I tend to choose 4 or 5 star hotels over 3 star, assuming they are within budget. For me, it's the larger rooms (generally), improved facilites in rooms and in and around the hotel overall, better quality food and drinks, in some cases more attentive staff, better entertainment (although not always), location, plus others. I've stayed in many 3, 4 and 5 star hotels, but I've always found the 4 and 5's are worth the bit extra. Having said that, I've stayed in some 5 star hotels (official rating) that I'd put at more 3 or 4! It differs in each country really. Some 5 star hotels in one country may only be 4 star in another.

Darren

You could get a ropey 4/5 star and equally a fantastic 2/3 star. Reading the reviews gives you a better idea Steve.

We do tend to stay A/I so what's on offer does become important but I wouldnt worry about soap in the bathroom, turn down service or a pair of fluffy slippers and matching bathrobe. I do look for Clean above all else , reasonably decent food with an option to eat at a couple of A la cartes as well as the usual buffet , drinks served in proper glasses and not tiny plastic cups, Friendly and attentive staff and plenty going on in and around the hotel . I like a nice sized pool that has plenty of decent sunbeds and umbrellas and the hotel to have nicely kept grounds.

A hotel can be too posh for me too. I don't do stuffy and couldnt bear it if staff felt like they had to bow and scrape to me . I dont want to feel on edge if one of my lads want's to dive into the pool or kick a ball about or occasionally drops the odd swear word.( that could just easily be me ) Equally I dont want to spend my days with complete foul mouthed drunks that treat other guests and staff with no respect either. so a happy balance is what I look for and that most commonly means 3 at least but most commonly for us 4 stars.

This extract is taken from a post I made in a different thread

You see the star rating isn't important to me. All it tells you is if the facilities are basic or not. It doesn't necessarily follow that a 2 or 3* is dirty and that a 4*+ is much cleaner. In fact I don't take any notice of the ratings. When in europe we don't want the 6 pools and 6 restaurants that a high rating brings- why pay for all that when we will eat out most of the time, trying out the local cuisine.

My requirements are 1 big pool, clean hotel, good location close to the centre and not too far from the beach and a poolside bar. I use a range of holiday reviews to help me find the above criteria- not star ratings.

Generally speaking the star system is given for amenities -gym, indoor pool etc and nothing to do with cleanliness etc

Generally speaking the star system is given for amenities -gym, indoor pool etc and nothing to do with cleanliness etc

_________________
Precisely Glynis and if you're not going to use them, why pay for them?

I can never work out on reviews when people claim that a hotel is not worthy of it's 4 star rating! Lots and lots of people don't understand the system at all.

I think Stardust, that some people do misunderstand the star system and assume it's for cleanliness, food etc.

You've also got to be careful when looking at Tour Operator rating as these can vary from the official rating. Thomson's for instance may give a hotel TTTT when in fact the official rating could be 2*

I think the reason its given for amenities is large pools, spa facilities, lots of restaurants, including a la cartes, beachside locations are constants, whereas things like the staff and the cleaning can very from season to season and management to management.

You can get small boutique hotels that are spotless but a sure fire winner in getting a lower star value is not to have a pool of anykind, however that might not bother lots of folk and they might prefer a small hotel rather than an anonymous large one. My parents prefered small family places whereas we generally like the anonimity of a larger hotel.

For me it depends on the type of holiday I'm wanting.
I've gone to Benidorm and stayed in a 2 * hotel, which later had a mini refurb and was awarded the extra star by the Valencian governing body which dishes out these ratings.
For us it was all about location because we like to walk in the nearby mountains, it was the quality of food on offer and the fact that the staff get to know you by your Christian name, plus the concert room was laid out so that smokers could be separated from the non-smokers and still see the entertainment., and finally because we were hardly in the room and it was clean but basic, was no problem.

I've stayed in a 4* hotel on the CDS and again it was about the location because the hotel was opposite the beach and I tend to spend more time on the beach, where as in Benidorm we seem to do a lot of walking. Both hotels are in the same group (MedPlaya) but the food in the 4* hotel was not as good as the one in Benidorm, but it had carpets, well as nice as they are, you can't eat carpets.

