The Pryordurkins

Posts Tagged ‘cyprus’

This week had me staying a couple of nights at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Reading.  Sitting on the River Thames, it was easy to reach by car as I came into town from the general direction of Oxford.

I immediately thought this hotel was going to be nice as I pulled up.  Not only did I find a car parking space right in front of the hotel; it looked modern stylish and well kept as I headed into the reception area.  I was immediately greeted by a friendly chap who had all the paperwork prepared and having simply applied one signature I was on my way to the room.  The lift door was a little slow in closing, I thought the floor button wasn’t working but apart from that it was smooth and importantly clean.  Entering my room, I was again very happy.  It was large, had a view of the river and included a seating area along with a desk and reclining chair to work at with full internet connectivity available.  The bathroom although small was well appointed and sparkling clean.  The complimentary toiletries were of reasonable quality and the towels soft and fluffy.  Even the loo roll was more your Andrex, than your Aldi variety, which is a nice touch.. literally!

Anyway after I’d unpacked my case and hung the suit up I decided to try the Spa.  The pool as you can see was very good indeed. Not your usual mis-shaped hotel pool, but properly square and 17 metres long, which allowed for a decent stroke.  The Spa also included a very nice gym with a good range of equipment, although I only saw it through the window as I relaxed in the Whirlpool.  Heading out, I passed a steam room, sauna and a number of treatment rooms.  With nice chill out music playing in the background I could easily have forgot I was in Reading and might have imagined I was back in Cyprus.

With all this exercise behind me I decided to order up room service.  Again I was delighted.  The quality of the food really surprised me.  None of the usual thrown together affair usual to hotels, but a well cooked meal.  My rib-eye steak was cooked medium rare as requested and came with chunky chips cooked in Goose fat.  (Note to Paul) They were cooked so well, they were not greasy at all.  Nice, light and very tasty.  A lovely meal all in all.

A good nights sleep lay ahead after I turned the air conditioning down to 18 degrees and waking up the next day I felt refreshed and ready to face the world.  Before that breakfast in the restaurant lay ahead.  A good breakfast was available with healthy choices all round.  I went for cereal with added sunflower seeds which were to the side with other nuts and optional extras (a nice touch).  I skipped the fry up, more out of will power than anything else, because it looked great.  The coffee brought to my table was  also very good.  Smooth, full flavoured and freshly made.

The rest of my stay continued in the same veign.  The service was excellent and because this is not one of the biggest Crowne Plaza hotels you come across it always had a nice local warm welcoming feel about it.  I look forward to going back next week.

Pryordurkin rating.  5 stars.

Hotel Reservations: 0871 423 4896

Hotel Front Desk: 44-1189-259988

We spent our honeymoon at the 5 Star Intercontinental Resort Hotel in Paphos Cyprus (and returned again this year because we enjoyed it so much). Arriving in the early hours we were greeted with complimentary champagne to enjoy during the check in process and were then whisked by Golf Buggy, to our hotel rooms to settle down for a good nights sleep.

Waking early we started to take in the surrounding facilities and were delighted to discover they were very nice indeed. Two infinity pools formed the central point for the hotel surrounded by great accommodation. Our room had an excellent sea view where we could sit on our balcony watching the sun set over the Mediterranean while downing the complimentary wine left our for us on arrival. A massive bathroom and queen sized bed with very good air conditioning had us set up for a thoroughly enjoyable week.

The hotel has a number of restaurants and bars and throughout the week we tried them all. Our favourite though was the sunset bar on the roof where we would generally end our days with a decent brandy, while listening to gentle live music.

The hotel staff are very friendly and nothing is too much trouble. A big credit to the Intercontinental brand!

Sitting within the Aphrodite Hills resort, the hotel is sited near a fantastic Spa (The Retreat) which we sampled a couple of times during our stay. Firstly opting for the Full Hammam, followed by a facial and then ending the week with, for me, a therapeutic massage and for Dusty, a Thai Massage (She stands on your neck apparently!), we could see why it had won one of the Best Spa’s in the world awards.

All in all it was a great hotel, with great food, great staff and a great relaxing atmosphere.

Score: 5 Stars. Last visited October 2008

We decided to stay at the Crowne Plaza at Gatwick-Crawley both before we flew out to Cyprus and after we returned.  We paid around £79 per night and for this had an excellent room.  Recent renovations have made this hotel very stylish and modern indeed.  Our room was clean, crisp and very comfortable with a good sized bathroom and flat screen TV.  The hotel has recently returned to the Holiday Inn family having previously been a Crest Hotel and Quality Hotel.  The lobby, restaurant and leisure centre have all had a makeover to great effect.  The only thing we worried about were the steps from the men’s changing room to the swimming pool.  They were steep, sharp and when wet, very slippy.  Despite the warning notice telling you to take care, we fully expect someone to come a cropper on those stairs.

The food served up in their restaurant named Cube, was adequate.  Breakfast was fine and with the two ‘experienced’ ladies working during the morning, it had an air of a comfortable friendly B&B.  We really enjoyed it.

