, interrogating me about my conversation with the ball of fluff. Ushering her and the Brat speedily towards the sanctuary of Mr Ramsden’s haddock emporium, the mysterious shadows I thought were sales reps strode off. At the slightest hint of the disturbance caused by the bucket-mouthed lady of the night, they decided to abort whatever dodgy business they were transacting.
We despaired of what this area had become. In Ramsden’s, the atmosphere was almost as dismal. No lager or beer to lubricate the dry throat of someone who had a narrow escape from the clutches of a streetwalking virago. And no wine. Horrors, no Drambuie, the one liqueur guaranteed to lighten the mood of the Mistress. It is a long story but the delicate tincture is made by the Isle of Skye branch of the clan MacKinnon, her maiden name before I rudely changed it for another more classy one.
We were told supplies were low as there had been a break-in. Thousands of pounds of stock had been snaffled. Still, what is claimed to be the world famous fish, chips and bread and butter were still being served. Mysteriously, the thieves had left them. So we were left sipping nasty vodka and inappropriately breath-catching French brandy with our unexceptional cod and mushy peas.
A most helpful waitress fighting against the odds to keep up a front of unruffled calm and professionalism later let slip that the break-in had actually happened the week before. Shamefully, for Ramsden’s and its could-not-care-less owners Select Service Partners, she had still not had the supplies to resume normal service. The other 31 allegedly-famous Ramsden’s restaurants cannot be this poor, surely. I wished we had gone across the road to that American Italian diner place we went to last year. Trooping back to the lodge, while watching out for any fluff, we stopped at reception to order breakfast. No chance. That was only at weekends. Get your own breakfast, clear off; that was the attitude. We cleared off alright, after cancelling our booking for the next two nights.
Overall, it was an experience we will not repeat. Our room was a disgrace. Everything about that Travelodge seems to have gone down so that its dimly-lit environs are now a magnet for tawdry peddlers of the sex industry and goodness knows what else. I offered Travelodge my thoughts by emailing them through their website. They ignored my feedback completely. That is a bad pointer for any organisation.
The change in the place is utterly severe. A year ago I would have given Travelodge Paisley Road and their partner Harry Ramsden’s an overall eight or nine out of ten. Now they are lucky to scrape a mere three.
Food 4
Decor 3
Cleanliness 2
Welcome 3
Travelodge Paisley Road
251 Paisley Road
Glasgow G5 8RA
Phone: 0871 984 6142
Harry Ramsden’s
251 Paisley Road
Glasgow G5 8RA
Phone: 0141-429 3700
