As part of my accessible hotels series, in this blog post I'll be reviewing the Cardiff Marriott Hotel. The Cardiff Marriott hotel is a 4 star hotel in the centre of Cardiff and is only a few minutes walk away from Cardiff Central Railway Station, Cardiff Castle, and The National Museum Cardiff. There is plenty of car parking available on site at the hotel. The hotel is also very well positioned with St David's Shopping centre and John Lewis being right across the road. This makes this hotel a great choice for those looking to be right in the heart of the city for business, shopping or leisure stays and is a reasonable alternative to those who would stay at on of the hotels on Cardiff Bay, but prefer to be closer to the city centre. The hotel also has a very secure car park, charged at £18 a night however, it's confusing to get to due to the bus lane restrictions around Cardiff and the fear of going into a bus lane is huge!
We stayed in the executive room at this hotel after being able to get an upgrade from the superior room. As you may have guessed by now, I don't stay in hotel rooms tagged as accessible just due to personal preference, and this room is no different. The executive rooms are a good size with plenty of room to move about, including around both sides of the king sized bed that this room type features. The bathroom was a good size, with over the bath shower, and grab rails on the bath to make it easier to get out of the bath. The sink area also had plenty of storage space, and I could even get my chair under the sink. The room came supplied with bathrobes and slippers to use in the leisure area, as well as complimentary apple, water, elderflower pressé, and welsh cake. The executive room also allows you access to the executive lounge. However, if you are looking for rooms that are tagged as accessible, the executive level rooms do not have any rooms tagged as accessible at this site.
The Executive lounge is on the 8th floor and is available to those staying in the Executive rooms and suites. The lounge is not only a quiet place to relax or work in outside of the hotel room, but also has free soft drinks, hot drinks, and snacks throughout its opening hours. There are also set food times in this lounge for complimentary breakfast, afternoon tea/Welsh confectionary, and evening canapés! The lounge also gives you free access to an iMac, as well as printing and scanning facilities. The lounge has good views over Cardiff, including the Millennium Stadium (currently known as the Principality Stadium for sponsorship purposes),
The spa and leisure area is excellent in this hotel! The gym is very well equipped and although I went in at 0630, it was actually pretty busy but I didn't mind that too much and a couple of people offered to help me out whilst I was in there of which I'm massively grateful for. The pool area housed probably the biggest pool I've actually seen in a hotel, as well as a really fun jacuzzi on a platform type area next to the pool. There is also a sauna and steam room which normally to get into, I have to do a weird chair to floor transfer and vice versa. However... This hotel, and I'm not even joking when I say this, had very wide doors to get into the sauna and steam room. Both the sauna and steam room can get a wheelchair in, although the steam room has much more manoeuvrability. The access to the leisure area is through the bar/restaurant, and although Brett and I didn't eat in this area, I was able to see that this area of the hotel is easy to move around despite the carpet, and is nicely set out with plenty of room between tables.
Overall the Marriott is a great hotel, well positioned and bursting with facilities. It's a great hotel for those wanting to be close to the city centre, and if I'm not looking to spend time on the bay, I probably would consider it as an alternative to my favourite hotel in the UK which just so happens to be on Cardiff Bay. However, if you are looking at doing both Cardiff Bay and the city centre, and have a slightly higher budget, I would definitely suggest checking out my review of the St David's Hotel here, especially as that bay view both at night, and in the day is priceless and that's just the beginning!
