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What is the difference between a bed & breakfast and a hotel?
Although I have seen alot of bed and breakfat hotel I have never stayed in one. How is it different than a hotel? I usually stay in a 5 star hotel so will I enjoy a bed and breakfast? Are they safe?
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A true bed and breakfast is a house where the owners have converted a room or two into guest quarters. You stay in their house. The level of privacy may vary -- sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. In the morning you join them for a homemade breakfast -- often muffins, juice, and coffee. <BR>Are you comfortable staying with friends or relatives? If not then certainly you wouldn't be comfortable staying with total strangers. If you are the type that can be comfortable staying in someone else's house then maybe it is for you.
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When you stay in a bed and breakfast you are a "paying guest". This makes the owner more like a hostess and you treat her like that. In an hotel you are more like a customer.<BR>In the UK or Ireland the breakfast will be a full cooked breakfast, a substantial meal that will keep you going until the evening. Of course you can just have cereal or juice if you want to.<BR>The standards of comfort vary a lot from clean but basic to quite luxurious.<BR>If you normally stay in a 5 star hotel you must realise that the "service" in the B and B will just be a woman and possibly a husband or daughter. You won't get room service etc.
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The "room service" notion may vary according to country. I have seen plenty of little places in France that consider breakfast in the room every bit as normal (and no "service charge") as "downstairs" in the breakfast room.<BR><BR>Sometimes they really only have one or two tables downstairs for guests to have breakfast, leading me to conlude that they count on breakfast in the room as a "norm".<BR><BR>I think that the difference might often be as simple the existence of "public spaces" - - and I agree that for a B&B it often will be readily apparent that the property is the residence of the family who runs the place.<BR><BR>I think that Europe has many more places - - "inns" and "guesthouses" that have some feeling of a hybrid between B&B and hotel.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>
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serving it up<BR>
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yuko asks<BR>>I usually stay in a 5 star hotel so will I enjoy a bed and breakfast? <<BR><BR> If you like to go slumming.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>
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>>I usually stay in a 5 star hotel so will I enjoy a bed and breakfast? Are they safe? >><BR><BR>Yuko, are you serious?<BR><BR>There are B&Bs that line the street in parts of Edinburgh that are not at all the home-like atmosphere that Rex and Yes are referring to, they're more like dorms. And I stayed at Cedar Manor outside of Windemere in the Lake District - which at the time billed itself as a B&B - and it was the best value for a room I've ever had (I didn't say the nicest, I said the best value).
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Another thing I'm not sure was mentioned yet is that often times you will have to share a bathroom with other rooms as not all bedrooms come with an ensuite. This can be a bit annoying if you have to get up during the night . . . <BR><BR>I stayed in a gorgeous B & B in Dunedin in NZ which was a very unusual house with a fantastic atmosphere and a in house cat. The other people staying were very friendly and it was very "homelike", apart from the shared bathroom - some of the rooms did have their own bathrooms though - it was one of the best places we stayed in all of New Zealand - inlcuding the really good hotels. <BR><BR>
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