Blog Comparisons & rankings

2026-02-025 min readcheaphotels

Eight hotels tested with a five-year-old and a nine-year-old in tow, from $110 pool-included to $220 suites with actual space to breathe.

What 'family-friendly' actually needs to mean

Reading is a business town first, which means the family-friendly hotel market runs shallow. Rooms are sized for a suit-carrier and a laptop bag, not a travel cot and two scooters. The properties that actually deliver for families do three specific things: they offer real interconnecting rooms or family suites (not a sofa bed shoehorned into a double), they have a pool that's open past 5pm, and their breakfast doesn’t run out of pancakes by 8:30am. Only about half a dozen hotels in town clear that bar.

The other filter is location. A family with young kids needs to walk to something — the Oracle for shopping and the riverside walk, Forbury Gardens for a run-around, or the Museum of English Rural Life over in the university district. That rules out the pure business hotels on the Green Park corridor, which are quiet at weekends but marooned from anything a nine-year-old wants to do. Below are the ones that actually work, ranked.

Crowne Plaza Reading East — the family workhorse

The Crowne Plaza on the A4 keeps winning this category because it's the only mid-range Reading hotel with a proper 15-metre pool, a decent breakfast buffet, and family rooms that sleep four without acrobatics. Rates $135 to $185 a night, with kids under 12 eating breakfast free on most rate plans. The pool is open 6:30am to 9pm which means you can actually swim after a day out. The car park sprawls, so unloading a car with kids is painless.

The catch: it's a fifteen-minute drive from town centre, and the immediate area is a retail park rather than anything charming. But for a base to explore Reading, Legoland Windsor (25 minutes), and the Thames villages, it's genuinely the strongest pick. Book a superior room on the pool-facing side; the standard rooms overlook the car park. Twin rooms with a sofa bed are the sweet spot at around $155. Avoid the on-site dinner — drive to Woodley for better options.

Novotel Reading Centre — best if you want to walk everywhere

Novotel on Friar Street is the walking-family pick: two minutes to the Oracle, five to Forbury Gardens, ten to Reading Abbey Ruins. The chain's family rooms genuinely sleep four (up to two under-16s free with parents), and the ground-floor lounge has a proper kids' menu. Rates $140 to $195, with a small pool that's more splash-around than swim. Parking is $24 a night at the adjacent Q-Park — the one real downside for a driving family.

The rooms feel more corporate than cozy, and the walls between adjoining rooms are thin. Ask specifically for the rooms on floors 4-6 facing away from Friar Street; the party noise from Broad Street bars carries on Friday and Saturday nights. For a two-night weekend of shopping, riverside walks, and a Reading FC match at Madejski, this is the sensible base. Consistently more expensive than Crowne Plaza East, though, so it's the tradeoff of location versus space.

Holiday Inn Reading South M4 Jct 11 — the value pick

Different from Holiday Inn Express — the full Holiday Inn here has a proper pool, family rooms at $115 to $150, and free parking. It's positioned near Green Park, so weekday evenings are quiet and weekend rates drop hard. Kids eat free with a paying adult, and the pool is 12 metres with a shallow end that works for under-fives. If you want a functional family base under $130 a night with all the essentials, this is where I’d start.

The property is dated in places — carpets need replacing, the bathrooms are 1990s vintage — but rooms are clean and the mattresses are new. Breakfast is standard chain-hotel: eggs, sausages, cereals, decent coffee, nothing to celebrate. The location commits you to driving, but the M4 access is genuinely handy for day trips to Windsor, Legoland, or west toward the Cotswolds. Ranks third overall for families, first if you’re price-sensitive.

The Roseate Reading — for the once-a-year splurge

Roseate is Reading's fanciest hotel, a Victorian pile on the Kennet with rooms $195 to $310. The family angle is the suite category: proper two-room suites at $260-ish that give parents an actual door to close. There's no pool and no kids' club — this is a grown-up hotel that tolerates children well rather than one built for them. The garden runs down to the river, the breakfast is proper cooked-to-order, and staff genuinely try with families.

This is the pick for a special weekend, an anniversary trip with grandparents, or when you need a rest yourself. It's a ten-minute walk from the station and central sights, and taxi fares to anywhere in RG1 are around $8. Skip it if your kids are under three; the atmosphere is quieter and the corridors don’t forgive tantrums. But for a family of four with kids who read at dinner, Roseate is worth the money once.

What I’d skip with kids

Malmaison is beautiful but not for families — the converted railway building has narrow corridors, no pool, and a bar-restaurant vibe that suits couples. Pentahotel is fine but the lobby-bar concept means noise runs late, which is fatal with a 6am waker. Ibis Reading Centre packs family rooms in but the twin plus sofa bed setup is genuinely cramped, and there's no pool. Any of the aparthotels near the station (Cotels, Staycity) work for older-kid families but not for toddlers — no pool, minimal service.

Airbnbs across Caversham can be excellent value for a bigger family — three-bedroom houses with gardens run $180 to $240 a night and beat any hotel for space. But you lose breakfast, the pool, and the housekeeping that keeps a week away sane. My rule: hotels for stays under four nights, self-catering for a full week. The math flips right around the four-night mark.

Day-trip logistics from your family hotel

Reading's real family value is what surrounds it. Legoland Windsor is 25 minutes by car ($70 to $110 a day-ticket per person), Beale Wildlife Park at Pangbourne is 20 minutes ($22 adults, $18 kids) and easier with small children than Legoland, and Wellington Country Park in Riseley is $18 with a genuinely good adventure playground. Windsor Castle itself is 30 minutes and the Changing of the Guard on a bright day is worth the drive. Book all of these online — gate prices are 15% higher.

For rainy days, the Museum of English Rural Life on Redlands Road is free, well-designed for kids, and rarely crowded. The Oracle has a decent Vue cinema. Dinosaur Adventure Park and Milestones Museum in Basingstoke are both under 30 minutes and cheap. If you’ve got a car and a family hotel with parking, Reading works as a base for a week of Thames Valley day trips without anyone getting bored — which is the honest reason to come here rather than staying in London.

Book while you read Median night$113 Cheapest area$58 Hotels tracked4 Find a hotel

Before you book

What people ask before booking Caversham.