Our base at Basingstoke

Advantages: Lovely suite, good food, attentive staff
Disadvantages: Traffic noise

...Well we had been invited to out nephew?s wedding in Dorset and I also had to take advantage of my Christmas present from Dave, which was feeding tigers by hand at Paradise Park, Broxbourne. We also decided that we could go to Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures while we were down there. I am full time carer to my mother who has Vascular Dementia so we don?t get away very often as mom has to go into a respite care home, so when we do we like a bit of luxury. We are members of the Paramount Leisure Breaks Club and have visited a few of the hotels in the group so I looked on their website first to see if any of their hotels were ?central? enough for us. I found the Basingstoke Country Hotel in Basingstoke (I bet you?d never have guessed that would you?) and we thought it looked ideal for us. The facilities looked good...

SusanLesley 19.08.2007 (20.08.2007) · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Basingstoke Country Hotel, Basingstoke

IVE GOT GAS - OF THE LPG VARIETY

Advantages: Cost, Improves range, Energy reliance, green, improving technology
Disadvantages: Small amount of petrol to start

...My LPG conversion was installed a year ago I had being toying with the idea for a while. after hearing my partners uncle had it on a Lexus I took the plunge. 2 grand a small wheel like tank in tool slot at rear of vehicle and it was installed. The LPG can be switched between petrol and LPG and the fact you can have a tank of petrol and a tank of Gas gives your car a longer range. The LPG tank is full for £20 as oppose to £30 for half a tank of petrol - such a big difference but the car needs a small amount of petrol to start so I keep a quarter of a tank of petrol in usually just for that purpose. If you get the LPG system installed correctly the car doesnt suffer much loss in power. I was made aware of rally cars with 200hp engines running on gas and I also drove a converted vauxhall calibre that really flew, overtaking was easy...

floater 09.05.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of LPG Conversions

A Little Piece of Narnia in Basingstoke

Advantages: It's free, it's peaceful, large car park and close to a pub.
Disadvantages: Not enough to do, toilets not always open, no seats.

.... The Walled Garden is easily identified by the large ornate front gates. All main bus routes from the town centre pass here on a regular basis but to be honest I don't think it's really worth spending travel fare on. *** What Is It? **** The fully enclosed walled garden is situated in Basingstoke, Hampshire. The land used to part of the historical Down Grange Estate in 1800 and originally served as a kitchen garden to The Down Grange House. As you approach through the entrance gates, it resembles something from ?Narnia?, this is truly a delightful ?secret? garden that you least expect to find, just off Pack Lane. Today Basingstoke and Deane council own operate and maintain the Walled Garden as a public garden and wildlife area. Original features however still remain such as the yew hedges, croquet lawn and beautiful gothic...

mrsmopples 06.08.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of The Walled Garden Basingstoke, Hampshire

LPG should you? My experiance as a guide.

Advantages: Cost if done right
Disadvantages: Cost if done wrong

...I have been running on LPG for a little over five years now, and covered a shade under 220,000 miles in two cars. The first car was a Honda Accord 2.2 Coupe that had 65,000 miles on the clock when I had it converted to gas. Used was a cheap and basic OMVL kit. This basically converted an injection engine, into a carburettor engine by inserting little more than an open pipe into the inlet manifold, allowing the engine to suck the gas into the cylinders for combustion. Luckily the engine was powerful enough to start with to compensate for the resulting drop in power. There was a cylinder in the boot behind the back seats which made the boot one foot shorter, but I still retained the full sized spare wheel. The engine was from the ultimately reliable Honda stable so; all the problems that I could/should of have had with such a cheap...

gasdriver 18.04.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of LPG Conversions

ITALY COMES TO BASINGSTOKE

Advantages: excellent food
Disadvantages: see review

...Ciao baby is a new restaurant to me and I?m still not sure whether it?s a chain of restaurants or just the one in Basingstoke?s festival hall. We recently paid a very short visit to Basingstoke, where I have to confess I saw one of the best shopping mall?s I have ever seen. It was bright, well laid out, and accessible. A surprise meal had been organised by friends, and I was pleasantly surprised to find we were eating Italian ? at Ciao baby! Having spent time in Italy this year, it brought back a few fond memories. Entry to the restaurant is via, glass doors on a ground level setting, it is a family restaurant and there were young children there. Inside on your way to the table you pass some almost irresistible looking cakes, covered in chocolate and set with fresh strawberries. The restaurant is mainly white, giving...

dabmim 23.12.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Ciao Baby (Basingstoke)

The Portsmouth Arms, Basingstoke, Hampshire

Advantages: Lovely thatched roofed pub
Disadvantages: Depends who's serving!

