text: Stylish hotel; brilliant roof top; excellent gym & spa - Review of The Varsity Hotel & Spa, Cambridge - TripAdvisor
  Stylish hotel; brilliant roof top; excellent gym & spa - Review of The Varsity Hotel & Spa
  Stylish hotel; brilliant roof top; excellent gym & spa
  The Varsity is a trendy boutique hotel and a well-oiled machine.
  Check-in was smooth, the rooms are comfortable (although the "graduates double" was a tad on the small side) and continental buffet breakfast (served in the River Bar next door) was basic (i.e. anything hot had to be paid for separately).
  I booked through Mr & Mrs Smith and received the promised bottle of wine in the room on arrival.
  The roof terrace offers unparalleled views over Cambridge and is quite the destination on a sunny day for hotel guests, tourists/visitors and locals alike. You don't need to be a hotel guest to access the roof.
  The gym and spa associated with the hotel, Glassworks, is excellent. It's open to the public (for a fee), has slightly less equipment than you would find in a full-service gym in a major city, but has everything you need and is in a beautiful space.
  The other hotel guests were predominately non-business travellers.
  I have also stayed at the Hilton Double Tree in Cambridge. On balance:
  - I would stay again at the Double Tree for views over the River Cam, the garden bar/restaurant by the river and the breakfast which includes your typical hot buffet
  - I would stay again at the Varsity for use of the gym and spa, for the "weekend escape" vibe and for proximity to the collegesMore
  Ask scottnothing about The Varsity Hotel & Spa
  1,368 - 1,373 of 2,548 reviews
  True competition for the rest of the Cambridge Hotels
  My wife and I stayed at this hotel and will definitely return. It is not before time that Cambridge has a truly first class hotel and if it is to better its academic counterpart, Oxford, then more are required. The Varsity is not an old world hotel but a modern built hotel on 6 floors with a delightful roof garden where you can look over the roof line of this wonderful city.
  The hotel offers valet parking as the nuances of navigating around Cambridge to find a car park may frustrate the best of those with a sense of direction or sat nav. It is worth taking them up on this if you arrive under your own steam and it is cost effective compared with the multi-storey around the corner. The concierge and all the hotel staff are extremely friendly and courteous and nothing seems too much bother.
  We had breakfast in the Riverside Bar and Steakhouse Grill which is continental by default but you can have cooked breakfast as a surcharge. The continental breakfast is more than acceptable and we left feeling replete. The grill/breakfast room has to be accessed through the spa/gym area which adds a little quirkiness but the atmosphere is worth it once you get there with a mezzanine floor providing views over the Cam and Magdelene College and you can wile away the time watching budding punters navigating the sleepy waters of Cambridge's river.
  The roof garden is a real attraction with many Cambridge visitors enjoying cocktails in the evening sun or during the day at weekends. Barbecue grilled food is available after 5:30 weekdays and from 12:00 during the weekend. There is also a residents lounge with an honesty bar on the 1st floor.
  The only negative was that rooms on the Magdelene Bridge side of the hotel over look a service yard for a number of riverside restaurants/bars and the noise of bottles being emptied into bins does go on until quite late, 1am in our case, and the collection wagon arrives awfully early to empty them. However, if you have had an extra cocktail or two on the roof terrace I am sure that you might well sleep through this minor distraction.
  Next time we visit we will definitely make more of the spa and gym facilities. Rest assured, we will return.