I was recently invited to visit and stay at the Great Victoria Hotel Bradford to review the hotel and what it has to offer. As Bradford is about 50 minutes to an hours drive away it isn’t a place that my husband & I would instantly think of visiting to go shopping (we have Leeds more or less on our doorstep) or to stay for the night (not close but not far enough to warrant it.) I was quite excited as I know the city has recently gone through a regeneration project and have seen fellow Yorkshire Bloggers singing it’s praises, plus it’s home to one of my favourite museums as a child, The National Media Museum.
After setting off (and turning back round again as I had forgot my camera to then make the trip again) we arrived at the hotel around 1.30pm to check in. The hotel’s entrance is pretty impressive and quite spectacular. First impressions do count for a lot in travel. Whilst some of the paint work was a little tired it was still a beautiful building all the same. The Great Victoria is a 3 star rated hotel and has also won a TripAdvisor “Award of Excellence” too which gave me great comfort.
Once inside it was pretty beautiful too, with grey and white painted ornate walls and chandeliers to line the ceiling cornices it was clear to see that the grandeur continued inside. The receptionist who was waiting to greet guests was polite and welcoming but we hit slight bump in the road when there was no recollection of our booking on the system. Whilst normally I’m pretty cool, calm & collected in this situation I started to panic as I had overheard the staff talking about the two weddings that were to take place that day/night (one being a a large Asian wedding) I was worried that there wouldn’t be room at the inn. Luckily after a couple of minutes the issue was rectified and we were given our keys to the room.
We were placed on the second floor, up the winding staircase (or head up in the lift if you struggle) – first impressions. The room was of a standard city hotel size, not huge but not too small. We had great big wardrobes and a large comfy bed. When you start to scratch at the surface little things like the paintwork was a bit hap hazard and the TV signal wasn’t too great but all in all, it was a clean and airy room that I felt perfectly happy to stay in.
The bathroom was pretty lovely too, the tiles were my ideal tiles (yes, I do have a thing for tiles!) and the added touch of the White Company toiletries was a pleasant surprise for a 3 star hotel – we had them at a 4 star hotel at our Stay in Birmingham so it wasn’t something I would expect here. Bonus points to the Great Victoria.
After dumping all our stuff we headed out to visit the Broadway Shopping Centre, a new shopping mall that was recently opened by Alexandra Burke (you can read Kellie’s post here!) With the likes of H&M, New Look and Topshop it was a heavenly day for me, plus the husband didn’t moan that we were shopping, score! We were pretty peckish so we decided to head to Patisserie Valerie and enjoy a champagne Afternoon Tea which was delicious too. We decided to head back to the hotel for an obligatory nap before we got ready for our evening meal at the Exchange Restaurant at the hotel.
After feeling pretty refreshed from my nap we watched a little bit of the Rugby before we got dressed. My husband did struggle under the shower head as it was quite low, but it was only a minor niggle in the grand scheme of things. There was plenty of hot water for our evening shower (the same sadly can’t be said for the morning around 8am.) All dressed up with somewhere to go we headed downstairs to the bar to be met by a really attentive team. Shown to our tables and drinks ordered we pondered over the menu selection.
The offerings are quite typical of what you would expect in a British Pub with the added exception of Curry’s. After all, you can’t come to Bradford and not be offered a local curry now can you? I had a headache brewing so I was really dying for some comfort food. My husband was dead set on ordering a curry. Luckily he let me try a little bit to see what I was missing.
I went for the Duck Pate which is my favourite starter, it was really flavoursome and the chutney complimented it really well. I can’t count the number of times I have had pate that has been bland so I was really pleased that the Exchange Bar had got one of my favourite dishes right. James went for the Fishcakes, again one of his top starters when dining out. He was super pleased with the offerings and he said he could really taste the freshness of the fish. Starters had really made a great impression on us both.
I’m such a boring person as I went for steak. Whilst it probably isn’t the most exciting main, it’s a great testament to a restaurant to see how well they adhere to your steak requests. I went rare. I’ve recently become a convert for bloody meat. And much to my surprise it came out just as I had ordered it. Albeit, the steak wasn’t the best cut and was a little chewy in areas but yummy all the same. It came with thick chips which really could have done with slightly longer in the fryer, homemade onion rings which were deeeeeelicious and peppercorn sauce which really made the meal spot on. Now, James had his heart set on a curry and boy did they deliver with the lamb curry he chose. It was just the right amount of spice that you could enjoy it without it blowing your socks off. With a side of garlic naans and rice, Mr C was in his element.
Stuffed to the brim we decided that on this occasion we just could not manage a desert. This time our eyes weren’t a big as our full stomachs. I think it would have sent me over the edge if I had. We finished off our drinks and got talking to a lovely couple from Liverpool who told us some great stories of their curry and beer runs to Bradford many moons ago. It was great to listen to their happy memories of this city. A city I have been so unconnected with before.
Full and happy we headed up to bed, dodging both wedding parties along the way. We were worried that they would keep us up but truth be told once we were up in our rooms we couldn’t hear a peep. With a few episodes of Family Guy and the last ten minutes of Taken 2 we drifted off in to a deep and cosy slumber.
Now, take this with a pinch of salt as this is not the hotel’s fault, but I always seem to find myself below a room occupied by people who insist on rearranging furniture in hotel rooms. At 6.45am we were woken by those above dragging chairs, tables and goodness knows what else across the floor which went on for about an hour or so. We decided that we should just get up and showered to go for breakfast.
It really pains me to write things that aren’t that great about places. As a blogger I’m so very fortunate that I do get to visit hotels to review and quite honestly, we have been so lucky with the standards. The Great Victoria had so far been a very pleasant stay however, breakfast left very little to be desired. Whilst my photos show the food looking pretty nice the breakfast wasn’t that good a quality. The room smelt a little foisty and James kept smelling his food. “Something smells really bad, but I can’t work out what it is?” he kept saying, I thought he was referring to the room but eventually we worked it out and it was the scrambled eggs. They were gone off. I hadn’t touched mine yet so when I took the chance to sneakily smell the eggs I almost gipped in my mouth. I know eggs are smelly, hell, we raised and bred our free range chickens to eat their eggs but never in my life have I smelt eggs that bad. If I was staying here again I would most certainly skip breakfast. To add, they were playing house music at 8.30am on a Sunday morning, it didn’t scream “relaxing breakfast” on lazy Sunday morning at all.
Slightly perturbed, we decided that the breakfast hadn’t and would not spoil our stay with the hotel. We headed back to our room to finish packing and head over to the National Media Museum for a little wander round to relive my childhood days.
Wandering through Bradford the architecture is absolutely phenomenal and with the sun beaming down on the buildings it made for a really nice walk up to the National Media Museum. There was a really great photography section of the museum. Even James got to play some old school video games which kept him in his element for half an hour. The museum is actually free to gain entry, there is a suggestion of a donation of around £3 per person, which we felt was worth it to make sure the place could be fully staffed and ran.
We wandered back to the hotel car park where the parking was free for the guests of the hotel! Another added bonus of staying here. We set off back about 11.30am. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with our stay and with Bradford itself. With it being somewhere I would never think of heading to I would whole heartedly say it’s worth a visit to anyone who is in the area. Plus, you need to try a world famous curry too!
Have you visited somewhere that’s surprised you? Or have you been to Bradford too, what did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Bee xxx
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*Our stay and meal was provided to us free of charge in return for an honest review.