...The Portsmouth Arms Public House, Basingstoke WHERE IS IT? This is a delightful looking pub situated very close to the M3 (junction 7) in Basingstoke. The pub was built next to the Hatch Warren estate. The first time it was built, shortly afterwards it caught fire and burnt down. I think it was caused by an electrical fault. The pub was then rebuilt and opened for a second time around July 1997. As you travel along Cliddesden Lane, you come across The Portsmouth Arms, which has a nice, fairly large, green grass frontage surrounded by a simple wooden fence. WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? There is ample parking in their spacious gravel laid car park which is surrounded by small shrubs and trees. The pub's gardens are also very well kept with shrubs and trees. The pub itself is across from the car park and has...

ailuj34 11.07.2006 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Portsmouth Arms Public House, Basingstoke

what to do on a rainy day in basingstoke

Advantages: in the process of redevelopment so it might be good one day......
Disadvantages: well its just so ugly!

...Everyone has heard the phrase "like a rainy day in Basingstoke", but if you havent been there you really won't understand quite how apt this is. I lived in Basingstoke my entire life, and I am one of the unfortunate thousands who know what a rainy day in this blessed town is really like! ******Entertainment****** There really is quite a lot you can do with yourself in Basingstoke. The main place to go is the leisure park, situated next to the towns Fire Station. This is quite a good observation point, as the fire men are often working out topless with the doors open. If you like that kind of thing of course!!! In the Leisure Park, you can find: a 24 lane 10 pin bowling alley complete with bar, small eating area and games room; an ice rink, home to the Wella Bison Ice Hokey team, and if you remember the Robbie Williams video for "She...

hanbag 16.12.2001 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Basingstoke in General

LPG Vehicles,Should you or Shouldn't you

Advantages: Cheaper fuel costs/extended service intervals
Disadvantages: Finding petrol stations that sell LPG

...At the time I was driving an Alfa romeo 145 Cloverleaf,Any one that knows of these vehicles are aware that they can be a little heavy on petrol with the 2.0 16v engine.A friend of mine suggested I look into an LPG conversion,I read a few reviews as I was not sure how a second hand car with 50.000 miles on would react,Decided that the car was worth investing in the price of the conversion. My first dilema was what sort of tank to use,ie a doughnut tank in the spare wheel well or a free standing tank in the boot area,I wanted a fairly decent range on mileage so opted for a tank in the boot as the wheel well was to small to fit the size of tank I required. The conversion was carried out by a local mechanic & other than a few teething problems with the initial set up I knew I had made the right choice.The car ran fine on the conversion...

Rich1972 19.04.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of LPG Conversions

Having Essex LPG convert your Petrol car

Advantages: Cheap motoring, Cheaper VED (Road Tax)
Disadvantages: Time to convert it, lose a bit of luggage space

...considerably sturdier than a petrol tank and there are safety cut off valves that click in when the ignition is off. I'm no expert on this but I have used the kit for two months on two cars and it's been fine. On the road. You start the engine on petrol and once it warms up it switches to gas. That's it. No input from you. There is a small postage stamp sized box on the dash that has LED's on it. One green and one red you're on petrol. Flashing red - it's switching to LPG . Two green - you're on LPG. There are four smaller green LED's that tell you how much gas you have in the tank. In the centre there's white button that you can manually switch to Petrol if you want and back. But it's not necessary to have any input at all- it's all automatic. Switch over is set to engine temperature and Rev's I believe. Cost. My wife's Xtrail was...

EthanEdwards2002 28.05.2008 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Essex LPG Autogas Conversions Ltd, Essex

56p -61p a litre!!!!

Advantages: Cheap fuel, reliable, good for the enviroment
Disadvantages: Takes up some space, only 1200 filling stations

...How would you like to pay 1995 prices again for your fuel? That is between 56p - 61p a litre! Too good to true? A gimmick? Not so, it's even encouraged by the Government. There is no catch, if you want to pay these prices, consider having your car converted to run on LPG. What is LPG? LPG is short for Liquid Petroleum Gas, commonly known as Auto Gas, most petrol driven cars or vans (not diesels) can be converted to run on LPG which almost cuts your fuel costs in half. Currently, there are around 140.000 cars running around the UK able to run on LPG & 11 million worldwide. With around 1200 filling stations with LPG facilities in the UK you are never far away from being able to fill up. LPG is a by product of the extraction & refining of crude oil giving no burn off & it is very environmentally friendly. LPG vehicles emit less Co2...

ScottishWestie 19.09.2008 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of LPG Conversions