Good Press for Whitby and Hartington
The succession of horrific news stories from Jersey have been giving YHA’s name some unwanted exposure in recent weeks, so it’s good to see some more positive associations. A double review of Whitby and Hartington has appeared in the Daily Telegraph, assessing the hostels’ potential for family holidays.
The writer, travelling with his partner and two children under six, was pretty impressed on the whole, though he homed in on a shortcoming in YHA’s information provision that I hadn’t spotted:
[Whitby has] a few family rooms with double beds, as do 14 other hostels, but you need to phone the YHA to find out which these are, as there is no indication in the brochure or on the website.
Our group once hit this problem the other way round - arriving at Littlehampton YH to find that we’d been booked into double beds. This information really ought to be available somewhere, if only for the benefit of central booking!
The importance of the Members’ Kitchen as a unique selling point is once more to the fore:
On our first night, we arrived late, and having the kitchen meant that we ate cheaply, speedily and without fuss
The quality and value of the meals provided by the hostel came in for praise too. The two approaches to catering are not mutually exclusive, and can both be delivered well side-by-side:
[H]aving the option to self-cater or to be catered for, or to mix the two, was perfect with young ones.
The description of Whitby’s “stark lounge” and general spartan feel is reminiscent of the Guardian’s comments about National Forest in January. Maybe it’s a inevitable feature of brand new hostels, 70 years as a hostel had given Hartington a “cosier, more lived in feel”, though that wasn’t all it had going for it:
There were well-stocked games rooms, extensive lawns (much used for games of football), an adventure playground, a menagerie (goats, rabbits, hens, guinea pigs), plus a superb amount of information on local walks and cycle routes.
If these features can be reconciled with “budget chic” YHA could be on to a winner…