Have you stayed at Premier Inns in the UK?

no they don't have laundries - their beds are very comfortable and are recognised as good value
they are designed to be efficient - don't expect lots of services

how much is the cost of your holiday compared to the cost of a phone call?

and if you're looking at 0871 numbers these may be blocked to those calling from outside the UK - look at this for an alternative to call their contact centre

https://secure.premierinn.com/en/mypremierinn/forgottenPin.action

The number for each individual hotel can be found here. They can tell you local information.

Calls from the USA/Canada to the UK are a couple of cents a minute or so by the right provider.

I don't remember laundry services, but then I wasn't looking for them.

Usually each individual hotel's section on the site will tell about what amenities are available at that specific hotel.

You probably should google "Laundrettes" in the vicinity of where you're staying. I did that and some "walking" on Google Street view a couple of years ago to find a place (which I never ended up using, but at least I knew where it was).

thank you for the info.

I looked up several on their site and none said anything about laundry facilities.

As for the price of the call, I was just confused. I had no idea it cost to call a place other than the long distance charges you occur on your own end.

Since I am in Canada, I was just hoping to find this out by contacting each place directly by email. The is how it is mostly done here but I will adapt.

I will have to find a laundrette in Inverness or Fort William. I do not want to pack 22 days of clothes.

You can ask the hotels where the closest launderette is and they usually have a list.

If you aren't aware, you can pay for a service wash where you drop off your clothes and pick them up later.

As for the price of the call, I was just confused. I had no idea it cost to call a place other than the long distance charges you occur on your own end.

The cost reference on the general contact lines (not the ones to specific hotels that I linked to above) is for calls made from within the UK. 0871 is a low-tier premium number and may not even be accessible from outside the UK.

No guest laundry facilities at Premier Inns. They are a basic but extremely clean, comfortable and friendly chain of hotels.

Build in a rest day halfway through your holiday when you either stay in a town with a laundrette - or stay at the same hotel for, say, three nights - long enough to wash out some tops & knickers and dry them over the bath.

Can anyone recommend a chain of hotels that might have such a thing as guest laundry facilities?

It is much easier to find out which PI you are staying in and then do a google search for laundromats (launderette in UK) in the area. You can also email them and ask how far is it to one where you are staying, or just wait til you get there and ask at the desk. That is what we do when we travel.

Was just hoping to find a place that had it in the hotel so we could come back from our day, put some loads in and not have to venture out......I will look at other brands of hotel.

Thank you all for trying to help. I really appreciate your time.

I'm trying to think of any hotels I've stayed at in Europe that had laundry machines, and I'm coming up short. On the other hand, there are laundromats where, for a fee less than a full blown cleaners or the hotel laundry service, they will put your clothes in the machine, then the dryer, then fold them when they're done. Drop em off in the morning, pick em up at the end of the day. Otherwise, a couple of hours in a laundromat can lead to interesting conversations with locals and other tourists. Not a total waste.

IHG's Staybridge Suites has laundry facilities, but there are very few of these in the U.K.

There are a couple of Staybridges in London. Part of the reason why we stayed there was because of laundry options at the mid-point of our trip. (Very nice mid-level properties and often not insanely priced by London standards)

I haven't stayed at them in Europe but Courtyard by Marriott often have laundry facilities in US. The only one in London is at Gatwick but there are two in Edinburgh-not sure if locations are convenient or not.

Marriott is also starting to put Residence Inns (brand standard typically includes self-serve laundry room) into London. First one is in the Southwark-London Bridge area, and another one in the Earl's Court area set to open toward the end of 2017.

I've become a big fan of extended stay hotels- seems like they often have the best of apartment rental and hotel amenities combined into one and are often not really more expensive than a standard hotel room in many cases.

The coin operated washer and dryers that are so common in USA hotel chains are almost unheard of in the UK. Staybridge suites and roomzzz apartment hotels are the only ones I've encountered in the many times I've researched UK hotels. The washer/dryer at roomzzz is one of the combined ones, so be prepared to wait a long time just to do one load.
http://www.roomzzz.com/

It is a nice convenience to have an onsite laundry room, but it just isn't something you're going to find at very many UK hotel chains. The chances that a premier inn has one is almost none, so I wouldn't waste time contacting them if that's the question you have. Unfortunately, launderettes are becoming increasingly rare in city centre areas. I used a service that picked up my laundry and the hotel and then brought it back to the hotel the next day. Those type of services are aimed at local residents but hotel guests can use them as well.

The only laundry facilities that you'll find in hotels in the UK are the services where you place your clothes in a bag and they're taken away by housekeeping to be laundered, this is an expensive option and is typically found in all the major hotel chains.

I've stayed at PI's in both Fort William and Inverness. What you will find at PI's is that the outside of the building looks different but the rooms are all about 95% the same. I've never had a problem at a PI. None have laundry facitilites. (And I don't remember seeing anything close by in Fort William.)

