To celebrate our 14 year wedding anniversary, Catherine books in a Bubbles and Breakfast deal at Malmaison on Newcastle’s Quayside. We’d already booked our meal out at Kaltur on Dean Street and decided to expand the celebrations.
Malmaison Newcastle Deal
The last time I got on a bus to stay in a hotel was a granny express coach trip to Scarborough. This time it was a much shorter journey and only cost £2.30 door to door on the Q3.
Our Bubbles and Breakfast deal, allowed us to check-in to our room from 3pm, included a glass of Prosecco each and in the morning continental breakfast (cooked breakfast is an extra £2 each). Anything additional to this would cost extra. We’re not “tight”, but were aware of this. So decided to get our moneys worth.
As soon as I finished work on Friday night we raced down to the Malmaison, to get ready for our night out there. I was in work uniform, Cat was dress casual. The dark luxurious reception area hid my workwear, but I felt out of place in my scruffy sweatshirt. We quickly checked in and headed up in the lift to check out our room.
Malmaison Newcastle Bedroom Tour
On entering the room there was the initial WOW, this is lovely feel. Followed by “that mattress looks lumpy” thought. The photo below was before we has even sat on the bed.
The high ceiling, grey tones and black framing set the room up to impress. The room wasn’t huge and our view was of the multi-storey carpark out the back of the hotel, but we were on a package deal.
The bathroom was also small, but we loved the taps and styling and were happy to start getting ready for our night out. The actual bath was to the left of the toilet behind a partition wall, which I guess was also part of the shower screen.
As Cat started to run the bath, we popped open a bottle of Prosecco that we’d brought from home. We’d got about 3 hours to fill before our meal was booked so there was no rush.
Unpacking consisted of plugging in a bag load of charging wires into the sockets over the desk unit. Many hotels have USB ports built in to the sockets now and Malmaison had these too. We had iPhones and Apple watches to charge. We even had a power pack to start charging just incase.
At first I thought the desk unit was nice and fitted in with the interior, but looking back it is very office like. Which I guess a lot of their guests are business people and may actually do work at the desks, as opposed to fill it with electronics and a bottle of fizzy.
I will say that I loved the optional in-room red wine display.
And the selection of in room snacks was impressive too. We didn’t touch these though as we were heading out.
A Night Out from Malmaison.
Dressed and ready to go out, we’d finished our bottle of Prosecco and headed down to the Hotel Bar for our… Glass of Prosecco!
The bar area was quite busy as it was graduation weekend, but we found a little quiet booth and sat down. It started to actually feel like we were on holiday. There wasn’t any pressure to do things, the kids were being looked after and we weren’t at home.
Our glasses of Prosecco were brought over to the table along with a saucer of bar snacks. They looked like sugar puffs and had a twang of Sriracha sauce about them. Cat wasn’t keen, but I’m not fussy so I pecked at them.
Before we knew it it was time to head of for Spanish Tapas at Kaltur. Where we had a lush bottle of Rioja. I won’t lie to you and will admit that after the bottle of red we were feeling a little… tired! Though we tried to power on and get a cocktail at Colonel Porters, the bar was heaving and we got impatient, so left. On to The Quayside Bar, which was also heaving. Who would have thought Newcastle on a Sunny Friday night would be busy? After trying to work out how to order drinks on the Weatherspoons App, we gave up and headed back to Malmaison for Coffee in the room.
Breakfast at Malmaison Newcastle
A leisurely lie-in was in order. We weren’t hungover but made the most of not having the noise of kids. Kids shouting “Where’s the Frosties? Do we have Milk? Imogen is having Nutella again!” etc. Just the basic mindless noise the kids spurt out. So we eventually got out of bed around 9:15 am.
Breakfast was served in the brasserie. The included offer was for continental breakfast. There was a good selection of croissants, pain au chocolates and an apple slice pastry. Homemade granola with help your self toppings bar. As many dried fruit additions as you wanted. Yoghurts and prunes and a good selection of cereals. I was going to photograph the buffet, but as I waited for the area to clear, most of the food was gone (possible why the queue had gone too!).
For a £2 supplement, you could upgrade to a cooked breakfast. We felt the need to do this.
Cat chose smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. Which was quite a large portion on the fancy plate.
I continued on with my Eggs Florentine quest. The poached eggs were runny and the spinach tasted fresh, the muffin lightly toasted too. It was a good serving. However, as a Eggs obsessive, I still believe that Café Beam does a better Eggs Florentine. More Hollandaise sauce would have been a good step in the right direction, but apart from that it just didn’t quite taste as good. Although I did enjoy it.
After about 4 cups of nice strong coffee, we packed up and headed back to the room. The Check out time on our deal was 12:00 noon. So Cat took the opportunity to get another hour kip, while I watched cookery programs on TV including a clip of Keith Floyd cooking a lime chicken dish in Florida.
When we found out about the Bubbles and Breakfast deal for £89, I felt it was a great value. If you break it down into the parts (roughly) a taxi home would have been £15, breakfast would have easily been £25. Two glasses of Prosecco would have been at least £12. Which means we’d only really paid around £40 for the room. OK, the maths is slightly out but you get the drift. We’d definitely be up for this again in the future, but next time might try a room upgrade!
Additional Information
Price: Bubbles and Breakfast deal £89
Additional Cost: £2 (per person) for a cooked breakfast
Included: Continental Breakfast and 2 glasses of Prosecco
Website: https://www.malmaison.com/locations/newcastle/
Address: 104, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 3DX
Tel: 0191 3898627
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