There’s a run on features the day we keep on the Crowne Plaza in Gerrards Cross, Bucks — a hen evening, a giant birthday bash and varied different excitable celebrations.
Nearly all 138 rooms are taken and a discover at reception warns that should you intend to have breakfast between 9am and 10.30am, then you need to anticipate delays. If you happen to take a Southern practice to work most days, you wouldn’t need to learn that.
However at the very least there’s no signal of the employees downing instruments. Removed from it. They’re cheery and environment friendly, albeit with an inflection that smacks of coaching days and memorising vacuous phrases similar to ‘How has your day been to date?’ and ‘Have you ever any plans for the weekend?’
Unimaginative: The Crowne Plaza at Gerrards Cross is snug, but it surely lacks character
Numerous cash was spent final yr doing up this enormous resort, which was once referred to as The Bellhouse.
Now, with its white frontage and sliding doorways, it seems to be as if it belongs in an American shopping center. The automotive park is gigantic and there’s a water function outdoors the primary entrance.
You possibly can see into the health club and indoor pool on arrival — so we received’t be parading ourselves there in a rush.
Our room, reached through an airless hall, is extra pleasing than we had anticipated, with a lot of shiny new surfaces, a leather-based headboard, sensible rest room and mini bar providing free cans of Coke and a miniature bottle of rose wine.
Too shiny: The cruel lighting within the canteen-style eating room leaves a lot to be desired
‘The place is everybody?’ we ask a waiter within the clanging, canteen-style eating room — the place even when it have been full, it might wrestle for ambiance.
The cruel lighting and fixed drone of what might be an air extractor doesn’t assist. The theme is Josper Grill, a combo of a grill and oven utilizing charcoal, but it surely doesn’t save our steaks, that are powerful and tasteless.
Subsequent morning, it’s a unique story. The canteen comes alive with probably the greatest breakfast buffets ever. We’re in there approach earlier than the revellers — which is nice and unhealthy.
Good as a result of we get first dibs on the nosh, unhealthy as a result of the piped music is way too loud for that point of the day.
