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Review: the Principal York hotel – fool me once, fool me twice

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This is our review of the Principal York hotel. This hotel is part of IHG and IHG One Rewards despite being unbranded.

(EDIT: The Principal York hotel left IHG in October 2022.)

Two years ago I had a terrible stay at the Principal York hotel. I didn’t write about it because we weren’t actually in the hotel for long and didn’t experience much apart from the awful rooms we were given as top tier members of IHG Rewards. I had a chat with the GM, compensation was paid (a full refund for both of the rooms we booked) and I got on with my life.

Until last week.

Review Principal York hotel exterior

You can learn more about the hotel, and book, on its website here.

On a family stay in York back in April we made sure we avoided the Principal and headed to the nearby Hampton instead. However, this time my wife wasn’t there (I can’t risk divorce by taking her back to the Principal) and I was lured back because I needed to catch an early morning train. The Principal is literally attached to York Station.

As the GM told me herself two years ago – to paraphrase, since I can’t remember the exact words – ‘we have five star public areas but we don’t have five star rooms and this causes us huge problems’. This is true. IHG knows it too, which is why it can’t rebrand Principal York – it doesn’t make sense for any of the core brands to take it on.

The back story

Principal York came into IHG when it acquired 13 UK hotels, including the Principal and De Vere brands, from Starwood Capital in 2018.

Starwood Capital had been buying up historic UK hotels and throwing huge amounts of money at them. Once bought by IHG, Principal London became Kimpton Fitzroy and Principal Manchester became Kimpton Clocktower.

Principal Edinburgh Charlotte Square and Principal Blythswood Square Hotel Glasgow also became Kimpton hotels, whilst Principal Cardiff became the first voco in the Europe. Principal Edinburgh George Street returned to being an InterContinental, the brand it had until 2015.

Starwood Capital had made a tactical error though. It was buying up old, often Victorian, hotels with tiny rooms, and leaving them tiny. The base rooms at Kimpton Fitzroy are probably the smallest of any luxury hotel in London. You can spend all the money you want on fancy public spaces but when your guests get to their expensive room and find that it is virtually no bigger than the bed, things aren’t going to end well.

Principal York doesn’t have air conditioning in many rooms which, I believe, is a brand standard for Kimpton – the most natural brand home for this hotel. Principal Manchester had it retrofitted to allow it to be rebranded.

Principal York has astonishing interiors

Let’s be clear about this. The public areas of Principal York are probably in the Top 5 of all UK hotels outside London. It is astonishingly well done, from the antique suitcases scattered around reception to the lovely new conservatory / restaurant and the beautiful library / afternoon tea room. Even the staircase is one of the most impressive in any UK hotel. See:

Review Principal York hotel lobby

and

Review Principal York hotel tea room

and

Review Principal York hotel lobby

and

Review Principal York hotel tea room

It’s hugely impressive.

Rooms at the Principal York hotel

The rooms are where it falls apart. For a start, the hotel has an astoundingly ugly modern extension with additional rooms in it. This is beyond hope and should be demolished. The only upside is that a lot of hotel guests won’t actually realise that the extension is part of the hotel because it is separated by function rooms.

Base rooms in the main historic building are small and dark based on my experience and should be avoided. The hotel won’t upgrade you out of these, however high your status, based on what happened to me two years ago.

This time, though, I had a plan. I booked a Junior Suite. The price difference over a base room was modest (the Junior Suite was £152, base rooms were £110+) and just look at what you get, based on these two pictures from the hotel website:

Review Principal York hotel junior suite

and

Review Principal York hotel junior suite

Except, this is what I got:

Review Principal York hotel bedroom

Hmmm. I went back to reception and pointed out the disparity. I also pointed out that my room looked surprisingly like the pictures of a Premium Room on the hotel website.

It seemed to me that I had been downgraded without my knowledge, although the hotel claimed that my room was a Junior Suite just like the one in the top two images above. This is despite the fact that the hotel’s own website claims that all junior suites have a ‘lounge seating area’ which mine didn’t.

What was weirder was that ihg.com showed two Juniors Suites and two full suites (why was I not upgraded to one of those anyway, as a Diamond Elite?) still available for sale.

Unfortunately, my son had taken away my bargaining power by going straight to sleep as soon as we got into the room. By the time I’d done my digging into what I’d been given vs what was available, it was too late to move. Suffice it to say that – for my second stay running – an acceptable financial and non-financial settlement was reached ….

The rest of my room

Let’s quickly run over the rest of the room. I had no complaints about the bed, although the sole USB socket was broken:

Review Principal York hotel bed

There was no coffee machine, which is a little odd for a ‘suite’ (if indeed this was a junior suite), but you got a kettle and a pot of teabags etc. I did like the ‘coffee bags’ supplied which were a marked step up from sachets. A couple of bags of crisps were also provided for free.

The minibar, not pictured, contained a bottle of IHG-branded water in a refillable glass bottle.

The bathroom wasn’t bad except for the single sink:

Review Principal York hotel bathroom

and

Review Principal York hotel shower

Toiletries were branded ‘Antipodes’ in large refillable containers. Everything was marked ‘blackcurrant’ which was a little odd – I’m not sure if people want their hair smelling of blackcurrant …..

For some reason the wardrobe was tucked in a little corridor inside the room, instead of facing the bed:

Review Principal York hotel wardrobe

If your room is in the main historic building, and front facing, you will have a view of York Minster and the small park in front of the hotel:

Review Principal York hotel view

Wi-Fi

I should mention the wi-fi. It was terrible. By far the worst hotel wi-fi I have had in many years.

