Yahoo News I stayed at the new Celtic Manor hotel that’s £79 a night and one big thing stood out
As someone whose work commute rarely takes them on motorways in the small hours or requires overnight stays, a hotel off junction 24 of the M4 isn't my usual setting. But I enjoy any opportunity to pan out in a hotel bed flicking channels, watching whatever movie I can find on the TV and popping down to the bar for some atmosphere. Does the novelty of staying in a hotel ever wear off?
On this occasion it was Tŷ Newport, the brand new hotel under the Celtic Collection umbrella, which opened to the public on May 31, 2024 the day before my visit. Located a stone's throw from the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, this new mid-range hotel has been a long time in the making having first been announced five years ago and facing understandable pandemic-related delays.
Featuring 146 rooms, a Mediterranean style restaurant menu and billing itself as Wales' largest all-electric hotel, Tŷ Newport bookings start at just £79 for a room without breakfast - a snip compared to its counterpart up the road where a one-night stay on a weekend without breakfast in June costs £534.
READ MORE: I stayed in the cheapest hotel in Cardiff and I was so miserable
But what exactly does a more modestly priced alternative to the Celtic Collection's jewel in the crown offer? We booked a one-night visit for £99 which included breakfast to find out. WalesOnline also took a first look inside the brand new hotel on opening day last Friday and you can see those pictures here.
The welcome
The hotel itself is pretty easy to find by car and has a sizeable car park, which makes sense as although it's convenient if you drive, its location means it might be trickier to get to if you don't.
The main entrance is simple and tidy with a giant Welsh dragon greeting you and a grey minimal canopy above automatic doors welcoming you inside.
The reception has a similarly minimal feel with slick wood panelling and plenty of natural light. The check-in process was easy and although there were a few teething problems (the receptionist had to put in my card details manually as one of the card machines was down), these were to be expected with the hotel being newly open. The staff were friendly and welcoming, telling us what we needed to know about breakfast times and even offering us the choice of which floor we wanted.
The room
We had a double room on the second floor and I was pretty happy with where I'd be staying for the night. The room was compact but didn't feel cramped despite there being a desk, padded armchair and a small coffee table.
A full-length window overlooked the shrubbery outside and there was also a smaller window next to it. Personally I prefer slightly more natural light in rooms (who doesn't love a wall-to-wall window where you can survey your view like a king?) but this was clearly a design choice by people more intelligent about these things than me and it didn't detract from the stay.
The minimalist feel of the hotel extended to the room's decor - plenty of grey and white with some colourful flourishes in things like the bed cushions. I'm not a fan of hotels that plaster their walls with too much gaudy colour or soulless art - the simpler the better for me, and this definitely ticked that box.
The bed was large, spacious and cosy and the bathroom was a good size - none of that pokey cupboard sized business you get in some places. The room had all the complimentary sundries you'd expect - Celtic Collection-branded tea, coffee and decaf (a nice touch) and some shortbread biscuits that we made short work of. There were wooden stirrers instead of spoons but that wasn't a big issue.
I'm not the best sleeper in hotels at times and when I woke up during the night I did become aware for the first time how close the hotel is to the motorway. While it won't be a problem for many and the hotel is definitely well soundproofed, I could hear the regular hum of late-night HGVs while I tried to nod off again. This aside the room was pleasant, comfy and everything you'd want on a short stay.
We had a small issue in that our TV would not connect to the network, something we were told by the incredibly friendly staff had been an issue in some of the rooms and was being resolved. They immediately offered to swap us to the room next door without us even asking, which was a nice touch and summed up how attentive and warm the hotel staff were throughout our stay.
The food
After settling in we decided to pop down to have some food in the hotel's Mediterranean inspired Casa Kitchen & Bar. We asked the bar staff about dinner and were told there was a bar menu as well as the full restaurant menu, so we decided to order from the bar menu and stay in the main bar as it seemed quieter than the restaurant, which was heaving (good to see.)
The menus were varied with starters like burrata, calamari and salads and mains boasting different cuisine like souvlaki, paella and the staples like steak, burgers and pizza. We ordered the fried chicken wings with fries (£12.50) and the Casa smashed burger with fries (£18).
The burger was very tasty - the meat was juicy, succulent and flavoursome - but the chicken wings were dry, even with the yoghurt sauce, and lacking in flavour. The chips were also a big letdown and seemed overcooked. This was slightly disappointing, especially given the prices, but the hotel was busy and clearly it's something they can iron out as the months go by.
We ordered a drink each from the bar (Guinness for me, a Birra Moretti for my partner) and the total dinner bill came to £44 including drinks. £6.85 a pint is pricey but is probably what you'd expect to pay in a hotel nowadays and clearly one area where the hotel hopes to make its money. We skipped on dessert and held out until breakfast the following morning.
