Help me sort out a farce of a 40th!!

quietheart

My husband is 40 this week. He's meant to be having his friends round but loads of them can't make it as it's been a bit last minute. I think it'll be disappointing to carry on with it and am thinking of booking a hotel away for us instead. This is what we were gonna do originally.
Where can I go that's nice (upto £100 for room) not too far from Birmingham that might have availability Friday. I have tried Symonds Yat as it's beautiful but it's full......
Help!:eek:

Doozergirl

Are you right near Birmingham City Centre? I live about 20 mins away and I love the idea of staying in one of the hotels in Town, booking a meal in a nice restaurant, having a wander around, room service, breakfast in bed and just a break away from normal. Saves on travelling time! I've done it a few times.

Looking at www.lastminute.com the hotels in town are really cheap on Friday, the Radisson (in the brand new Beetham Tower!) is £82 and the Malmaison is £89!

Otherwise, I'd choose Stratford or Oxford. The most wonderful hotel I've stayed in, in this country is the Malmaison in Oxford. I do rave about it constantly but it was so much fun and it is real luxury. It used to be a prison and many of the rooms are converted cells, though you get three cells to a room these days! I think it likely to be a little over your budget on a Friday (I stayed for £89 on a Sunday) but it is just fantastic! You can borrow DVDs from reception to watch on the flat screen tv in your room and just cuddle up if you want.

http://www.malmaison-oxford.com/

In Stratford, I have stayed at the Shakespeare which is a proper olde world timber framed building and quite romantic. Right in the centre of town, it's next to Sheep Street which has a selection of restaurants. That's coming up at £90 for the night on lastminute again.

quietheart

cheers for that. will look at lastminute.com now, don't know why i didn't think of that!

HelzBelz

You can somtimes get good deal on LateRooms.com
http://www.laterooms.com/en/p2758/r100_hotels-in-uk.aspx

wendym

I second laterooms.com - have had some really good deals.

It may be entirely irrelevant, but one of the episodes of Lewis, which took over from Morse (I've tried to find which episode on IMDB, but failed) had scenes filmed in the Oxford Malmaison - an extra present? You can get the whole series on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lewis-DVD-Kevin-Whately/dp/B000EES15S/ref=sr_1_1/202-6271305-9877410?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1183468752&sr=1-1