Village Hotel Portsmouth – A Review

We received our stay at Village Hotel Portsmouth in return for an honest review of our experiences. This wasn’t hard as we loved it! Read on to find out why.

The Village Hotel chain has 30 hotels around the UK. I have never previously stayed in one so I was excited to see what they are like.

Their website is impressive and they are popular with families as well as business travellers (they offer a business club) so it seemed a perfect fit for us.

Initial impressions of Village Hotel Portsmouth

We had got stuck in traffic on the way to the hotel so were rather tired and fed up when we arrived.

There is a huge car park so we found a space easily and the entrance was clear. All these things matter when you arrive tired after a long car journey.

In the check-in area, they have screens where you can book yourself in and allocate your key card with ease. This avoids queuing if it is busy or you have impatient children with you.

An added extra was that because it was Friday they had a basket of free Crunchie bars! Who doesn’t like a Crunchie?

The hotel has a clear bar/dining area which has huge TVs showing sports so perfect for any sports fans visiting. There is also a Starbucks coffee shop in the hotel itself! It is a great addition I must say.

If you haven’t tried their Frappuccinos yet you really should. The strawberry doughnut one is amazing.

The rooms

Village Hotel Portsmouth has two types of rooms, the standard and the club room. Both have free Wi-Fi included, a rainfall shower, tea/coffee-making facilities, a flat-screen TV, free parking and a super comfortable Sealy bed.

The clubrooms also have a full HD Sky package including movies and sports and complimentary use of the Village gym, pool and if required the shared V works workspace.

We had a club room with an interconnected accessible standard room. Ben has never stayed in his own room when we have gone away. This was a perfect in-between for him and probably will be for years to come.

His autism and other difficulties mean an accessible room is perfect for him and the way it had an interconnecting door to our room was perfect.

We were all very impressed with the rooms. The accessible room was well laid out with plenty of space. Our room was more compact of course but lovely too.

Both were decorated stylishly and modern. We had glass separating the shower room and bedroom which at the click of a button could become misted for privacy.

Village Hotel Portsmouth has 153 rooms in total of which 38 are club rooms. They have 8 sets of interconnecting rooms which is great for disabled travellers with carers.

These need to be booked directly with the hotel so if this is what you need just give them a call.

The food and drinks

As I have already shared there is a bar and restaurant area in the hotel and they also have a Starbucks.

We had breakfast on both days of our stay in the hotel as well as our evening meals. We also had afternoon tea, but more about that later!

The breakfast choices were good with both continental choices and a cooked breakfast buffet.

I was pleased to discover vegetarian sausages were available on request.

For evening meals they have two menus in the pub grill. One is a set menu and one is the standard menu.

If you book a hotel package where your stay includes an evening meal you dine from the set menu.

The meals were all tasty and of good quality. The set menu only has one vegetarian choice but staff were happy to arrange to swap that for another option from the standard menu.

Ben’s allergies were well catered for throughout our visit for every aspect of our dining. He has allergies to nuts, cinnamon and sesame.

Between his allergies and my being vegetarian, we can be a challenge dining out. However, the staff all managed well and were all knowledgeable about what was available.

Facilities at Village Hotel Portsmouth

Like all other Village Hotel sites, it has a swimming pool and gym. These are open to memberships as well as hotel guests and there is also an option to pay for one-day access if you wish. Of course, this is not needed if you have a club room as it is included.

The pool is heated with two swimming lanes (20 metres long) and also a family swim area.

The pool area also has a whirlpool spa, steam room and sauna. The gym is huge and really a state-of-the-art gym you will be impressed by.

There is a wide range of Les Mills group classes available at no extra cost and a spin studio with 40 bikes and an amazing atmosphere.

The gym includes all the equipment you would expect including the free weights area. Everything has clear easy to understand instructions so you use them correctly and staff around to ask too.

Children under 16 are not allowed to use the gym and are limited to certain times in the pool. This is for safety reasons regarding the need for a lifeguard when children are in there.

Shopping break to Gunwharf Quays

As you may have seen on my Instagram and Facebook we went for a shopping trip to Gunwharf Quays whilst in Portsmouth. It is an amazing outlet shopping destination with so much to do.

I treated myself to some perfume while we were there. Ben bought a new football shirt (he collects them!) and Stuart some new trainers.

We could have spent much longer there but luckily for the bank balance, we didn’t!