Although breakfast is served until 10.30am we popped down at around 9am after a sleep-in as we'd been told the earlier the better. The offering was standard buffet fare - bacon, eggs, beans - with some different additions like potatoes with onion in place of hash browns and black pudding.
The breakfast was perfectly fine and, washed down with a latte from the coffee machine, set me up well for the day. There were also cereals, pastries, flavoured yoghurts and cold meats and cheeses but I moved straight to the main event and skipped on those. Checkout was 11am, just enough time for a refreshing shower and a final nose around any of the bits of the hotel I'd missed.
The service
The biggest compliment I can give Tŷ Newport is to the staff - they were brilliant from start to finish. As mentioned the hotel had a few teething problems (the card machines, the TV, staff clearly finding their feet in a new environment) but they handled any minor hitches expertly.
The staff member who moved us to a new room and later served us at the bar was particularly friendly, funny and light-hearted, breezily telling us how she was nervous about pouring a pint of Guinness having heard my Irish accent (I assured her I am not precious about it) and nothing was too much trouble for those serving our food at dinner and breakfast. Even passing staff would give us a cheery 'hello' or 'good morning' on our way up and downstairs - a minor thing but enough to put you in a good mood and relax you - exactly what you pay the money for when you stay in a hotel.
My only regret here is that I didn't get the names of specific staff to thank, but they were the highlight of our stay and made it a really enjoyable experience.
There were a couple of things we didn't get to try - the lounge area, an activi-tŷ suite with exercise equipment and a meeting room - but which definitely expand the hotel's offering.
Overall
Tŷ Newport is not billed as fancy, but it's far from a dreary, dated budget-style hotel. It's clear it has been thought out with precision and as a mid-range hotel it is comfortable, stylish and does its job well. £99 a night is worth the money given hotel prices these days and I'd definitely consider staying there again if the circumstances required.
Which brings me to the one thing that stood out more than anything else - the main reason the hotel exists. A large part of why Tŷ Newport was built is to expand the Celtic Manor brand's bed space and serve the 5,000 capacity ICCWales conference centre next door which opened in 2019 as a joint venture with the Welsh Government.
The Celtic Collection and ICCWales chief executive Ian Edwards has previously told WalesOnline the decision to build a new hotel was done in order to address the lack of beds in Newport and ensure the conference centre can attract the sort of events it was designed to.
"There's not enough hotel beds specifically around ICC Wales at the moment and so we decided that we needed to add more bedroom stock to support ICC Wales, to then support the bigger picture," he said in late 2023.
"No one is ever going to get rich around running and owning a convention centre. But it has a massive economic impact on the local economy, and that local economy being the NP postcode and the Cardiff postcode, because in 2023, ICCWales welcomed over 100,000 people through its doors. And those people come and they'll use taxis, they'll use hotels between here and Cardiff, they'll use restaurants and bars and public transport and all of that. So it has a real good economic impact.
"In 2023, the economic impact for our area, the Cardiff Capital region, will be close to £30m for other people benefiting from that. So I think that's what we've been really excited about and taking that to another level."
On the Sunday my partner and I checked out, the hotel was buzzing with delegates arriving for the Royal College of Nursing Congress, a five-day event at ICCWales which is expected to attract more than 2,000 people. There were timetables at reception showing the regular transfer services to and from the conference centre throughout each day.
This is clearly where Tŷ Newport's bread and butter will be - providing spaces for short stays for people attending big events in the conference centre or nearby. If more bed space means more big events come to south Wales, that can surely only benefit Wales' economy which in turn can only be a good thing for the rest of us.
Not only that but every summer without fail we hear about how woefully ill-equipped south Wales is to cope with major events in the likes of Cardiff with hotels booking out instantly on rugby weekends or when a major artist plays the Principality Stadium, leaving people forced to pay exorbitant prices or having to scramble to find a way back to their accommodation - which is often well outside the capital - at the end of the night.
With the likes of Taylor Swift and Foo Fighters set to attract hundreds of thousands to the Welsh capital in the next few weeks, the images of long queues at Cardiff Central station and people raging online about unaffordable hotels and no taxis is not going away. If we are to truly make Wales a place where people want to visit then having enough space for them to stay is essential (though far from the only issue that needs fixing.) Find out about the latest events in Wales by signing up to our What's On newsletter here
Tŷ Newport works perfectly well as a place for a short getaway but it's also going to fill a much-needed gap in south Wales. While some argue that city centres like Newport don't benefit as much from these sort of events on the outskirts as is claimed, the more people that come to Wales and spend money the better, provided some of that money is put back into communities that need it.
The essentials
We booked an advance purchase (ie. not flexible) double room and breakfast for two people for £99 for the night which didn't include dinner, though you can book the restaurant ahead of time if you want to be sure rather than walking in. The same room without breakfast starts at £79 though it should be noted prices currently look about £10-20 more expensive than this going into the summer months so it might be worth checking different dates or going during the week if you can be flexible.
