10 replies to this topic

[Hogfather]

Before we start let me say the following. Last year I made a hotels topic, I did that because I knew London quite well as a traveller on a budget and could offer some advice on cheap places to stay.

Brighton however is another story. I don't know the place very well, like the majority of other people I didn't have an easy task finding places to stay which didn't cost the earth. But I did find a number of good resources and ways to get hotel rooms on the cheap.

Mainly I'll be talking about accomodation, but I'll also mention some travel ideas that you might find of use.

Visit Brighton .com

This is the tourism website for Brighton and it also has a rather large database of hotels and the majority do let you book through it. Clicky for the linky. It also has tourism info that you may find of use.

Mainly, you'll find hotels on there. Hotels are nice if you have some money to burn, but.... you are best going with the guest houses.

Guest houses

Brighton is a seaside town, like almost every seaside town, it has a small army of guest houses which give you almost the same services as hotels, but at much better rates.

However, guest houses do not have money to spend on website design, a lot of them either don't have one, or havn't updated it for a decade (yes I did find one which said 'last update 1999') You will probably need to ring them up to find out what rates they offer as well as a few other questions.

But... there are some places that do have a huge list of guest houses.

http://www.fieldhousehotels.co.uk/

http://securebooking.eviivo.com/

Things you will probably need to ring them and ask about...

1: Check in check out times (this is often different to hotels, but not by much).

2: Is there a curfew? (this is very very rare in this day and age, but it does happen. Sometimes a guest house may not have a 24 hour staff reception, it may also not give guests keys for the main door, the rule is 'back before a said time or else you are locked out'

THIS IS EXTREMELY RARE! It doesn't usually happen anymore, but I would definately call and ask about this one before you book. Go watch the episode of only fools and horses when they go to Margate for an example of this happening with comedic results.

I've not looked for anymore resources for guest houses, but I'm sure there are a lot more out there.

Single rooms expensive? Buy a twin for less!

I discovered this last year and I was shocked to find it's happened almost every time I've booked somewhere.

Say I want a single room at a hotel, often it costs me more than if I chose to stay in a twin or double room. Even if I'm the only one staying in it, it costs me less. Even if the hotel charges me for two people, sometimes it can cost less!

I know this sounds utterly barking. But Gamefest last year, and SOS this year, I've booked a twin and saved money if I'd booked a single at the same place! Specifically, last year I saved over £30 by booking two people at a twin room in a Days Inn for Gamefest. The room was not only larger, but nicer than the singles they had, and the fact I was the only one staying in there wasn't even a problem, I even had an extra breakfast if I wanted it!

It also helps you actually find rooms at hotels which may seem sold out, often it's just the singles that are gone. They may still have twin or double rooms on offer.

Combine this tactic with trip deal agencies (see the next point) and you can save a ton of money.

Super Break!

Super Break is a service that offers you deals and places to stay at very good rates, give them a look if you get stuck, you might find a good deal.

Even if the hotel says it's fully booked, Super Break might actually have vacancies for it since they get allocated rooms before they actualy go on sale to the public.

Why stay in Brighton? When you can stay in Hove!

Most people are looking for places to stay in Brighton... but you are aware Hove is literally right next door?

Think of Brighton/Hove like this. You live in a semi detached house.... Brighton is you imediate neighbour. The two places are literally right next door to one another, in fact SOS is at the HOVE centre. It's in Hove, but you can literally walk from one town to the other and not notice.

Try searching for Hove hotels/guest houses and see if you get other search results.

The London option

I wanna get this complaint out of the way which I've seen a lot on the SOS comments...

"It costs £30 to get from London to Brighton and it takes hours!"

When I was at college, it took me over an hour to get from my house to it... The same is true for Uni... and I'm now old it's now true for work....

It takes 50-60min on a train to get from London Victoria or London bridge to Brighton. It currently costs £3.30 (either direction) for an adult if you book before the train company which runs the south area stops the discount (don't know the date, but if you book now you get it).