Village Hotel Portsmouth offers a shopping weekend package which includes a two-night stay, dinner on your first night, breakfast on both days and taxis to and from Gunwharf Quays!

Just to top it off you also get a 10% off shopping voucher for many of the stores there! This break is from £140 for 2.

Business facilities

Whilst in some ways it was a working weekend away for me I didn’t make use of the business facilities but I did take a look. There is a dedicated V works workspace area with a bar with free tea and coffee.

The area is quiet, and cool and has plenty of charging ports and sockets. Perfect for anyone working away from home. Obviously, Starbucks would be an alternative space to sit and work, though not as quiet.

Other events at Village Hotel Portsmouth

Whilst we were visiting a few weddings were booked. As far as we could tell everything ran really smoothly and other than people coming or going it did not affect us in any way.

The brides I saw looked beautiful and I could imagine it being the perfect place to have your special day.

We have no intention of getting married and certainly not miles away in Portsmouth. I did enquire though out of interest. Packages start at around £2700 so pretty reasonable I think.

The hotel also offers a variety of other events like tribute nights and Christmas parties which all looked great.

Afternoon tea – The Village Hotel’s very own Afternoon ParTea!

The Village hotel chain has its own afternoon tea which has been designed by Candice Brown.

Candice was a winner of the Great British Bake Off. The menu is a little different to other afternoon teas I have seen.

It includes tasty treats like rhubarb and custard profiterole, chocolate and orange scone, and roasted sweet potato, chorizo and red pepper tart. There were vegetarian alternatives available which were so tasty!

They even were able to swap the peanut and chocolate brownie for Ben to a nut-free version! We enjoyed it with a glass of prosecco each.

The Afternoon Par-Tea is £17.50 per person with tea and coffee which are both served beautifully.

For £30 per person, it can include prosecco so perfect for a nice birthday treat. Available throughout the summer on Saturdays 2-5 pm.

Location

The hotel was really easy to find on the outskirts of Portsmouth, situated in the Lakeside North Harbour Business Park.

I wasn’t aware of any local public transport near the hotel however taxis were cheap enough and readily available if you didn’t want to drive to go out for the day.

Portsmouth is a city with such a history. We didn’t get to do much but are already planning to go back soon.

There’s the Portsmouth historic dockyard and lots more to explore.

The Spinnaker Tower looks amazing but I am rubbish with heights so no way was I going up there.

Southsea is the beach area of Portsmouth. It is a pebble-type beach though so don’t expect to be building sandcastles! We had a trip there before driving home on the Sunday of our weekend away but wish we had made time to see more.

There is so much to do there too as I found out on reading another blogger Emma’s post about the area!

The hotel is also perfect for an overnight stay if you’re travelling overseas. It’s just 19 miles from Southampton Airport.

Special thanks

During our visit, we found all the staff at the hotel to be friendly and knowledgeable. There were however a few who really stood out so I wanted to mention those to you.

Charlotte at the reception was so friendly and always smiling. She must spend all day on her feet but you wouldn’t have known her smile and attitude are perfect when arriving after a long and stressful drive.

Fiona is part of the sales team. She showed us around the hotel and was so friendly and welcoming even leaving us a few nice treats in our room. Ben felt at ease with her and she wasn’t at all taken aback when he gave her a hug. Ben’s hugs however are more like a death squeeze!

Mandy served our meals on our first night in the hotel. The restaurant was busy with a coach party and still, she was always smiling and friendly. She answered all our questions and seemed a real asset to the team.

Callum who served our afternoon tea. He was a bubbly friendly man who was relaxed but professional. He really stood out to me as someone personable who would really go the extra mile if he could help you.

Claire was one of the lifeguards while we were in the hotel pool. I can not swim or even float! Not only can I not swim but I am petrified of drowning. Whilst we were in the pool I was using the floats to try and get a bit of water confidence. Something I have never achieved.

Claire was supportive, giving me tips and reassurance. By the end of the weekend, I could “swim” (I use the term loosely as it wasn’t graceful!) around 5 metres with just a float for one arm!

Our overall thoughts of Village Hotel Portsmouth

We absolutely loved the hotel and will definitely be returning. It is great value for money with standard rooms for £31 room only and club rooms for £51, room only at the time of our stay.

The facilities were second to none and the whole hotel was clean and well-maintained throughout. Ben loved having his own room and we were relaxed knowing it was interconnected and he was safe.

If you are looking for a city break then I would definitely recommend the Village Hotel chain and particularly the Portsmouth hotel.

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