We’ve all been to hotels and had a bad night’s sleep. How many times have you been to a large hotel – the kind where there’s a row of 50 rooms all off one long corridor? There’s a heavy self-closing fire door about every ten bedrooms so each time a business person heads to their early breakfast, the doors go bang, bang, bang as each one shuts in turn. Then the housekeepers arrive, and they struggle getting their trolleys through the doors so push and clatter them through as they go. Next the early risers are off to breakfast, chatting as they go in normal voices without a care in the world.
What’s worse is the fact that you feel you deserve a lie in, as late into the night you were disturbed with guests coming back late from town, the thud of the lift doors closing, more door banging along with loud giggles and drunken voices ‘til the early hours.
Luckily not here at The 25! We have no lift for a start, and with only six bedrooms, and only five on the first floor, there’s not so many people to disturb you. We have minimal fire doors (three to be precise – one either end of the ground floor corridors and one on the drawing room). These are held permanently open on magnets and they close automatically in the event of a fire. The beauty is, the only time you’ll hear them banging shut is in the event of a fire, and to be honest you don’t want to be sleeping then anyway. It sounds like the opening titles sequence of Prisoner Cell Block H when they all shut in quick succession when we test the fire alarm each week.
Many of our guests tend to be more mature in age, maybe fifty plus. Whilst they are not beyond partying themselves, they have rarely come to Torquay to do so, and are more likely to want to be in bed at a reasonable time in order to make the most of a day’s sightseeing the next day than going clubbing down in the harbour.
I have to admit, I did like the rules we had for the short four months we were allowed to open in 2020. Due to Covid restrictions, clubs and bars were still closed, as you could only get a drink if you were eating too. Restaurants had to close up at 10pm, so even if walking back from town, this meant all our guests were safely in their rooms by 10:30pm. Therefore, it wasn’t possible for anyone to be disturbed by late comers past this time. We don’t allow late check-ins for the same reason. We don’t think it’s fair on other guests for someone to be taking cases up stairs and along corridors past 10pm.
We’ve invested in televisions with a special hotel mode, which means we can restrict access to certain settings. If we didn’t, you wouldn’t believe the things some people manage to do by pressing the wrong button here or there. Our TVs don’t allow anything beyond what a regular guest would need access to, and most importantly, we can limit the volume level. Of course, we allow it to go high enough that you can easily hear it, but if you’re a little deaf, you might want to switch your hearing aid up or the subtitles on. You’re not going to be able to watch the news in bed at full volume at 6am just because you haven’t put your hearing aid in yet.
Whilst the walls in the most part are brick between guest rooms, and the others are well insulated, and generally backing onto bathrooms rather than bedrooms, it’s worth noting that you still have a bedroom door. It’s surprising how many people think a door will result in sound proofing. Despite the door being a heavy fire door, it’s probably the area where the most sound will leak from a bedroom. Luckily, four of our six rooms also have an extra internal door between the main bedroom door and the bedroom so this helps reduce any noise being made making it into another bedroom.
Worst case scenario, as we can’t account for all noises made externally to the bed and breakfast, then we do supply ear plugs too in the “In case you Forgot” box. Our windows are double glazed, and even in the summer, there’s no need to have the window open overnight as you have air conditioning in all our rooms.
So, if you’re looking for a good night’s sleep, head down to The 25 Boutique B&B. We’d love to see you, and we have so much more than just a quiet atmosphere to help you sleep. I haven’t even mentioned our crisp white sheets, our super comfy beds, cloud like pillows and duvets or the Elemis pillow mist. I’ll save those for another day, or better still, just book a stay with us now and experience it for yourselves.
You can only book direct with us on our website at www.the25.uk