Ticket/travel time from London is nothing. Not if you're looking/booking now and to be honest, you should be since due to the way trains work, the longer you leave it, the more expensive the tickets are.

Now hotels...

London has a lot of very cheap places, you can find last years topic on hotels I made here. Provided you're willing to get up early on the Saturday... why not? It's an hour away on train, and the trains are exceptionally freequent from either Victoria or Bridge due to the fact that Brighton is a main line from London.

Those are a few tips that might help you out, but help each other out, if you've found a good place that has rooms, let us know. Yes we all found Sea Spray and instantly wanted to know how much the elvis hotel was with it's box of naughty fun (seriously they offer this even if you opt to stay alone... why!?), but if you've found two places, booked one and not the other... post the names of both these places so someone else can take look.

[Dreamy Luigi]

people can stay at my house if they want!

[Katzii]

Nice idea for a thread! I already booked my accommodation and travel months before in London (trying to think ahead of the game doesn't always work!), but it's fine since we're doing a long-weekend stay anyways. Good luck to everyone else who is hunting out accommodation!

[Pawn]

Well I'll be... Looking at the National Rail website I can get from Victoria to Brighton for a fiver. I didn't realise it would be that cheap if you booked in advance. Awesome. Thanks for the heads up Hogfather!

[bmn]

Speaking of, Hove station is the closer one to the venue, and it's the same price.

[Major Ziggy]

My overnight accommodation after the event is at the Travelodge at Gatwick Airport. It was and as I type still is very cheap for a room. It's about 22 miles from Brighton but the train service is very frequent so there's no harm staying behind a bit after the event ends. There's 17 services between 20:00 and 00:00 by First Capital Connect or Southern Trains, either from Brighton (East Sussex) station or from Hove station. A single costs £8.00.

[theGagaman]

Thanks to the link to Superbreak man, was struggling to find accommodation that was both cheap enough and close enough but found one on there today for £88.50 each. Everywhere else I was looking was beyond £200 each!

[HelenBaby]

Well I was going to make a whole new topic for this, but I thought that would be wasteful as its just a specific little query really.

Ok I'm a total Brighton n00b. Never been there before in my life xD.

I was just wondering if any of y'all who happen to know the area a little better might know a bus I could take from the Hove Centre to Lower Rock Gardens (postcode BN2, this is where my accomodation will be). If worse comes to worst I could get a taxi, but being short of cash atm I would obviously prefer to take a bus.

Also, how much are bus fares down in ol' Brighton?

Edited by HelenBaby, 30 June 2012 - 10:40 PM.

[Hogfather]

I was just wondering if any of y'all who happen to know the area a little better might know a bus I could take from the Hove Centre to Lower Rock Gardens (postcode BN2, this is where my accomodation will be). If worse comes to worst I could get a taxi, but being short of cash atm I would obviously prefer to take a bus.

I might have a possible solution, whats the name of the hotel you're staying at? Or landmarks nearby? Just so I can find a bus route to Brighton station for you (I know thats not where the SOS is but it'll make sense later).

Edit: Based on the location you gave, according to google maps if you head to St James' street, it's a main route for most of the busses, I'd simply get on one which is going to the station, then get a second for the SOS.

[JayZeach]

http://history.buses...es/areawide.pdf this shows a colour coded map of all the bus routes, if you can match it up to google maps there's a bus that takes you back to the main brighton town centre, and then from there either a bus along Eastern Road, or a bus along Marine Parade, either will involve walking to the street in between the two as from this it doesn't show a bus going directly to that street

EDIT: Thought it looks like some buses might actually head straight through the town centre and along one of those two roads!

[HelenBaby]

Thaanks guys! *saves JJ's pdf*

Also, Cas, I'm staying at the Sandalwood Hotel

Edited by HelenBaby, 02 July 2012 - 02:05 PM.