Wind it onto a 5* hotel in Melbourne, which only had an indoor pool and cost us an arm and a leg to stay there, it had absolutely no atmosphere at all, no entertainment, no restaurant as such, you had to leave the hotel and pay ridiculous prices in an adjacent Gordon Ramsey's restaurant"¦..it was like the hotels at the airport, fine for business people to come and go and charge the account to the company"¦.we never saw a soul whilst we stayed there and it definately wasn't worth the money....but it was posh.
Sanji

I'm with Sanji on this one - location is my prime concern as long of course that it gets good reviews and is clean. We prefer small and friendly hotels as don't want the big family type of accommodation. Our son is 27 now so we don't want to be around children particularly. However we usually always book private accommodation & we aren't bothered about amenities such as pool, entertainment etc as we tend to go out and about and do our own thing. That's my holiday with hubby.

Now then...my holiday's with girlfriends are a different matter. We always book a hotel with pool to chill round & bars nearby

Our holiday approach is to get the most bang per buck, the higher the star rating the better. That means that if the likes of a Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-La, Ritz Carlton etc fall within the budget then we'll go for it. But if the budget only stretches to a 3 star then we're happy enough. Plus if the holiday is multi-centre we can mix and match the ratings quite happily, our last holiday started off in a 3 star, then a 4 and finished off in a 5.

I'm glad I asked this question now !

I was under the impression that going up the star rating should make things better and quite clearly thats not the case !

It appears that the only thing it actually does give you is the ability to say to other people "we stopped in a 4/5 star"... !

We had our flight cancelled and were put up in a 4 star hotel for a night. We found the staff unhelpful and rather abrupt. The hotel was very large and fancy but we found ourselves trying to read door numbers walking along a dark corridor because there wasn't any lighting on ! The room wasn't as big as the self catering room we are used to in our 2 star hotel. The location was against the "beach" but the beach looked man made, had a concreted jetty and what looked like builders sand (our 2 star hotel isn't on the beach but has a 20m walkway right to it). The food was at set times for breakfast/lunch etc and was that horrible buffet style serve yourself (our 2 star hotel makes food from early doors to late at night, makes it fresh and serves it to you -and is far better quality).
The hotel did have a massive gym, sauna etc but most people weren't using them, most people were sat half in the shade reading a book or people watching....

I'm glad I've seen how it is on 4 star... just wondered if people booking it realised they weren't getting better than those in 2 star !..

Now before I type it I'm not talking about me personally but I think a lot of people book 5 star hotels because they know the general "riff raff" won't be in them!!! lol

Most places we stay are probbably 3 or 4 star but it's not like we even look at the stars, just how close to the beach, size of pool, etc! Also we read the reviews. If it's 2 star and most of the reviews say it's great then that'll be fine for us!

But one thing I notice is that when we book from Thomsons etc they actually have Keys instead of stars and normally they are 1 key rating more than the actual star! This is really Thomsons way of conning you to thinking it's a higher class than it actually is!

And I'm with the poster above how says they don't like it too posh! I hate feeling like people are being my slave, just leave me to my holiday! It's like with the maids, they seem so shocked (and thankful) when I say don't worry about making the beds, we'll only mess the sheets up again anyway and to be honest first thing I do when I get into bed is untuck all the covers that the maids tucked in else I feel like I'm being pinned down! So I say to the maids to just tick that they've done the beds and just change the towels for us, unless it's a day where they actually change the sheets, then we'll obviosly have that done!

! Also we read the reviews. If it's 2 star and most of the reviews say it's great then that'll be fine for us!

Same here and you would have thought that people would have cottoned on by now that there are quite a few lower rated hotels that get constantly better reviews than the 4 or 5*. I don't understand people who say 'I wouldn't book there as it's only a 3* and I want a 5*' . Or even more baffling are people who've booked such and such as it's 4 or 5* with 6 pools and 5 restaurants without bothereing to look or notice that the reviews are bad. I know people look for different things so reviews will reflect this but I'm sure a constant stream of bad reviews will tell you more than a star rating

It all depends really on what the holiday is for. If we are going on a site seeing holiday then I really don't care what the star rating is. If we are doing a cheap budget holiday as that's all the funds will allow then The 2/3 * are fine. I'm not a snob so as long as the place is clean and tidy then I don't mind. We have stayed in top class 5* places mind and they have been out of this world. If I had the money then I would always stay in these places the reasons being-
Better quality and variety of foods.
Nicer surroundings (by my experience)
Choice of pools, swim up, adult only e.t.c more sun loungers.
More restaurant and bar choices. Piano bar, cocktail bar, family bars e.t.c.
Spa/gym centres

If it's a city break/sightseeing type holiday then I don't particularly care what rating it is as long as it has good reviews. We'd only be there to shower and sleep. In fact that's all we use the rooms for on any holiday When we go to our beloved Greece, it's always a small B & B or hotel, but it has to have a pool. Eating out locally plays a large part in the enjoyment of this holiday. We're not too fussed about the location of a beach, we will pay a couple of visits, but it's not one of our priorities. If we're talking about destinations such as the Caribbean or Egypt e.t.c. then we go AI, and I probably would look at 4* or 5*. If we're confined to one hotel for the duration of a holiday, then yes, I'd be looking for more amenities, more food choice, more entertainment e.t.c, although we do usually get in a couple of trips or walkabouts.

