Copthorne Hotel Newcastle — Hotel in Newcastle upon Tyne

My husband and I have stayed at the Copthorne Hotel many times in the past as it has always been our favourite hotel. At booking in, we mentioned we had parked our car in the disabled bay and the female receptionist replied rather abruptly "Doesnt matter if youre disabled, you'll still be charged." My husband made a mention that it must have changed because it was free the other times we stayed. She snapped at him and said "It should never have been given to you for free at all" I felt a bit embarrassed as there were some customers in the queue behind me and I felt her tone was a little unfriendly. She proceeded to tell me to go to a kiosk elsewhere and started giving me instructions for registering parking, but, as I suffer from amnesia, (among other disabilities) I was unable to process the information and so I appologised for the interruption and asked her if she could repeat the instructions to my husband who was busy filling out the parking form at the time. She appeared agitated, and snapped at me saying to just leave it and she"d finish booking first. A queue was forming behind me and I had the feeling she was a little fed up that our check in was taking a little longer because we had made the booking only a couple of hours earlier. I felt like I was being spoken down to and felt a little awkward in front of the other customers. When we had finished, she moved to the next customer and politely welcomed him with a lovely warm and friendly manner, a stark contrast to the check in which we had just experienced. She then told him his parking was free loud enough so it could be heard from the across the room. I don't have a problem with the man's free parking but I just felt that she deliberately raised her voice to let us hear her. Upon arrival to our room we saw there were twin beds. I rang down to reception and a lovely gentleman answered and after he explained the booking was for twin beds, I realised I must have booked a twin room by mistake. I accepted responsibility and was about to hang up when he offered to change us to a room with a double bed as there were lots of rooms like that available. He made it sound like this was to be a free swap. I said that would be really helpful and he began to find us another room, but then he said the upgrade would cost an extra £16.80. I decided against the change of room because the unexpected parking fee had bitten into my budget a little. I think maybe if he had mentioned the fee first, I would have made an excuse and declined instead of having to admit I couldn't afford the room change. Embarrassed again. We didn't book breakfast because we planned a late night, so I knew I would sleep late and therefore would sleep through breakfast. Your fire alarm woke us at around 5.45am and the building had to be evacuated. After waiting in the freezing cold for a while ( I had no coat) we were told the alarm was because of a fault and could return to our room. We were unable to get back to sleep and after 3 hours we began to feel hungry. My husband phoned reception and asked if you would be kind enough to offer us some breakfast as we hadnt booked any on the assumption we wouldnt be awake so early, and that we couldnt get back to sleep after the fire alarm had woken us, to which the female receptionist responded "No we won't!" I didn't mind the refusal, I minded the way we were refused. We immediately packed and left early as we felt too unwelcome to stay any longer. Our checkout should have been at 12pm. We left at 8.45am! I became very self conscious and questioned everything me and my husband were wearing, my hair style, my accent! We have never felt so...

I lived in this hotel for over 18 months a while back and am just adding my review to Google. In my time I saw many changes take place within the hotel from facilities to staff and have witnessed first hand some of the challenges faced and efforts of the hotel to ensure they live up to their values.

SERVICE - Were it not for the service of the staff there would have been little chance of me staying for the length of time I did whilst remaining so comfortable. I received amazing levels of service from every department. Personal requests (some rather bizarre including the installation of a piano in the suite) were met with enthusiasm. The staff really will go the extra mile you need only ask.

VALUE - Being an honest review this section is a little harder to compare given that it has been a ‘Business’ stay. I have found that in comparison to other hotels I have stayed in people may find it a little pricy however you certainly say you get exactly what you pay for. The quality speaks for itself it is a fantastic hotel to stay in. The quality of food from the bar and restaurant menus is to a high standard.

SLEEP QUALITY - The beds which are a quite large have gone into every single room and are a fantastic upgrade on previous.

CLEANLINESS - I have to give praise to the exceptional housekeeping staff who are the unsung heroes taking great pride in their work and do an impeccable job.

