Ramada Encore Crewe

I was only there for one night and I had breakfast on site. The breakfast was fine, with plenty of choice, for both vegetarians and non-​vegetarians — there’s something for everyone. The drinks were a bit average to be honest, as I could tell that the juices and fizzy drinks were mostly diluted with water, but that aside I enjoyed my breakfast. Staff was also readily available and very useful.

The hotel looks exactly as is appears in the photographs, but as is often the case, looks are deceptive.
The plus points:
The staff a friendly.
The hotel is clean.
If you’re lucky enough to find a good rate, the hotel is cheap.
Room service is available, unlike any of the other low-​cost hotels in the area. Food was pleasant enough, but my starter was almost cold when it was delivered. Blanco Rioja unexpectedly palatable.
The minus points:
Those nice big comfy-​looking sofas in the bedrooms are like sitting on covered rocks. Whoever picked them doesn’t know that they’re meant to be SOFT furnishings.
The rooms have wooden floors and nothing to deaden sound, so feel like they are unfinished and even the slightest noise echoes around the room. If you know what a room sounds like when you empty it out to decorate, this is exactly the same.
The bathrooms are all «wet room» style, which looks good in pictures, but as they’re too small to be wet rooms you end up with the whole bathroom covered in water when you take a shower.
The complimentary «High speed internet» in the rooms manages 0.21Mb download speed on
even in the middle of the night when it should be quiet. Yes, that’s right, high-​speed internet that’s slower than the modem you had 15 years ago. Business travellers can forget about working from this hotel.
It’s on a business park, so local amenities consist of, well, nothing. But rooms do offer a nice view of the hotel car park or the main road past the business park.
The desks in the rooms are narrow and not very good to work from. They’re not narrow enough to be unusable, but just narrow enough to be not quite big enough to be comfortable to use. Also, the TV stand is far too large for the TV that is actually installed and covers about half of the desk, so you feel like you’re actually working on a bookshelf.
There are no individual room temperature controls and no air-​conditioning beyond opening the window, which is a major surprise in a hotel that was only built a few years ago and means you can find yourself having to choose between being hot and uncomfortable or hoping there isn’t too much noise outside.
To sum up, like most budget hotels this is somewhere to sleep and not much else. I stayed here on business, so my company was picking up the bill, I would not stay here by choice for a personal trip unless I could get a rate of less than £20/​night and even then I would probably look at one of the local independent hotels first. This hotel is slightly more expensive than the Travel Lodge about 300 yards away and has better quality furnishings, but manages to be slightly less comfortable to actually stay in.