Should you stay at a Wetherspoon Hotel?

Better known for bargain burgers and even cheaper pints, Wetherspoon hotel rooms in its pubs are great value, too. 

The pub company received an impressive 76% customer score in our recent survey of the UK’s best hotel chains, becoming a Which? Recommended Provider and beating rival Greene King and budget brands Holiday Inn and Ibis. It was cheaper, too. 

Wetherspoon has 55 hotels across the UK, often in town and city centres. 

In 2025, we sent our undercover inspector to The Last Post in Southend-on-Sea to find out what you get for your money. 

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The Last Post – JD Wetherspoon, Southend-on-Sea, Essex 

Price £74

• Check rates at The Last Post

Score 3.5

You don’t walk into a Wetherspoon for peace and quiet. Flashing fruities, big-screen footy and throngs of punters enticed by the pub’s ‘how-do-they-do-it?’ prices on food and booze greeted us on our midweek visit to the Wetherspoon Hotel in Southend-on-Sea.

Wedged between the high street and the train station, The Last Post is an impressive Edwardian building with elaborate gables and a grand entrance that once housed Southend’s head post office. Its cavernous interior is a curious mix of style and pub chintz – a lengthy marble-and-wrought-iron bar with hardwood flooring butts up against traditional bright-red floral carpet.  

There’s no hotel reception. Instead, you’re instructed to fight your way to the bar and pick up a phone before being beckoned into the bowels of the pub. Slipping behind the slot machines, up a back staircase lined with photos of old Southend, we find our room – a welcome sanctuary from the hubbub downstairs.

What are bedrooms like at a Wetherspoon Hotel? 

Huge, light and decorated in a soothing sage tones, our standard double had high ceilings, a Penny Black mosaic feature wall and powerful air-con. What’s more, it was silent. 

Which? readers often tell us that Wetherspoon hotel rooms are like ‘another world’ and ‘an oasis of peace’. But we didn’t expect it to block out the busy pub and ongoing roof renovations quite so completely.

It was also spotless. In contrast with many pub hotel rooms, you’re unlikely to find peeling paint or tired furniture in a Wetherspoon Hotel; they are generally in excellent nick. 

In previous years, Wetherspoon rooms have mustered only an average cleanliness rating, but our thorough inspection could find not a hair in the plughole to question the overall four-star rating this year (and the group was named a Which? Recommended Provider for the first time in 2025).

What is the food like at a Wetherspoon Hotel? 

You’ve led a charmed life if you don’t know what to expect from the food in a Wetherspoon. It’s not for everyone, but there’s no denying that the prices are extraordinary – a ‘gourmet’ burger and a pint is less than £12. 

And if you don’t fancy eating in the bar, staff are happy for you to take food and drink up to your room.

Unlimited tea and Lavazza coffee in the pub are included in your room rate, although breakfast is not. If a Spoon's Full English is up your street, you’ll only pay an astonishing £4.99 in The Last Post, or £2.99 for the small version. 

We made the mistake of opting for eggs benedict – which turned out to be hard-boiled eggs in a gloopy sauce, more mayonnaise than hollandaise – served on a pale muffin that was somehow both limp and stale. Still, it was only a fiver.

Verdict 

Don’t be put off by the noisy pub; you’ll sleep like a baby in the sizeable, stylish and silent sanctuary above. And at £74, it’s an absolute steal.

Reviewed November 2025.

How guests rated Wetherspoon Hotels  

More than 4,000 guests rated their recent stays in large hotel chains. 

See full details of the survey and find out how Wetherspoon compares with other budget chains

How we review hotels

Unlike all other national UK travel magazines and newspaper travel sections, Which? Travel never accepts freebies. We pay wherever we stay. 

All our hotel inspections take place anonymously. We book a standard double room online, just as you would, and we sample the hotel’s facilities, just as you would.

That means no special treatment, no reviewer upgrades and no opportunity for the hotel to influence our verdict. And no matter how badly the hotel fares, we always publish the review, warts and all. 

Read more about how our undercover inspectors review and rate hotels

Our ratings

We use an overall star rating for the hotel based on what we think you should expect for the type of accommodation (B&B, luxury hotel, etc) and price.

All our ratings strictly adhere to the following criteria:

• 0 stars A dreadful hotel. We wouldn't recommend staying here.
• 1 star A sub-standard hotel that we think is well below average in its category.
• 2 stars An adequate hotel that we think has room for improvement.
• 3 stars A solid hotel that meets our expectations.
• 4 stars An excellent hotel that we think is above average in its category.
• 5 stars An exceptional hotel that we think is among the best of its type.