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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 – November 2024:

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Comments (118)

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

  • yorkieflyer says:

    As a York resident I don’t feel over qualified to comment personally on the rooms in our hotels. Always asked where to stay and location location location pleased to comment on but after repeated dingy rooms in Victorian hotels in UK Mrs Yorkieflyer says “go for afternoon tea and stay at the Premier Inn”
    Daily Fail now saying we are top UK city to visit and for once won’t disagree with the odious rag!

  • Lady London says:

    You were 100% downgraded. That’s a premium room not a suite – there’s no couch and nothing that could claim to be a lounge area. Perhaps The Principal York thinks adding 1 more chair than Hilton does to a normal table in the room makes it a suite?

    I do have to be in York but there is no way I will ever stay in this hotel. Because of the fact that they lied about the type of room they gave you – and should have upgraded you anyway. I could quite easily be happy with this room but they lied so that means I won’t deal with them.

    • Ade says:

      When I stayed there and had the same experience I was told by reception that their definition of a junior suite was a room that has a view of York Minster! I’m sure people have complained about this countless times but they obviously have no interest in doing anything about it.

  • chrism20 says:

    I’m assuming the lack of AC is down to the age of the building but surely there must be some way of retro fitting it.

    Shame that the rooms are so bad although when you look at the rates they are charging and the constant flow of tourists through York who will probably not be back for a long time it’s clear that investing is way down the list.

    • yorkieflyer says:

      It’s the same problem with restaurants, folk won’t be back so mainly overpriced mediocre food, crap service everywhere in uk now to be fair since the European hospitality staff by and large left

      • Nick says:

        That is a very relevant point!! I’ve said it before, many times recently, and I’ll say it again, continental & eastern European staff, largely, inherently, totally understand the difference between service & servility. UK staff, especially over recent years, often think that providing good ‘service’, is servile! This often results in poor service, which, unless corrected by good management, just leaches into the whole hotel, or other hospitality operation.

        Sadly, with the lack of good staff, generally, this in an increasingly big issue, generally, in the hospitality industry now

        • Nick says:

          Overuse of ‘generally’, I know… 🙂

        • Bagoly says:

          Certainly true for French, Iberian, and Portuguese.
          Service in Germany, particularly in shops, is on average worse than the UK
          It was very inherent in the ex-communist countries in the early 1990s.
          But they have generally overtaken the Germans since.
          I think you are right that the key is getting the mindset to be “how do we cooperate with customer to maximise the outcome for both of us?”.

      • T says:

        Because everything the media portraits the European workforce to be is people sitting on their knees in fields, or manning the local carwash. Truth of the matter is, those workers are only a small part of the total European workforce. Majority of people went back as European salaries are much higher then the handouts paid in the UK!
        Food and beverage, hospitality, is an art, with highly skilled professionals needed. They don’t work for minimum wages. These days are long gone.

        • Mike says:

          Considering 6 million people applied under the EUSS and the relative emigration rates, I suspect your claim of “majority” going back is utter bull. Have you ever considered checking things before you say them as another nonsense remoaner fact?

          • buchanan101 says:

            “Remoaner”..!? Most of the nonsense facts (or, to give them their full name, lies) have come from the Brexiters as we are seeing only too well now.

            Anyway. We are talking specifically about hospitality. Many in hospitality were here were young and here fairly short term and a high proportion have gone back. Those who applied for permanent status would’ve been all sorts of ages in all sorts of jobs.

            Maybe you can explain why hospitality is struggling to find employees? (And farms, and airlines and…)

            Note, by the way, immigration from outside the EU has increased … which is really not what many Brexiters voted for.

  • Bagoly says:

    Standards for bathing were very different when these hotels were built, largely without ensuite bathrooms.
    And a lot of business for the railway hotels was like airport hotels today – somewhere to sleep between connections, so small rooms were enough.
    The only way to make the bedrooms consistent by today’s standards with the public areas is to bite the bullet and cut the number of keys by about a third – starting point is that every third room becomes two bathrooms for the rooms either side.
    Higher prices, but a coherent offering, and could make an operating profit.

    The challenge is that almost certainly someone has paid too much in the past for the asset, so someone new has to get the current holders of the capital to accept the writedown to cover the (physical) restructuring.

  • Alastair Actually says:

    Rob, reading this my thoughts were “don’t they know who you are?”

    • TM says:

      You never know who your customers are. That’s why you should treat them all fairly and give them the room they have booked and not lie about it.

    • Nick says:

      Really?! Reading all of the comments, I’d say that 100% of people, with, at least some some knowledge, of this hotel and/or the hospitality industry in general, believe that anyone would have been disappointed, at the very least, by what was offered! Maybe you think differently? Maybe you’d like to post why exactly?

    • chrism20 says:

      Without commenting on the DYKWIA factor you would seriously think that a note would be on file from the first visit where compensation was agreed.

      Any decent hotel would check the notes but when you look at all the other faults within the hotel it’s not a surprise.

  • Hbommie says:

    I might have missed it, but I rate the Indigo in York. Bit of a trek but fossgate is a nice area.

    • yorkieflyer says:

      Yes Fossgate has a nice independent vibe

      • The Savage Squirrel says:

        Yes it does. And nowhere within the walls of little old York is THAT much of a trek…

  • Barnaby100 says:

    I was once speaking at a conference there

    Arrived , the room was so so awful that I drove home again and back the next morning

    A second time the bed had clearly been at least been slept on if not in and there were adult shoe prints on the cushions

    I spent a lot of my childhood weekends in that hotel and thd location is great

  • John says:

    I was underwhelmed by my room when I stayed in 2020. I was IHG Spire level at the time and any upgrade was either marginal or the basic rooms are tiny. However at the time the rate was very reasonable for the city.

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