Somewhere to eat and stay in Poole - the RNLI College

[Trun]

When the coronavirus situation is over, hopefully the RNLI College will re-open. It is operated as a hotel with a restaurant and a café bar, as well as a hotel and training centre. The public is welcome to eat there without booking (may change after the crisis I suppose). The food is good and reasonably priced. The hotel rooms look well appointed, but probably more expensive than a Travelodge or Premier Inn.

Could be good for an overnight stay before travelling on Barfleur, when the old girl returns.

In addition to the restaurant etc it is possible to stay in the hotel, although the rooms are intended for the RNLI volunteers from the British Isles attending course there - spare rooms are booked out to the public.

It is also possible to have a tour of the amazing training facilities used. Well worth a look if you can get a booking. It includes a lifeboat simulator (so hold on to your stomach contents) and a look at THE training pool, which is 4m deep and can be used to simulate all kinds of sea conditions - but don't expect to see a storm on a tour. However, it also possible to look in to the pool from an external platform.

All profits from these activities go towards supporting the work of the RNLI. If interested, have a look at the link below.

https://rnli.org/rnli-college

[cvabishop]

We have stayed there a few times. An unusual location and decent food plus you can wander around within the fenced off area. Many of the rooms have harbour views.I also wrote an article for Model Boats magazine some years ago and did the training pool and simulator tour. On my visit they did the storm simulation in the training pool which was pretty dramatic and entailed a RIB lifeboat being overturned following which the crew had to escape from underneath and right the boat. Impressive!

 

[Jim]

On 03/07/2020 at 19:17, cvabishop said:

We have stayed there a few times. An unusual location and decent food plus you can wander around within the fenced off area. Many of the rooms have harbour views.I also wrote an article for Model Boats magazine some years ago and did the training pool and simulator tour. On my visit they did the storm simulation in the training pool which was pretty dramatic and entailed a RIB lifeboat being overturned following which the crew had to escape from underneath and right the boat. Impressive!

Well... you don't get that at a Premier Inn!