I stayed at this hotel for one night (luckily) on business. The location is great, overlooking the cathedral IF you are fortunate enough to get a room at the front of the hotel.

If you, like me are unfortunate you will get packed off to a dingy, depressing room with a small obscure glass window five feet off the floor. My bathroom was actually a shower room (not big enough to fit a bath in). It was obvious why obscure glass was fitted at around 0600 when it sounded like a local pub was having beer delivered, clearly the view was not pretty and had to be hidden.

As for car parking, prepare to be expected to park a quarter of a mile away in a public shoppers car park with an uphill walk to the hotel

My overriding view was that this is a hotel that trades purely on its location. As I was celebrating checking out I glanced at the hotel brochure.I can honestly say that it bore no relation to the experience I'd had.

If you are going to visit this hotel ensure that you specify a room at the front overlooking the cathedral. If you are happy to accept a room at the back, then thats fine but don't expect to get the quality of room that you see in the brochure.

I checked into this hotel having been so disappointed by my experience at the Mercure Southgate (I had been booked in for 3 nights but left after 1).

The Abode is excellent. The staff are helpful and friendly and the rooms are superb (good size desks and free internet). The food is as excellent as you would expect from Michael Caines (the black pudding in particular is outstanding (i asked for more) and the banana toffee dessert is the best i have ever had).

The room i was in (305) did not have a fantastic view but to be honest i didn't care and it didn't spoil my stay one bit.

This will undoubtedly be my first port of call in Exeter on my return trips (i have previously stayed at the Barcelona and Mercure).

One of our daughters had her wedding reception here in April and rather than drive back to Somerset we stayed the night.

The hotel is situated right in the city centre and although it does not have its own car park there is no need to hike your luggage from Mary Arches car park as someone suggested earlier. Rather than go straight to a car park drive down South Street for about 20 yards, turn left and stop at the bollards leading into Cathedral Yard. Press the button for the hotel and the bollards will be lowered to let you drive right to the front door, unload and check in. Collect a car pass from the reception (£7.00) then take your car to Mary Arches car park which is only about 3 or 4 minutes walk away.

Rooms vary in size and facilities even within their own price range and some look out over the cathedral whilst others don't. It really depends on what you want but we chose a "Desirable" one which was spacious enough with a huge bath in the middle of the room together with a separate shower, basin and toilet. It didn't look out over the cathedral but I'd personally settle for a room with better facilities and size rather than one that had a better view. I do agree however with a previous poster about the basin, shelf and shower. It may look very nice but it doesn't work and I'm surprised nobody has hit their head on the shelf yet. The bed was very comfortable.

Hotel staff were all very helpful and the reception was well organised and as the parents of the bride we were given a special rate. A big thank you to Helen for all her help.

Breakfast was superb and whilst it is expensive you are getting quality ingredients and service to go with it.

For those of you unfamiliar with Exeter the free guided tours start from right outside the front door.

Despite several issues, we did enjoy our stay on the whole.

The good:

Location is amazing, right in the centre of the city opposite the Abbey, next to the shops and many restaurants

The eateries - we had lunch in the hotel cafe and breakfast in the restaurant, both excellent. Breakfast is far too expensive (£15) if not included in the room rate, but to be fair, this is not unique to abode, it's the same in the majority of hotels. As someone else has mentioned, my wife was pleased with the vegetarian breakfast, although it's not listed on the menu

Fantastic quirky old building

I'm ashamed that I didn't get her name, but the attitude and service from the Irish lass in the restaurant looking after us at breakfast time

The bad:

They didn't have our booking on their computers (maybe because we booked it 7pm the night before arrival?), fortunately I took a print out of the booking confirmation, unfortunately it took 45 minutes to sort out

Whilst the concession on the hotel parking is reasonable value for a city centre hotel (£7), it's still a bit of a hike with bags in the rain - to be fair to Abode though, this is also far from unique to this hotel

Our first room, yes it was small, but that wasn't the issue - the noise from all of the plant (I guess kitchen and heating) just outside of window was dreadful, I think that this would effect several rooms as we were overlooking a courtyard. Reception did change our room to a quieter room upon request, the new room had a view of a brick wall a couple of feet opposite the window but could live with it as we were only staying one night

An incredibly rude family at breakfast time being very vocal at how long breakfast took to arrive - this is no fault at all of the hotel or kitchen. If they had wanted fast food there is a MacDonald's behind the hotel, waiting 10 minutes for a freshly cooked breakfast from Michael Caines kitchen is not bad service!

Would we stay again? At this point I'm not sure, I think it would be a toss up between here and The Barcelona, likely to be decided on price at the time.