Edinburgh Travelodge

Last weekend was the first weekend I had off work since December, so the two of us decided to take a visit to Edinburgh. After all, there was no way work could call me in at the last minute if I was out of the city.

Generally the trip was very good, if a little short.  I’ve only ever been in Edinburgh for at most a couple of hours, so it was nice to spend the weekend doing the touristy things. I have noticed the large amounts of tartan and bagpipes to be found there. Americans would love it.

I will make my feelings known about Edinburgh Zoo and how much of a waste of money it was in a blog post later, but I want to use this post to have a rant about the Edinburgh Central Travelodge.

During the week I received an e-mail from Travelodge asking me to rate my stay.  I had to answer honestly.  We didn’t expect luxury or 5 star accommodation, but we did expect a little bit better than what we got.

The problem was, Travelodge seems to be a haven for people on boozy weekends and stag/hen weekends.  I think there were at least 3 hen weekends staying on the same floor as us.  Emma and I had been up early to get the train on Saturday morning so by 2am in the night we were fast asleep, until all the boozers came back to the Travelodge.

Suddenly it was like being 14 again, in a youth hostel on a school trip.  People standing at their doors shouting down the corridors to their mates at the other end of the hall.  The only difference was that unlike the school trips, Travelodge didn’t have Mr Smith policing the corridors late at night.

I know it would probably be very difficult to administrate, but when booking it would be nice to have a tick box titled “If you plan on getting blind drunk and making lots of noise and generally being a bit of a disgrace tick here”.  Then stick them all on the same floor and leave us folk who are trying to have a quiet weekend a bit of peace.  I felt sorry the next morning for the scores of families with young kids who all looked incredibly tired.

We paid £80 for the night (ok, £20 of that was for early check in and late check out), and being a Travelodge we didn’t expect too much, but I’m sure for the same amount of money we could have found an as luxurious hotel with less revellers staying.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that you’d rate Travelodge to a friend or colleague, 1 being not at all likely, 10 being extremely likely… I gave it a 2.

I’ve got the flying bug

US Airways Flight 1549 Plane Crash Hudson in New York taken by Janis Krums on an iPhone

Stunning pictures from New York as US Airways Flight 1549 lands in the Hudson river.  It’s shocking that while the world tries to battle terrorism, my main concern when flying  now won’t be the possibility of a bomb on board, but the terrifying fear we cross flight paths with a flock of geese. 

It is a great example though of a plane landing in water and everyone survivng.  Every time I fly I look at that emergency instructions card thinking “when has a plane ever landed on water like that?”, well now my question has been answered. Maybe I’ll read that card more carefully next time I fly.

Speaking of which, the middle of January blues have struck and I’m already thinking about where to go on holiday this year.  I have already pencilled in a trip to Norway in August.   I had one of those spur of the moment purchases before Christmas and bought tickets to see Coldplay in Bergen.  I could have gone to Glasgow to see them, but thought it would be more exciting to go to Norway, not to mention more expensive.

But we can’t wait till the end of August to go somewhere abroad, so it looks like a trip somewhere at Easter possibly.  Faro in Portugal and Croatia are two destinations that are looking promising.  The problem is, I’m quite lazy and would prefer to fly from Aberdeen airport which is 20 minutes from where I stay, rather than driving to Glasgow where the choice of flights are considerably more.  Therefore flying from Aberdeen to somewhere exotic tends to be double the price as it involves a stop in London or Paris (and after travelling through Paris last year I vowed never to do it again).

However if Emma doesn’t get over this plane landing in the water in New York, it looks like a weekend camping in Lossiemouth might be our only option.

David