Oxford South (Didcot) hotel

I stayed here for two nights Fri-Sun and my mother in-law who had an accessibility room also. it was simple to pay the parking £4.50 /night on arrival which I knew about in advance. the reception staff were very helpful. both our rooms were very clean and looked recently decorated . storage a little limited with only a few shelves for clothes but fine for our short stay. we ate one evening meal and 2 full breakfasts in the Beefeater . A sign recommended booking in advance which we did , this turned out wise as a few people came in for a table and were told they were fully booked. the meals were excellent and the staff couldn't have been better decoration in the beefeater was in need of refreshing but I could look past this as my whole experience was positive and would stay there again without hesitation

Room was clean and tidy, bed comfy, breakfast was good, but....we booked a meal at the attached Beefeater, one of the starters arrived 10 minutes after the rest and my youngest sons main arrived as everyone else finished theirs. It wasnt even busy, food was nice but I would think twice about eating g there again.

We stayed here recently and were really impressed with the room. It looked like it had recently been re-furbished. The bed was really comfy - a large walk in shower - plenty of charging points as well as bedside USB sockets and very clean. There was a fridge and coffee machine which we’ve not seen before in a Premier Inn. Didn’t get to use it but the hairdryer looked good - not the usual “hold the button” down type which are not very good. There was a large flat screen TV on the wall and even an ironing board. There was a £4 charge for parking but considering parking charges in the area and how cheap the room was we didn’t think it unreasonable. We didn’t have breakfast there.

The room (no: 5) was comfortable on the whole, albeit the hairdryer didn't work at all, plus the loo seat was ill-fitting & loose & there was visible staining in the loo pan. The immediate surroundings of the hotel gardens & car park area were all in need of some attention as there was litter strewn around, grassed areas were messy & overgrown, wooden posts outside the restaurant area were broken & all the windows were in need of a good clean. The pathway view from the windows in room no: 5 was a complete mess with overhanging foliage, litter, scruffy & dirty windows & window ledges. Most disappointingly though was the breakfasts which I had paid for in advance when booking the room. The Vegan options were extremely limited, barely any choice at all. The hash browns looked soggy & not crispy; the half tomatoes looked undercooked with no colour to them. We asked the staff if there were any mushrooms & they said they'd run out of them, even though it was only about 9am. The bread was ok for toasting, but there were no vegan pastries to choose. There was only soya milk for tea/coffee/cereal, (no other plant milk alternatives were available, like the most popular one: oat milk), there were no vegan yoghurts. So options/choice for vegans was abysmal, yet the price is the same as non-vegans who are provided with a much wider choice & variety for the same cost! This is NOT equality NOR fair for non-animal flesh/secretions eaters to pay the same price as animal eaters.....yet not have the same volume of options to choose from! My mum is not vegan , but she is vegetarian & she was incredibly disappointed with the state of the 'cooked' breakfast. She selected a croissant & tried a small piece of it....she said it was squashy & undercooked. She had a hash brown but only had a small bite of it & said it had a strong onion flavour to it, which is not nice to eat for breakfast. She also put a small amount of the scrambled egg on her plate & when she tasted that she said it was rubbery & had a horrible taste to it. We spoke to restaurant staff about the scrambled egg & we were informed that the reason that the scrambled eggs were swimming in a couple of inches of water was because they had been frozen scrambled eggs!!! How disgusting is that !! My mum's hash brown, scrambled egg was only luke warm too. The 2 x vegan sausages that were brought out to me, (that I had to ask for, as they were not readily available to choose), were definitely done by a non-vegan 'cook' as they were not actually cooked correctly, there was no colour to them, they were pale looking & when I tried a bite of one I couldn't eat the rest as it was awful. This breakfast was the absolute worst breakfast my mum & I have ever tasted anywhere !! To have paid over £20 for 2 x breakfasts was a rip-off to say the least! The 'hot' breakfast was barely warm. Choice for non-animal eaters was pitiful. The quality of food was appallingly sub-standard, even the fruit juices tasted like processed, flavoured water & not like proper natural fruit juice. With regard to the self-service buffet situation.... yes, of course, it's nice to help ourselves to what we wish to put on our plates BUT when other customers pick up the tongs to put animal flesh & dried blood, (bacon & black pudding), on their plates, then use the VERY SAME TONGS to pick up hash browns or tomatoes....this results in CROSS CONTAMINATION!! The tongs aren't labelled for individual food items, so I witnessed the 2 chaps in front of me use a single pair of tongs for picking up multiple items. I spoke to the chaps & said that unfortunately they had now contaminated the non-animal based items, to which they replied: "oh, sorry". This must happen all the time, so nothing in the hot buffet is actually suitable nor safe for vegans or vegetarians or certain food allergies &/or food intolerances sufferers, especially if people are using the tongs & serving spoons for all the items !! I'm vegan ethically & DO NOT want to eat food contaminated by tongs & serving spoons that other people have used already on non-vegan 'foods'. Worryingly, some people may be allergic to animal-based so-called 'foods', so this could be extremely DANGEROUS to those people with certain allergies if they encounter buffet tongs & serving spoons being used for all the items causing cross-contamination!! Additionally, I think it's very cheeky & greedy of Premier Inn to expect hotel guests to pay to park at the hotel. I assumed, obviously incorrectly, that the £4.50 I had paid for parking my car, would then be deducted off of my hotel payment....sadly I was mistaken.

Nice room. Charging £4 to park at a hotel you’ve paid to stay in is outrageous! Automated check in, no welcome from staff. Totally impersonal