If Gatwick airport itself was not so god damn awful, we would not hesitate to stay at this hotel again, especially with their little extra touches like fresh coffee served up early morning for people travelling to catch flights and the variety of complimentary newspapers and friendly service from happy staff.

Pryordurkin Rating. 4 Stars.

Our holiday in Cyprus ended as it had begun; in style.  We finished our final day with a four hour session in the Spa. Two Pampered Poofs having the full works (Thanks Lee  ), we started with the full Thermai Experience that includes a variety of heat rooms and ice rooms followed by a deep tissue Indonesian Massage for Paul and a Australian Aboriginal Kodo Massage for Michael, followed by an early evening dinner where to our complete joy (Marg will understand why), we met up again with Thomas, the stunning waiter we met working at the resort last year.  We pointed out that we remembered him for his good service (and stunning good looks – but we whispered that bit!) and we think he remembered us and our Australian friend! Our week was complete   We will load the photographs into our gallery soon.

Wrapping up we headed off to the airport, content with our lot and having completely forgot about how cruel the pyordurkin effect can be at times.

The plane boarded on time; we had good seats and we set off ahead of schedule.  We even landed in Gatwick 15 minutes ahead of time.   This is when it all went horribly wrong and we just knew the pryordurkin effect was now also back from it’s holidays.

It started with us having to wait 15 minutes on the plan while they found some steps for us to disembark.  The heat and temperature of the passengers was rising when we eventually started to move.  The babies and kids by this point were tired, crabby and playing up. We got onto the buses to be hearded back to the airport terminal to find massive queues at passport control.  Thirty minutes after landing we eventually got through passport control to then discover a problem with EasyJet baggage handlers. Apparently they were ’surprised’ by the arrival of six ’scheduled and on time’ flights arriving within the same hour and were therefore unable to off load the luggage from each plane as it arrived.  Utter chaos….  By this point there were screaming kids, it was 2.30am and my temper was well past its best.  Having landed at 12:50am we eventually got out of Gatwick baggage pick up area two hours later to then discover…. wait for it, there is more…. that the first shuttle bus to our hotel would not leave until 3.16am.  So in the freezing cold (5 degrees) we stood around waiting and waiting and waiting.  I was cursing and swearing under my breath by this point.  Of course the shuttle bus was late!.  When it did arrive I was ready to draw blood as we took our seats.  The driver then gently informed us that he would be making a small diversion on the way to our hotel, via the depot to change drivers.  Apparently he had finished his shift.  I was incredulous..

Falling into our hotel beds at 4.00am having landed at 12:50am I was too wound up to sleep, so tossed and turned for the next few hours eventually giving up and jumping into the shower at 9.30am telling Paul to get up, it was time for breakfast.

A brief respite over breakfast was had.  It was served up in the hotel which I’ll review later, by two nice ladies and we checked out ready to continue our journey home…..

We got to the railway station at Gatwick to discover the trains were not running through to Kings Cross today due to engineering works.  Instead we would have to get off at London Bridge and drag our cases through the underground, which of course, was jam packed by other miserable looking travellers.  Eventually getting to Kings Cross, now hot and sweaty, we boarded the train to York and took our first class seats (by this point I was ready to pay anything to avoid people and get home in comfort).

The train arrived into York having sat outside for five very long minutes while a platform became free. As soon as it did crawl in, we legged it to the taxi rank and joined what seemed like tens of thousands of other people trying to leave York by road.  It was a long journey that hit pretty much every red traffic light on the way out of the City centre.

We finally arrived at home sweet home……  Wait.  That is not the end of it…..

Opening the letters that had piled up while away I spotted an invoice for the windows we’d recently had repaired.  Instead of the £300 we were ‘verbally quoted’ it was now asking for £800!  Words cannot describe…….

So anyway, there you have it, we’re back home from a wonderful holiday in a wondereful hotel on a wonderful island, to find life returns to normal with a bang.

Despite the recent blogs we’re heading off to Cyprus to celebrate our first anniversary.  We tied the knot on the 29th September 2007 in the olde worlde city of York and to celebrate in style we are returning to the Intercontinental Hotel Resort in Aphrodite Hills where we spent a very enjoyable honeymoon.  We are looking forward to re-acquainting ourselves with the ‘Shirley Temples’ served up at the poolside bar and having a few treatments in the wonderfully tranquil Spa. We’ve even booked into a club floor suite for that little extra luxury and service. Try not to miss us while we are away and knowing the pryordurkin effect quite well know, we are pretty sure that old blighty will have one of its best weeks for sunshine while we are away.  Keep an eye on this page as we may get round to posting the odd blog or two if a) I can sneak away from Paul to do so and b) there is anything of interest to tell.

There but for the grace of God… We are off to Cyprus later this month and at the time of booking tried to get seats with XL Airways from Manchester to Paphos. At the time, they were fully booked so we opted to fly from Gatwick with EasyJet. I never use a credit card if I can avoid it, so if we had booked XL Airways tickets would have lost out.