We got back yesterday from our mini-break to the Isle of Wight. It was lovely in lots of ways, but the first part was just AWFUL!
I booked us two nights in a nice-looking hotel we found on lastminute.com, and the journey was fine all they way down to Shanklin in the car and ferry etc. Then we got to the hotel and thought “hmmm… this is… okaaay...” and tried to put a brave face on it, but really it just wasn’t. The only word I can use to describe the Sherwood Court Hotel is crap-hole. The receptionist woman was insane and frightening; the room was FILTHY, in that after walking around with no shoes on I felt I had to change my socks; and the clientele was vile. If you told me I’d accidentally booked two nights in a job centre in Moulsecoomb I would have believed you.
We decided to make the best of it and went out for some dinner, and promptly got homophobically abused by a passing motorist. Managed to find Shanklin’s one restaurant, where we had a nice meal actually, and then we went back to The Hotel Craporama where we were kept awake for three hours by the other guests shouting at each other, slamming doors, and coughing and snoring. Yes snoring could be heard through the walls, which presumably had been made out of papier maché.
The breakfast was disgusting, so we promptly packed up and checked out, much to the consternation of the insane receptionist who demanded to know our reasons (we were too polite to say your hotel is the biggest craphole on the south coast) but fortunately got a refund of our second night.
And then we checked into a beautiful hotel in Sandown with a seaview and a balcony, a hot blond porter, and a breakfast that didn’t taste like it had already been digested. Still a little noisy I suppose but a palace in comparison. We had a lovely day at the zoo and the dinosaur museum, and then on our last day drove around a bit and saw some of the other towns.
All in all it was very nice after its wobbly start, but I was still very glad to get home to my own bed and normal people.
PS Also, when someone in Ventnor says hello to you in the street, they are apparently not trying to mug you, they are just being provincial. So I probably shouldn’t have pepper-sprayed that old lady.
