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I will be spending a few days with work in Milton Keynes and I’m looking for some decent places to eat and any hotel recommendations? Also a pay as you go gym if anyone has any experience of using one. Thanks
Not sure about hotels but xscape has agym and restaurants. Snow slope too if you fancy having a play
Depending on budget there's a fancy new hotel in the city centre (hotel la tour) which also has a supposedly good restaurant at the top and I'd be very surprised if it didn't have a gym. Looks expensive though.
Failing that the premier inn near the central train station is ok for somewhere cheaper and you can take your pick from quite a few restaurants a few minutes walk away. There's a pure gym about a mile away that might be PAYG.
There's also 2 good climbing walls in the town (big rock) if that's your thing.
Absolutely not the Travel Lodge MK central near the station. Awful breakfast and bathrooms so stripped back it is like a prison cell.
Colleagues stayed in the Leonardo next door and said it was OK.
If you are staying near the station I am reliably informed that the Bogota Coffee Co in the hub do the best coffee locally and have nice breakfast options if you can't face another Premier inn buffet.
Bogota coffee? That sounds like it has a little extra pep for the city boys on their way into Central London
Thats a blast from the past, Bogota Coffee was my local when I lived in a flat in the hub for work reasons - about 2010 to 2013. Very good coffee.
Can't recommend any pay as you go gyms, I was a member at the Virgin (now Nuffield). If it is a one off you can sign up for a 3 day pass pretending you are thinking of joining.....
Hotels wise, I would stay at the Holiday Inn close to the City Centre, fairly decent. Clean, has a good bar and restaurant. Has a Marco Pierre White restaurant, the health club has a pool and a small gym (weights, rowing machines, elipticol runner things).
Kents Hill there is a hotel with associated Nuffield Health gym although it’s pretty tired. Over the road in Walnut Tree is a good Indian (Purple Mango) and a chippy
Use hussle.com and get a day pas for whichever gym you like - I used to use it all the time, but haven't for a while as I no longer work away from home.
Freedom Leisure recently rebranded as Willen Lake Health Club does PAYG.
Cpl of hotels round the lake too, never used them though.
There's an Urban Food Market which has recently opened in the newly built Unity Place (in the front door down the stairs turn right) for lunch
For dinner in the centre try the Olive Tree or alternatively the Cross Keys at Woolstone if you have transport/want something slightly outside the centre
fourteen skybar food is excellent and quite reasonably priced, the bar menu also great and very good vfm
also option of taking a bike and heading to Woburn
or the MK millennium route is a 20k gravel/ cycle path route, red ways mean its great for running too
The Red Bull Racing F1 team cafeteria is legendary - the best funded in the business.
Jury's is fine
As was the Hilton and the hotel nr junction 13. Hotel in Woburn Sands is nice ....
The Hub used to be a good place for general eating - not much in MK is Haute Cuisine. There is also the aera up to the east of CMK that had various eateries - this is all said by someone who was last there in 2016.
Stony Stratford has some good pubs and some okay Indians
As does Newport Pagnell
All PureGyms are PAYG. Looks like there are two in MK.
I use them all round the country when I’m away with work or whatever and I want to kill an hour. V easy to use the app and no induction bullshit. Most are open 24 hours I think.
If you're looking at hotels in the SW CMK / train station area be aware that it's a boy racer hotspot. Noisy bstrds revving up and down those roads and carparks till late. Less of an issue in winter, you'll have the windows closed then anyway.
It's not exactly a foodie paradise. These are about the best:
https://www.maayamiltonkeynes.com
Railway curry v. good
https://www.pinpetchthairestaurant.co.uk
https://www.muratispizzeria.com/locations/milton-keynes
Ned's Noodles in the shopping centre is pretty tasty. Don't buy anything from the stalls in Queen's court unless you are especially fond of the taste of salt.
Out of Office is another decent indie coffee shop
Bring your bike if you can, you can cycle for hundreds of miles without using a road.
Thanks all