First off, let me say, I'm an idiot.
I was travelling to Bristol for 4 days, with a wife and 2 young children, and was seriously considering going to a nearby hotel instead. I always thought "serviced apartments" were for businessmen on company expenses.

Wrong ! Wrong ! Wrong !

Staying in a 2-bed Merchants Rest apartment instead proved to be a perfect alternative. It was bliss, being able to get up and feed a baby without waking anyone else up... being able to microwave babyfood, do some laundry in the kitchen's washing machine... being able to stay in the centre of Bristol, yet still have space to unpack our stuff...

I would thoroughly recommend these apartments. They're clean, modern, and I got very good customer service from Kelly & the team.

Bad points: well, there isn't any parking, apart from the 6 nearby spaces on a parking meter. And, for an apartment this new and modern, all of the electrical equipment seemed to be Tesco's own brand. Put it this way, you wouldn't want to take the TV or DVD player with you... And the washer-dryer seemed to tumble & shrink clothes, rather than dry them.

Oh, and the wi-fi consisted of a box you had to unbox and plug in yourself, read the manual to find out where to find the two passwords, and even then, BT had disconnected the line. I was just expecting to get my iPhone out and connect. Err, no.

But, that aside, it cost a little more than a hotel, and made all the difference in making our Bristol stay a pleasure.