On the CDS I stay in a private apartment now, well away from the beach, but ideal for the local supermarkets and the only thing that might keep us awake is one of the local dogs guarding the nearby villas. I don't like being so far away from the beach, but have to outweigh the positives against the negatives.
I've never enjoyed the regimentation of hotels, but when booking it often worked out cheaper going in a hotel on a package for the two of us, especially when the cost of transfers have to be taken into consideration.

Maybe I'm not as fussy these days.

Sanji

we dont actually choose based on what * rating a hotel has. We choose dependant on our needs at the time..considering what is available within budget, the location and what we are actually going to be using it for. We (well I mean me really!) read the reviews/reports etc about a place and that is that.

Our holidays to Egypt are no longer land based so we have different criteria for what we look for in a loveaboard diveboat (they dont have star ratings as such).

We know that when we stay in Malta, if summats is rated at 4*, it will probably be 3..and as long as it is clean and the food is relatively ok..then we are not too bothered as we are out all the time and just use it as a place to doss. When we go to Gozo..we do DIY and stay in an apartment that we know is "safe" so to speak.

Our requirements have changed as we got older/the kids got older etc..and therefore so has the standard of hotel we look for.
I am not bothered about luxury (we had that in one hotel in Thailand and it was embarrassing..but equally, the prices they charged were extortionate..). I am just as happy in Truckhaven these days...and I am going to have to get used to bunking out in the lorry....there is 0 * rating to that!!!

These days I don't usually stay in hotels, prefering to have the space that goes with a SC apartment on European trips (even for short breaks) or to do a 'homestay' with a family when in Cuba. That said , when I used to regular do a week away on Tunisia on my own I always stayed in 4* hotels because it usually worked out cheaper! This was because the TOs usually charged a supplement for 'sole use of a double' room in 3* hotels but always had good 'no single supplement' offers for higher grade ones. For that reason I can't really comment on the difference between a 3* and a 4* there other than that I found a week's HB in a 4* to be cheaper so that's what I went for!

However, having stayed in a range of hotels on one touring trip to Cuba there was a definite difference between the two. Firstly, I never met Cubans staying as guests in 4/5* hotels but I did in the 3* - for me this was a bonus because I at least felt like I was staying in Cuba there and tended not to in the higher rated ones. I found that life in the 4/5* ones was very insulated from local culture daily life. For others this might have been been a drawback of staying in a 3* - it depends on what you are looking for from a holiday.

On the other hand, in the 4/5* hotels, they were clearly used to international guests and the service was usually more attentive - I suspect because staff knew that such visitors could afford to tip more heavily. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the service was poor in 3* hotels, just not so in your face and frankly, more like the more laidback attitude that I think is more typical of most Cuban establishments. Again it depends on what you are looking for.

But probably the biggest difference was in the facilities on offer in the 4/5* ones, bigger, better pools and towels for use around the pool, a better choice of a la carte service to relieve the bordom of the buffets. Bigger, better equipped rooms with a bath and not just a shower in the en-suite and sufficient hot water to fill it. So for most people looking for a beach hotel based holiday then it is probably worth going for at least a 4* or even a 5* one. But you do need to check carefully exactly what is on offer - for example, a lot of the city centre hotels in converted old colonial buildings in places like Havana and Trinidad don't have pools even if they are rated as 5* under the local system.

But for me, overall I preferred the quirkyness of the 3*s and was only needing a clean bed and a decent shower after a day of being out and about. But if I wanted a few days R&R on the beach between city stays in future, Cayo Levisa would win hands down - basic food, basic beach cabin rooms, basic criolla food but an idyllic setting on a white sand beach and loads of peace and quiet with very few people around. Bliss that I'd never find in the 5* Cayo hotels but I can understand why others, particularly families with children would want exactly what such 5* AI hotels can offer.

SM