Solent Hotel and Spa - Revisited

The ground floor is home to the check in desk and lobby, as well as the gym, spa, swimming pool and FYR Restaurant & Grill, as well as the biggest and most impressive meeting space in the hotel, The Hambledon Suite, but more on that later.

When on the ground floor at Solent, don’t miss the amazing outdoor space, well… you really can’t miss it. If we had to pick a word, it’d be massive! They’ve even got their exclusive Meadow Bar out there to service everyone in the summer months. We really loved it out here, our heads were buzzing with all the possible networking, socialising and team building potential that there is to be found here.

There’s a quaint, quiet vibe outside the Solent Hotel and Spa which provides the perfect step away from any hard work that’ll undoubtedly be getting done inside, especially once you hear about their conference and meeting facilities. This vibe continues through a lovely woodland walk and leads straight into a quiet and friendly nearby village. What’s more, the coast is 15 minutes away with an incredible plethora of beaches to choose from, unwind or visit a fantastic restaurant here during your stay on the south coast, you won’t be disappointed.

Let’s get down to business: 171 bedrooms across the site. Amazing full spa facilities, including indoor pool, jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, tennis court and even a dance studio! What more do you need?! Well, what about 8 treatment rooms and a private outdoor hot tub?

We can go on and on and on about the wonderful facilities at Solent Hotel and Spa. The spa itself is a brilliant space, contrasting wooden accents with the modern and luxurious facilities, this interior space has everything you need to get in the zone, or get out of it.

The Solent leans well into the cosy, relaxing, comfortable environment, meaning we always felt so at ease here, there’s a fantastic work play balance that can be so hard to get right in hotels with a focus on their meeting and work spaces.

This includes their super useful ‘Business Lounge’ which is open to all delegates to use throughout the day – offering fab coffee machines, hot and cold food, and snacks - its generally a really lovely place to be when you’re on a coffee break. Lunches are generally taken downstairs in the FYR Restaurant & Grill, to enable delegates to feel fully refreshed when they return to the meeting room.

Not to mention the fantastic staff at Solent kept this energy at all times, every interaction we had with the wonderful team here did them proud as a group of hard working individuals ready to put the best foot forward for your stay.

The brand new FYR Restaurant and Grill is another amazing addition to The Solent’s fantastic plethora of catering facilities. Adjoining with their Meadow bar, this fantastic restaurant has an open wood fired grill in a fantastic outdoor seating area that includes fire pits a pétanque court for after dinner fun.

We loved the food at the FYR restaurant, offering the freshest local seafood and meats alongside British classics. As well as the indoor part of the restaurant, the al fresco seating also perfectly doubles up outside of service time for some wonderful team building areas. Bathe in that fresh air while you and your team, new or old, get to know working with each other that little bit better in this beautiful location.

In terms of your stay at the Solent, take your pick from the main hotel or the Lodge at Solent. The main hotel bedrooms at the Solent are great – including large flat screen TVs, nice bathrooms and lots of room. All rooms have coffee machines & fridges, as well as great working space to catch up on your emails and a couch to relax on. Everything you’d need for your stay, work or leisure was considered in this nice and bright room, in such a quiet area.

However, that’s not all, we really liked the ‘Lodge at Solent’ which is part of the hotel…but in a separate building. This 3 star property gives a totally different experience to the main hotel yet the bedrooms here are still amazing. Really stylish, Scandinavian-vibes feel, in the sense that they’re designed with practicality in mind. It was clear that the Lodge at Solent would be fantastic for those larger conferences when you might need just an extra few bedrooms.

It’s time for the meeting space highlights but let us tell you, we’re spoilt for choice here and our three picks just scratch the surface of the amazing plethora of spaces on offer at the Solent. They describe themselves as one of the foremost venues in Hampshire for meeting spaces, and we’d have to agree, what an array they have.

Meeting Space Highlight: Hambledon

This is the hotel’s largest room and is an extremely flexible space. With its own lobby outside, which is ideal for registration and coffee breaks, it can be used as one large room – hosting up to 200 pax in theatre style or it can be split into two or three separate rooms.

It is ideal for conferences, dinner dances or weddings. It has built in AV including PA and microphones, all of which is included in the price (which we love, of course). The access for AV kit or stage sets is also really good, as you can load directly into the room without going through the main hotel and causing a kerfuffle for yourselves and others.

Natural light: Yes
Size: 233 Sq.M
Dinner Dance: 150
Theatre: 240
Cabaret: 100
Classroom: 100
Dinner: 180
Location: Ground floor AV
Equipment included: Screens, projectors & PA system incl. microphones.

Meeting Space Highlight: Arundel

The Arundel suite is a really practical smaller meeting space that offers all the versatility you might need to hold a smaller scale meeting or conference. Seating is super versatile and can work in a U formation for learning/education away days, or in a boardroom style for more tough talking days! With coffee and tea facilities in the room, ready to go, as they are in all the meeting spaces at Solent, you can’t go wrong!

Location: 1^st floor
Best use for room (conference, dinner, reception. Etc): Meeting/conference
Natural light: No
Size: Sq.M 75
Reception:
Theatre: 40
Cabaret: 30
Dinner:
Location: Ground Floor

Overall, we can’t say enough about the Solent Hotel and Spa, this place is such a lovely breath of fresh air (literally, with all that magnificent outdoor space), in a wonderful south-coast location, with fantastic transport links that really cannot be underestimated.

One of our main takeaways from the Solent was how fantastically priced everything was, from hotel rooms, drinks at the new pub, or the cost of utilising the meeting rooms, this place, for its really impressive capabilities, is fantastically priced - not to mention the business club membership option, which seems like a no-brainer for regulars based in the area. We had a great time here, we felt so welcome and honestly, we can’t wait to come back!