For the bulk of my stay I had just one ‘bar’ showing on my laptop, and ended up having to tether my mobile phone in order to get any work done. My son had similar issues with his Nintendo Switch. It simply isn’t good enough in 2022.

Breakfast at the Principal York hotel

Breakfast is free to Diamond Elite members if you select it at check-in as your Welcome Amenity. York is relatively cheap in terms of hotel pricing so getting two breakfasts thrown in is, proportionately, a big saving.

The buffet is surprisingly modest – I didn’t ask if the additionally priced cooked items were included for Diamond members but I guess not – but it’s a lovely room. The space operates as a restaurant for the rest of the day.

Review Principal York hotel garden room

What was bizarre was that all of the guests were made to sit in a line by one wall. If you look at the photo above, you would think that the dining room was empty. It wasn’t. However, we’d all been made to sit in a line (out of shot to the right of the picture) – with tiny gaps between the tables – despite this huge space being available. Odd.

Conclusion

I really, really want to like Principal York. I have a soft spot for old railway hotels and a huge sum was spent on the public areas here.

Whilst the base rooms are appalling, I learnt my lesson two years ago and thought that – with a Junior Suite – I’d have a pleasant room to match the public spaces.

Sadly my apparent downgrade (for clarity, the hotel continues to insist that the two rooms pictured above are both Junior Suites despite the huge disparity in size, and it is just a coincidence that my room looks like a Premium Room) meant that it didn’t work out.

Will I now admit defeat and head to the utilitarian Hampton – which is usually pricier than the Principal – next time I need to be very near to the station? Only time will tell ….

The hotel website is here.


IHG One Rewards news

IHG One Rewards update – December 2024:

Get bonus points:

Nights to do not need to be consecutive. Read more in our article here and click here to register.

IHG is running a second promotion for stays at five of its smaller brands. You will receive triple base points between 1st October and 31st December 2024 on stays at voco, avid hotels, EVEN Hotels, Atwell Suites and Garner Hotels. Read more in our article here and click here to register.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

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Comments (118)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Ade says:

    I stayed there around three years ago and had exactly the same issue. It might even have been the same room. I complained that it was not as described and was told that only some junior suites have additional seating etc and what you’re really paying for is a guaranteed view of York Minster! I wasn’t happy but the hotel was full and they refused to do anything about it. Needless to say I won’t be going back.

  • Andrew J says:

    “ The minibar, not pictured, contained a bottle of IHG-branded water in a refillable glass bottle.” So tap water which is refilled into the bottles which people may have drunk directly from. I never drink the water from those bottles, I’d rather drink directly from the tap as it’s probably cleaner.

    • Nick says:

      Indeed! You also have no idea how long they’ve been sitting in the fridge!

    • lumma says:

      Without knowing for certain, I’d imagine that this is filtered water and the bottles are washed in the same 80°c machine that all of the other glassware you drink from in a hotel is cleaned with.

      There isn’t really any reason for hospitality establishments to be using bottled water in 2022 when this alternative is so much better for the environment.

      • Andrew J says:

        Without knowing for sure I’ll stick to water in glass bottles from Italy.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          You don’t know “for sure” whether the workers in the Italian bottling plant have urinated in the water feed or the machinery is full of Legionella. Or how long the bottled water has been there (although if it has come from Italy you can say with confidence it has sat stagnant for far longer than replenished tap water). If you’re that worried just replenish the water out of the tap!
          I still think the “Peckham Spring” episode of Only Fools is particular genius as it perfectly deconstructs the entire pointlessness of shipping round bottled water.

          • Andrew J says:

            Somewhat unlikely though!

          • Nick says:

            Indeed, again! It reminds me of the penchant of many in society now that just love to eat what i call ‘fingered food’. That is, food that chefs just love to display on a plate like a picture, positioning every little morsel with their fingers.

            Do people really believe that many chefs don’t occasionally scratch their a***, or b****, without immediately washing their hands?!

  • Njb says:

    Stayed here last December – a very similar experience- although we got ‘upgraded’ to a one bedroom suite. Mmmm – dark and dingy room with a sofa/TV and a tiny bedroom. Rattling old windows and poor central heating. Woeful bar service and poor breakfast. Would never go back.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    There’s a reason why none of these hotels ever made it into SPG 😉

    I’d like to like them but all of the rooms at the ex principal hotels are done on the cheap

  • buchanan101 says:

    If you want large – or huge – rooms near the station in York try The Grand though can be expensive. If you want stupidly designed-trying to be too clever- (also small) rooms nearby try Malmaison.

  • qrfan says:

    I had the same experience last year and it was the final straw in ditching IHG. Useless rooms that are baking hot on an average summer night. I dearly wish this article was published last year.

  • lumma says:

    I visited York between Christmas and New Year last year and this hotel was £350+ a night.

    • Rob says:

      There is a big NYE event which is a fixture of the social scene in the area.

      • lumma says:

        I stayed overnight in Leeds instead. The Holiday Inn Express was something like £29!

  • Louise K says:

    Similar experience last year. Had an expiring hotel night and hubby was waiting on surgery so booked this for a last minute getaway as to not waste the free night.

    Dark dingy room that you had to climb stairs to get to and the room was freezing. No heat to it whatsoever. Nice big walk in shower that looked like it was new but did not drain away very well. Thankfully, it was only one night but I would not pay to stay here.

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