I Went on a Wetherspoons Holiday and Got Really, Really Drunk

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I Went on a Wetherspoons Holiday and Got Really, Really Drunk

Can the pub chain's hotels save the British tourism industry? I spent a weekend trying to find out.

The author, considering the question: can Wetherspoons hotels revitalise the domestic British tourist trade?

Little known fact: Wetherspoons own and operate over 40 hotels in the UK. I say "little known" because I – a proper Wetherspoons head; a man whose blood runs worryingly thick with the chain's £3 pints – did not know that Spoons owned and operated 40 hotels in the UK until I read a recent issue of the chain's monthly magazine, The Wetherspoon News, cover to cover.

The first branch – The Shrewsbury Hotel, in Shrewsbury – opened almost 20 years ago, and the pub chain's been at it ever since, taking over old buildings, laying down one of their signature carpets and putting a "JD" over the door. Apparently every hotel offers unlimited free WiFi and a place to sleep, drink and eat from £39 a night.

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Thanks to super cheap air travel (it's literally cheaper to fly from Edinburgh to Malaga than get a train from London to Brighton) interest in the Great British Holiday continues to slump. According to Visit England, in 2014 there was a 9 percent fall in domestic tourism and a £90 million decrease in the amount of money spent on caravan and camping holidays. Just today, in fact, it was revealed that those under 50 have cut spending on tourism by 5 percent over the past five years.

So could Wetherspoons hotels be the remedy Visit England is almost certainly searching for? If people knew they could pay £39 a night at The Royal Hop Pole in Tewkesbury, would they choose that over a £51 flight to Krakow and three nights in a hostel surrounded by braying stag lads trying to murder each other with alcohol? I couldn't say "yes" definitively. But yes. Definitively yes.

So in the true spirit of Brexit – something Spoons owner Tim Martin lost millions in after campaigning to leave the EU – I decided to get the word out and see if I could revive Britain's dying tourist trade. So off I went to The King's Head Hotel in Beccles, Suffolk, to enjoy a two night stay in which I would solely live, eat and sleep Wetherspoons.

I arrived on a scorching September afternoon, checked in and put my bags down. That brief amount of movement was thirsty work, so I cooled off with a nice £3 Guinness.

Here was an aspect of the British vs. overseas holiday I was a little worried about, because everybody knows the absolute best bit of any trip is drinking a pint really quickly in an airport Spoons before your flight and then trying to stifle the vomit rising quickly to your throat. But the great news is: you don't even need to fly to do that! You can just go to a Wetherspoons hotel and down a thick, creamy Guinness as fast as you possibly can!

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British holiday: 1; Overseas holiday: 1.

After this, I had a wander around the place to see what kind of fun activities I could get up to on my weekend mini-break. Problem with this particular place was that it was incredibly hard to navigate and I kept getting lost in the winding corridors. Which was thirsty work.

Luckily, once I made it to the main pub area to re-hydrate, I found there were plenty of activities to keep me entertained. Your other classic weekend break locations – Amsterdam, Paris, Zante – might have weed shops, patisseries and inadvisable bungee jump opportunities, but here I had: food, cheap drink, pub quiz machines, cheap drink, lots of time to stare into the abyss, food, fruit machines and more cheap drink.

So in celebration of Wetherspoons founder and Vote Leave campaigner Tim Martin gambling away lots of his money on Brexit, I too gambled away my money, on the fruit machines. I lost five quid – so two pints and some chips – and finally felt like I was fully living la vida Spoons. Which, in this case, translated to: a slightly deflated sense of loss.

READ: Meet the Woman Trying to Visit Every Wetherspoons in the UK

But hey, I wasn't about to let some tenuous political commentary ruin my holiday. Not when there are pints of Magners cider available for literally £2. TWO POUNDS! You can get pissed on a tenner! You can find an excuse to add some Jagerbombs to your round and suddenly realise it's 11PM and that you've been drinking all day and that it's probably a good idea to give it a rest before your liver starts bleeding loads!

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And that's one great thing about Wethersoons hotels: if it is your wont, you can spend hours getting shitfaced for a very small amount of money, and your bed is just a short trundle away. So off I went, for a little rest.

RISE AND SHINE, YOU'RE LIVING IN A WETHERSPOONS! NOW CLEANSE YOURSELF WHILE DRINKING A PINT OF GUINNESS THAT ONLY COSTS £3.05 THAT YOU CAN PURCHASE FROM NINE IN THE MORNING.

And another glorious day it was. Especially because I already had a good buzz going by half 10 in the morning.

I spent the first half of the day wandering around the beer garden, talking to people and trying to work out who exactly the target audience is for Spoons' chain of hotels. Turns out there's not really any rhyme or reason; guests there were as varied as they are at any other hotel.

There was a rowdy hen-do already pissed by 11AM, a few sullen men cradling pints and a load of elderly people having a lovely time eating food and drinking drink and doing your general pub stuff.

As the day wore on, it seemed the staycation gods were smiling down upon me, so to test how that other big holiday necessity – tanning – fared at the Spoons hotel, I hit the car park of The King's Head Hotel to catch some rays, bringing a pint of Kronenbourg with me for that continental touch ; )

Turns out the sun has the same effect on me in Beccles as it does anywhere in the world: my skin goes tight and red and I start to feel sick.

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British holiday: 2; Overseas holiday: 2.

I'm not sure if you've ever tried to drink alcohol from the moment you wake up to the moment you lay your head down to rest, but without stuff like "food" or "water" or "cocaine" to level you out, it can be a little tricky. Luckily that night was "Curry Night", which meant I could get a huge curry and a red wine for about £7.

Can you do that in the cafes and bars of Strasbourg or Milan? I don't think so.

British holiday: 3; Overseas holiday: 2.

The pub was pretty lively by this point. There were some actual young people there, with their trainers and their backwards caps, and I thought I'd ingratiate myself among my peers by boasting about how I'd been drinking all day. Turns out nobody in the known universe is capable of being impressed by a stranger with beer breath bragging about how many pints he's drunk, so it didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. It was time for bed.

RISE AND SHINE, YOU'RE LIVING IN A WETHERSPOONS. NOW NURSE YOUR HANGOVER AND SHAME WHILE EATING A 1,500-CALORIE FRY-UP WITH A PINT OF KRONENBOURG THAT ONLY COSTS £6.99 IN TOTAL THAT YOU CAN PURCHASE FROM NINE IN THE MORNING.

I have to admit, by day three, close to spending 48 hours in the Wetherspoons hotel, the magic and initial excitement had somewhat worn off. My stomach was starting to solidify into one giant hardened intestinal tract, and I think I must have begun to smell like the very carpet I walked upon, i.e. spilt sambuca shots and stale Magners.

I longed for freedom, to escape and know what it was like on the outside, where music was allowed to be played publicly and the TV wasn't constantly stuck on BBC News. Let me free, J.D; let my spirit soar.

So could Spoons hotels be the cure to a decline in domestic British tourism? If my detailed scientific score-card is anything to go by – with British holidays coming out on top, thanks to the wonders of Wetherspoons and its cheap booze and comfy rooms and very affordable curry – yes. Yes it could.

@williamwasteman