Holiday Inn Express Bicester

Holiday Inn Express Bicester is a straightforward roadside hotel on Gateway Business Park, and it does the practical things a dog owner needs from a stopover well. Dogs are formally allowed rather than quietly tolerated, and the hotel puts guests travelling with them in a quieter part of the building - something people notice and appreciate, because a dog reacting to corridor noise stops being everyone's problem. Guests travelling with dogs describe rooms that were clean and comfortable and staff who took the arrangement in their stride.

The most useful thing to know is that dogs are welcome in the breakfast area, not just the bedrooms. That is unusual for a chain hotel of this type, and it removes the standard dilemma of leaving a dog alone upstairs while you eat - which matters here, because pets cannot be left unattended in rooms. Not every guest is delighted by the arrangement, and there have been grumbles about dogs eating from bowls in the restaurant at breakfast time, but for anyone arriving with one it turns an included breakfast into something you can actually use.

There is a charge for the dog, and it is the main complaint. The pet fee is £30 per pet, per stay - a flat charge for the visit rather than a nightly one, so it bites hardest on a single overnight and matters less across a longer trip. Car parking is charged separately at about £5 a night. On a two-night stay with one dog that is roughly £40 on top of the headline rate, so budget for both.

The setting is functional rather than scenic - a business park just off the A41 with the M40 minutes away, and Bicester a short drive - but it works well as an overnight break for anyone driving a dog up or down the country, and the surrounding Cherwell villages give you somewhere to stretch a dog's legs before the next leg.

With a 4.3/5 paw rating, it suits dog owners who want a clean, predictable stopover with a breakfast they can eat alongside their dog, and who are willing to pay a modest supplement for it.