LOCATION - Right on the Quayside on the edge of the River Tyne it makes for some truly amazing viewing. The meeting rooms and 1st floor bedrooms provide a balcony so you can look out and take advantage of this. A 3 minute Taxi ride or 10 minute walk will have you right in the centre of town for shopping etc. If however you’re coming up for a good night out it’s is VERY handy having a short trip back to the hotel after celebrating!

ROOMS - Some fantastic views of the river can be had from many rooms in the hotel.

BREAKFAST - The be all & end all of a hotel stay is usually breakfast after the night before and I can happily say you’re in for a treat. You have the classics all readily available as well as menus to order from the Kitchen. My personal favourite touch was been the ability to simply have it delivered to the room if needed.

SUMMARY - There are many things I could mention. The admin team and reservations team behind the scenes who did great jobs in organising Weddings, parties and many events. The Reception team who always managed to keep a smile on there face in the face of all sorts of clientele and challenges that spring up. As the face of the hotel The Copthorne has got it right here and the girls do often give out advice on places to visit and have handy maps to pass out. The Bar staff multi tasking at its finest and the Management Team always on hand if needed.

I have stayed in MANY hotels and whilst I agree this stay was like no other given the length of time spent. I can also say none of my stays have been as enjoyable as this one was. I have not been to many establishments with a team of staff as willing to go above and beyond to help people irrespective of hotels, workplace and suchlike. This is a great place to stay for a night, weekend, short break or if like me you’re lucky enough to pretty much move in whilst working on business.

My friends, colleagues and family have, and I most certainly do recommend The Copthorne Hotel Newcastle as a place to stay. I would urge anyone reading this to put what I have told you to the test and see...

Here as part of a (highcliffe) coach holiday (by far the youngest with them) and we had such a lovely time here.

The staff are all great, the receptionists were polite and approachable and the waiting staff delightful :D

The room we had (209) was AMAZING! Had a view over the river tyne and the windows made the view feel like luxury aswell as bringing in a refreshing sunlight all day long. Where the windows protrude out a bit you may want to pull the curtains just over the small sides of the window if you dont want the chance to see other people like us unsociable sods. The shower was grand! And ive never been inpressed by water pressure before but my lord that is a brilliant shower! The whole room was immaculate, a surprisingly large tv (never a focal point for us but appreciated all the same) and the atmosphere light and healthy. The sockets were easy to access and numersome through the use of a little socket station thing. Possibly a bit far away from the bed but i don't put anyone at fault for that... Wouldnt expect it can be helped and certainly wouldn't expect them to knock in a wall just so i can charge my phone next to the bed haha.

Speaking of, the bed was genuinely like a cloud. Soft but not so you would sink into it and never return but rather like it held you as if you where floating in mid air. We both find sleep difficult for different reasons but in this bed we slept like corpses. It was fantastic.

There IS its fair to mention, every now and then a little noise from the nearby metro bridge. I dont think itd reasonably be that much of a problem to most reasonable people to be honest and wouldnt expect any complaints over it.

Windows didnt open very far but enough to keep the room fresh, it made some of the warmer nights warm enough to sleep half out the duvet but never troublesome.

Breakfast was great. The staff were friendly but its a help yourself buffet style thing so theres little reason to need them anyway. They have a proper selection of different breakfasts including (unusually for us) a pancake maker thing. Otherwise its nothing you wouldnt find in other hotels to the same fair standard. But good! It was good :D and was always quality enough to keep us fed from 6:30 right up to lunch past midday :D

There only potentially negative thing is the lift/stairs situation. It seems the primary way to traverse to your room is by an elevator which is fine to be fair... Except that i have an irrational fear of lifts. Not that I at any time felt it necessary to feel UNsafe however, there ARE STAIRS. The problem though is although labelled as a main staircase they certainly are more of a fire exit only stair case and are quite hidden away (unless we had it all wrong but they were the only stairs through those doors at all) even saying on the doors above that they are fire exit only. None of these things served any problems to us at all, however might do so if you have a worse fear of lifts than I or for whatever reason find either lifts or stairs hard... But then youd book a bottom floor room wouldnt ya haha :D

Thankyou copthorn, you were...