To really really hate Travelodge beds?

[ToffeePennie]

We have come away for a few days over the bank holiday. MIL and FIL refuse to pay any more than £30 a night for accommodation, so we ended up in the travelodge.
It is 4:30am and bloody awful. I can’t sleep on this rock solid bed, the pillow is like a sheet of metal and the bathroom reeks of urine mixed with bleach. Plus DH and DC all snorting and farting and snoring next to me in a tiny, crappy room that’s too hot for a duvet, too cold for no blanket at all.
As I lie here, shivering or swearing, all I can think is I want my bed. A lush massive, soft space I can actually sleep in!

Poor you! We stayed at one on our way down to the coast and it was fine - I do think premier inns are better though. Why does what MIL/FIL will pay dictate your hotel? Surely they could stay in the travelodge and you stay elsewhere?

You are absolutely not being unreasonable! Beats me how they're still in business, everyone I know uses Premier Inn as they know they'll be comfy.

Because Premier Inn are so much more expensive - often similar if not more than Holiday Inn.
I’ve always found Travelodge okay - and a great option at a price point similar to a Youth Hostel but without the dormitory. And before they were so omnipresent I remember paying more for “local hotels” with extremely dodgy bed (spring that dug in - very ancient mattresses.
But £30 a night is a bargain even for a travelodge- look at the prices at the Durham one about 26th September.

I stayed in a Hampton by Hilton last night ahead of an early flight, that was bloody awful

If you’ve got more nights to go, ask for a spare sheet and extra pillows, or pick some up at the shops later? For the smell ask for the room to be cleaned, or grab a pack of bathroom wipes and some odour-neutralising tea lights/room spray.

FWIW DH and I have quite liked the travelodges, and have had some truly awful times in B&Bs and some other budget chains. Must be location dependent.

I’d just stay elsewhere and let MIL and FIL stay in a travelodge if that’s what they want.

I agree. I haven't recovered from staying at the Travelodge by East Midlands airport in 2008! Lol I joke but not a patch on Premier Inn whose mattresses are so good I bought one for home!

My husbands family are very keen on “seeing all the children” and he and his sibling will put up with anything. They are very used to going for the cheapest as they have always been fairly poor growing up. If/when I have refused in the past (when they wanted us all to stay at a YH for example) I was told I was “spoiling the fun” and “letting people down” which carries through to today.
So now when they suggest somewhere, I am welcome to add my thoughts but anything negative I say (this time for example I pointed out the reviews being poor, it’s very noisy outside especially Friday/saturday, lack of parking, no mini fridge in the room, no restaurant on site etc) they brush over with “well we will sort it, find a weatherspoons and go there for breakfast” etc.
Thats why they dictate where we end up staying. If I put my foot down, I’m basically guilt-tripped about all my choices being too expensive.

The smell is very clearly “cleaned bathroom with bleach but cannot get the urine out” so even if we did ask for the bathroom to be cleaned it would probably get worse. The floor outside the bathroom is super spongy too.

Are they paying for you all?

We stayed in the Glasgow one this summer and it was like a hovel. And really not that cheap! But they let you take your bike into the room which is why we choose them.

No chance would I stay in a Travel Lodge and suffer a bad nights sleep. If they want to stay somewhere cheap, I’d leave them to it and book somewhere nice. They could try and guilt trip me, but it wouldn’t work, I’m immune to those sort of tactics.

On a side note, youth hostel beds are actually very comfy! And the mattresses are waterproof so no bed bugs either, unlike lots of other places.

I will never stay in a Travelodge again after an absolute horrendous experience a couple of years ago. I don’t think I am particularly fussy but honestly, it was disgusting. Would rather pitch a tent.

If I were you, I’d leave them to their Travelodge snd stay somewhere else nearby.

I think if I were you I’d lean into the princess rep a bit more. I’ve had some ok nights in travelodges and like a YH, but they tend to be very tired these days compared to everywhere else. Let them take the piss, just go elsewhere.

I have in-laws who are much the same and I bit my tongue and went along with it until we ended up in an Airbnb that MIL chose that was in the middle of nowhere (literally miles and miles) and I ended up in tears all night because I couldn’t even put my baby on the floor to crawl around due to it being thick with dirt and very dangerous electrical issues (another country and Airbnb accused us of going to the wrong property and didn’t care).

Then there was the time they chose the hotel (crap and in desperate need of refurb). We pay for our own room so decided to upgrade to a sea view room with balcony. They had arrived a few days before us. When we checked in and went to our room we found we were put in the crappiest room with no view and no balcony, just a window. As we wondered back out to go to reception MIL appeared from the room next door gleefully telling us how she got the hotel to allocate a room next to them. How the hotel agreed to that I’ll never know, all I did know was that we we would not be staying in that room and got moved straight away.

Ever since these things (and lots of others), I pretty much refuse to share accommodation if we go away together now it’s a group decision. Most the time we’ll just stay somewhere totally different to them so we can have all the aspects we want. They might not like it but I simply don’t care anymore.

also, I’ve never understood the reasoning for wanting everyone to be together when you’re in a hotel. You’re not together, you’re in your own rooms. Then you meet up for breakfast or whatever at a cafe/restaurant but you could do that if you were all staying in separate places.

What town is that which has Travelodges for £30 on a bank holiday?
I agree with a previous poster, you didn’t have to stay there just because the in laws did!