Description: Newcastle is one of my favourite cities for a weekend away as for me it has everything that I am looking for in city break that is close enough to where I live to be able to drive there in a couple of hours. The shopping is fantastic and the nightlife is quite rightly regarded as some of the best in Europe.
Although I go there a few times a year normally I stay in a 'budget' hotel but on occassion I book myself into the Grey Street hotel which has to be one of my all time favourite hotels in the UK.


The Grey Street hotel is located in the centre of Newcastle on funnily enough Grey Street. It is only a short walk from Central station and perfectly situated for the bars and clubs of Newcastle. It is also only a short walk into the cities central shopping area and only takes 10 minutes on foot to reach the famous Eldon square mall so you will be able to shop until you drop and be back at the hotel in no time.


First impressions of the hotel are excellent, it is located in a beautiful old Georgian building and looks like a stylish but classy retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city. Inside is a lot more modern than you would imagine from building and as soon as you enter the hotel there is a small reception directly across from the front entrance. There are also a small seating area where you can read the paper and sit with a coffee. The area is quite small but it is absolutely beautifully decorated and they have definately made the best of the small space they have to work with.

After the reception there is a small hallway with a lift and stairs leading to the rooms. Although the hotel looks like it will be tiny there are a surprisingly lot of hallways leading off every floor and the hotel actually has 49 rooms so there are quite a fe for a small boutique hotel. The communial stairways are all decorated in quite a traditional Georgian way and all the features have been beautifully preserved.


I have stayed in both a normal room and also a deluxe room and can honestly say that I would be happy to stay in either kind of room again. They are decorated absolutely beautifully and other than some extra space are pretty much the same. The decor is very light and bright and they manage to mix the original Georgian features with the cool contemporary furniture fantastically.

Both the rooms I have stayed in had a massive leather bed with loads of pillows and egyptian cotton sheets and are quite possibly the most comfortable beds I have ever slept the night in.
There is everything that you would expect from a boutique hotel such as plasma screen TV's and DVD players. The extras they offer make for a nice touch such as the hospitality tray which was wooden and instead of the usual sachets of tea and coffee it had a caffitiere and fresh coffee and herbal teas.

Inside the build in wardrobes there was white waffle robes which were absolutely lovely and soft and you could buy these from reception when you left if you wanted to but they were expensive so even though I would have loved to have had one for home I didn't get myself one.
There was also a desk and seating area and all the other things you would expect from a decent hotel such as a safe, trouser press etc.

One of the nicest things in the room was that you could actually open the windows. They were sash windows which I assume had to be kept as the building is listed but they are triple glazed so once closed you could hear no noise from outside which was good because the street gets busy at night especially on a weekend.

The bathroom was ultra modern in comparison with the rooms where the old and new were mixed so well. The suite itself was gorgeous and the bathroom was exactly the type I would love in my own home.
There was a bath with a built in shower and the water pressure and tempreture was excellent.
The toiletries were also a higher standard than the usual hotel shampoos and came in their own little case. Obviously as they were so good they went straight into my suitcase and I was pleased to see the next day that the cleaner had replaced the one in my suitcase with a new one.
There was also plenty of towels and these were big and fluffy and of an obviously high quality.


Situated adjecent to the hotel is The Living Room restaurant which is a trendy popular place to eat in Newcastle. If you are staying in the hotel it is easy to get a table without booking and there is no need to even leave the hotel to get into it as you can enter straight from near the reception.
I ate here a couple of times and the food and ambience was excellent although it was expensive so you paid for the good food and service.
This is also where breakfast was served I think but I never had breakfast at the hotel as it was just too expensive especially when the price of the hotel rooms were expensive on their own.
Room service is available and you can also choose to have breakfast in bed.


Although I can't fault the hotel on the comfort of the rooms or the enjoyment of my stays here there are a few little things that I think the hotel could do better.
First of all parking is not the easiest thing to do at the hotel as it has no car park and you need to park at the NCP car park around the corner which isn't really made clear when you are booking the room. This is expensive and although I have found out that you can get a voucher at reception which makes parking there cheaper when we visited I wasn't actually offered the voucher even though I went into reception to ask them for directions to the car park.

The second thing is that the attitudes of the staff could be improved significantly. It didn't matter which member of staff I spoke too they were all pretty miserable and could learn to smile a bit more.
In the room they have menus where you can order breakfast to be delivered to your room and you just need to hang this menu on your door at night before a certain time and they will deliver your breakfast on a tray for you in the morning. I actually filled this menu in on two occassions and although I hung it on my handle hours before the cut off point no breakfast was ever delivered. When I complained to reception the girl on duty couldn't have cared less and this suly attitude ofe staff to their guests really does put me off recomending the hotel.


Despite the rude staff the hotel itself is so excellent that I really can't not recommend it to people. The rooms are gorgeous and the location couldn't be better. It was immaculetly clean and the extras in the room were an added bonus. The prices for a boutique hotel weren't bad and we paid £90 per night for a double room which was only slightly more than the ibis or similar would have cost and the level of comfort isn't even comparable.
If the management worked on their staffs attitude then the Grey Street would definately be the best hotel I have ever stayed in.
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