Guest laundries are rare in European hotels. Usually only extended stay style hotels, not as common in the UK as in North America, have them. Besides what has already been mentioned, Citadines also has them. These are mostly found in larger cities and suburbs.

I haven't come across UK hotels that have guest laundry facilities. Brits and Europeans tend to take enough clothes for their entire stay without having to wash clothes.

PIs tend to be for 1-3 night stays. No need for laundry as they are no frills.

Instead of staying in soulless hotels such as PIs for all of your stay, rent an apartment with a washing machine.

Premier Inn (and Travelodge) are the hotel equivalent to budget airlines (OK, a little overstated, they don't have the array of hidden charges). The business model is keep it simple, keep it standardised and do most contact online with no human involvement. Like the budget airlines at times they have ridiculously cheap online offers, and when things get busy they can be as expensive as the full service hotels. They have rooms which are very similar (if they are new builds they could be identical from town to town). You get a room, a decent bed, a TV, a shower room. Breakfast is normally optional and usually in a pub next door which is owned by the same company, if there isn't one they have a small bar area where limited food service is available. Big city centre locations may not have parking but most do. And that's it. No laundry, no room service, no bag carrying, and probably no experience from the "duty manager".

The premium rate phone numbers in the UK serve two purposes. Even if you have calls included in your phone contract you pay extra for these numbers, and as said they may not be available from outside UK. Reason one is that the number is for a service, typically someone you can call to ask advice and sort out your problem over the phone, you pay for the advice through your phone bill. The other reason is to persuade people to stop phoning them and to use the internet for automated queries!!! These numbers have non-geographic area codes in the ranges 084* and 087* and you can try to find an alternative at this site
https://www.saynoto0870.com/companysearch.php If you find a number, bear in mind that if they were using reason number 2 you may not get any sense out of them!

note that 0800 and 0808 are free calls (but may not work outside UK.....) 0300 is believed by many to be a premium code but isn't, it just doesn't have a fixed location.

There is an expectation that people bring enough clothes with them not to need to wash them. Premier Inn in general caters for people with relatively short stays - overnight for those on business, over the weekend maybe for leisure. However, they will have some staying there on long term contracts which need access to these kind of facilities and that is why it can be worthwhile ringing the actual hotel which will have any local info, rather than a call centre somewhere that won't know anything.

Premier Inn at least does give access to normally-charged telephone numbers in a list on their site (see my post above).

Hi. I don't know about hotel chains and laundry, but a quick google search of Inverness hotel launderette brought up the Royal Highland Hotel, and it has laundry service listed in amenities. Maybe plain google search will help in this instance for locations where you will be.

Citadines have laundry rooms on site. £9 per load to wash and dry, detergent included.

If you have already booked your hotel, I would just pay for a service wash. The hotel should be able to point you in the direction of the closest ones.

Great info.

We are driving around the UK for 22-23 days but never more than 2 days in each place so renting an apartment with a washer won't work.

We really don't want to wash out our undies in the sink so we will have to find a laundrette. I really do not like the idea of someone else doing my laundry. This creeps me out.....

When we get to London on day 23 through to day 34, our apartment there will have a laundry machine so no worries there. I just really do not want to lug too much clothing with us. 23 pairs of undies, 23 pairs of socks, and clotes for 3 people is a LOT.

So I will look for a laundrette in either Fort William, Inverness or Edinburgh as soon as we have our final plans made as I only want to do laundry twice. Once on the road and once in London.

Hopefully with all the advice here I will find what I need. We will take it as a chance to mix with locals and see the real Scotland......LOL

Thank you all for taking the time to explain things.

Do people really book airbnb`s for just 2 nights?

I thought that would not work for us because I thought they only booked for longer stays......Ooooohhhh.

Maybe an Airbnb for us in Inerness......

In case you need it, we used a laundromat in Ft. William last summer. I would have to look at my notes when I get home for location. We used the machines and did our own one morning but it seemed as though you could leave laundry and the lady working there would do it for you if you preferred. It was kind of out of the way, which was the main reason we just did our own. We asked around and it did seem to be the only laundromat. We were in a b & b that did not offer a laundry option.

with AirBnBs, you have to be careful of really sticking to a schedule, arriving in town when the person has agreed they can meet you, etc. I prefer a hotel in those kinds of instances because we can do whatever we want during the day, tarry as long as we want, and roll up to the hotel whenever we want. Your schedule is much more constrained with an AirBnB. I wouldn't find it very suitable for such a short stay (not that there may not be people willing to rent to you for such a short stay! I'm talking about the inconvenience to myself.)

The Adagio Aparthotels (part of Accor hotels) have self-service laundry rooms with washer/dryer. There aren't many in the UK, but Edinburgh does have one (other locations are Birmingham and Liverpool). I've stayed at Adagio in France and Vienna while on longer trips and the self-service laundry was a lifesaver. It was fairly inexpensive (7 EUR or so) and open on-site 24/7, detergent available for purchase from a vending machine. The rooms also come with kitchens. Kind of a compromise between apartment rental and hotel. Might work for you?

Hopper18.....will look into it.....thank you so much