Please note: our stay at Your Apartment was received free of charge, but this in no way impacted on our opinion. We were not obliged to write a positive review, and the venue did not see this review before it was put up on the site.
As lockdown restrictions continue to ease and travel within the UK and overnight stays are allowed once again, it’ll be a relief to many that they can finally make the trips – either for work or for leisure – that they’ve been putting off for a while. May 17th is the earliest date we’ve been given for hotels to potentially reopen but before then – and even after, if people are looking to avoid communal areas as much as possible – self-catering accommodation is going to prove popular.
That’s certainly true for Bristol-based business Your Apartment, whose Bristol properties were all fully booked the weekend we were invited to stay. From Redcliffe Parade to Old Market, brothers and Your Apartment co-founders Charlie and Toby Guest now have over 150 apartments across Bristol. At each of these apartments, their aim is to “combine the service level of a hotel with the authentic homely feeling of an apartment” – and earlier this year, they announced the opening of their brand new aparthotel in Clifton Village.
You’ll find the 34-studio apartment property – which was formerly student accommodation – on Regent Street, right in the heart of Clifton Village. There are twin rooms, doubles, kings and king rooms with sofabeds too, all available for single nights or longer stays (with discounts available on stays of a week and up). Prices are around £90 per night, plus £10 a night for parking (which is limited).
With a toddler in tow, we were booked into a Merchant King room with a sofabed: a 34sqm room which, like the others, has its own kitchen and bathroom as well as a TV with Netflix, WiFi, linen and towels. We received a few emails before our stay to confirm our details (including car details for the parking space), as well as to give us info about access to the car park and the building itself, and details of the app we would need to download that would act as the digital key for our room.
Unfortunately, the car parking space that we’d booked wasn’t actually available when we arrived, but a quick call to the Your Apartment office meant that we were given an on-street parking permit to cover our stay. Clifton Village isn’t the easiest place to park at the best of times, but this definitely helped!
The building itself is easy enough to find, the brand name emblazoned in big black letters across the front. Tap in the key code to access the front door and you’ll find yourself in a lobby area with a laundry room and disabled toilet to the left, and a co-working space to the right, perfect for those who are visiting Bristol for business travel.
For access to the apartments themselves, which are all above ground level, there’s both stairs and a lift – and a contact-free hand sanitiser station by the lift doors for peace of mind.
Our apartment was on the fourth floor, and all the way up the stairs were walls that were decorated with murals to make the relatively functional-looking building feel more homely and fun. And the key card app that I’d downloaded is a great way to avoid having to do an in-person handover. The app itself looked a little dodgy (I don’t think it was created by an English team, the design wasn’t great and the navigation was a bit clunky), but it worked perfectly. Once Your Apartment have sent you your keycode, you just open the app, press the big button on the screen and hold it over the sensor for your apartment door, turning the doorknob to open once the button on the app turns green. It’s the same process to lock it, too – full instructions were in one of the emails I was sent before we arrived.
And a beautiful apartment it was, too. All of the apartments are styled by up and coming British designers, and it felt like plenty of thought had gone into our room, from the leaf-print feature wall to the framed prints in both the main room and the bathroom; the gold of the bedside lamps and the uplighter to the fact that the colour of the sofabed and the bed itself matched the wall decor.
The bathroom included handwash, hair & body wash and conditioner in wall-mounted dispensers, and the shower pressure was perfectly decent for an invigorating morning shower.
And the kitchen was fully equipped, with a hob and oven, a microwave, a fridge with freezer compartment, a kettle and a toaster, and full of kitchenware that was more than enough for our needs. With Cru Kafe coffee bags, Joe’s Tea English breakfast teabags and a pint of milk also included, it was good to be able to have a brew as soon as we arrived.
The small person was excited that he could still watch his favourite Netflix shows and YouTube videos on the large television, which could be angled for different viewing positions, and in the wardrobe were hangers, an iron and ironing board, a hair dryer and extra bedding.
We did have a small issue with the bedding, in that the sofabed had no linen despite it being requested (sharing a bed with a three-year-old would NOT have been fun!) But a quick call to Your Apartment saw them send out a member of the housekeeping team to get it sorted – we were pretty impressed with the service when we did need to contact them.
The sofabed itself was pretty comfortable, with a thicker mattress than others we’ve seen – and the main bed featured a super soft mattress and plump, soft pillows. I prefer a firmer mattress myself, but still had a good, relaxing night’s sleep. Most importantly, from the toddler’s point of view, it was a great bouncing platform.
Check in is from 3pm, and check out at 10am, although you can request late check out when booking if needed. It’s a great base from which to visit Bristol for work purposes, with the city centre not too far away, as well as to spend time exploring Clifton Village and The Downs – something which we took advantage of the following day as we’ve not been back to Bristol much since moving to Long Ashton.
Your Apartment are opening their next aparthotel in Cardiff later this year, and have plans to expand further across the UK in the coming years. It’s a great concept – especially with Covid-19 still looming – and with rooms priced sensibly, decorated beautifully and with all the amenities you need, we’d definitely consider using Your Apartment in the future as a base for exploring other cities.