After kicking off our trip with friends with a day in London, we drove up to Liverpool for the night. Our friends are Beatles fans, so we figured we’d give them an opportunity to visit all kinds of Fab Four attractions.
Unfortunately that didn’t end up going quite as well as planned. Due to how late we left London after visiting Abbey Road, we didn’t make it to Liverpool until after 5pm which is when both of the main Beatles museums close, as well as being after the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour bus ends for the day.
Despite that, we still managed to cram in some fun that night.
The Botanist Liverpool Albert Dock
The Botanist is a cocktail bar/restaurant chain with about 25 locations in the UK. One of those is at Liverpool’s Albert Dock, so we stopped there for a quick drink.
The Botanist has an extensive list of cocktails, so it was hard for Shae and Megan to choose what to get (Mark and I both had a beer). Shae ended up ordering a Cherry Blossom Martini which is made with Roku gin, velvet falernum, Kakuzo Yuzu liqueur, apple juice, lemon juice and strawberry syrup.
Megan meanwhile had a Poppy & Pink Gin Punch which contained Beefeater pink gin, poppy and raspberry liqueurs, apple juice, lemon juice and strawberry puree. They both enjoyed their cocktails, but I think they both agreed that the Poppy & Pink Gin Punch was the best (that’s the one in the tall glass below).
McCooley’s
After checking in at our hotel (more about that shortly), we met up with another of our friends at a nearby bar. Shae met Stef when going to university in the UK almost 20 years ago and Stef now lives just outside of Liverpool, so she came into the city so we could meet up.
We’d picked McCooley’s based off a video I’d seen a few months beforehand. A guy had reviewed an ‘Irish Spice Bag’ that he’d had there and it looked delicious. It’s a paper bag that comes loaded with salt & pepper chicken (crispy seasoned chicken), chunky fries, peppers and onions, along with your choice of curry sauce or sweet chili sauce. Chips (fries) in curry sauce is a delicious delicacy in the UK, so I chose that instead of the sweet chili sauce.
The photo above doesn’t do justice to how much food this is – it was massive. I think I ended up having to leave a few fries which is very unlike me as I tend to always finish my food. The meal was very tasty though, so I was glad we went there for dinner.
One thing to bear in mind if you visit – it can get extremely loud in there. It wasn’t particularly busy at 8pm on the Wednesday night we were there, but there was a football (soccer) game on TV and they had the volume turned up to 11.
The Cavern Club
I had some work to get done, so I headed back to the hotel for a little bit. Shae, Stef, Megan and Mark moved on to The Cavern Club – the famed music venue where the Beatles frequently played early in their career.
The Cavern Club is still a working music venue, with live music every night. Entrance is £5 (~$6.60), so it’s not an expensive place to visit and imagine what it was like back in the 60s.
After getting my work done, I made my way to The Cavern Club too. It only took me a minute or two to get there as it was literally around the corner from our hotel. It’s a really fun venue and you can see how it got its name. You enter at street level, then walk down a stairwell into the cavern below.
The musician that night was very good. He was performing covers, but they were all done very well and it was a fun atmosphere. I can only imagine what the atmosphere would’ve been like when the Beatles played there as they became more popular.
The Hard Days Night Hotel
Liverpool is the fourth largest city in England by population, so there are tons of hotel options. We picked The Hard Days Night Hotel both due to it being Beatles-themed and because it was pretty much right next to The Cavern Club.
It started off well as the room seemed nice enough.
Unfortunately it was only downhill from there. The air conditioning in our room wasn’t working and it felt like it was 85° F (30° C) or more in there. We called the front desk to ask maintenance to look into it, but no one ever came.
We called again and they said they’d bring a portable air conditioning unit, but they didn’t. We followed up again later and they said they’d make sure one was dropped off, but yet again nothing arrived.
In the end they moved us to a different room, but that wasn’t much better. The air conditioning worked which we appreciated, but this new room backed up to some kind of bar/concert venue. That meant there was incredibly loud music until 1am which wasn’t ideal.
Shae went to bed before me as I had some stuff I needed to get done. While I was still up, random lights in the room would turn on for seemingly no reason. Then when I had gone to bed, the thermostat remained lit up brightly. The thermostat was in a weird location right above my pillow, so it would’ve shone in my eyes all night. I ended up having to create a makeshift cover using a tissue folded up multiple times and stuck to it with some chewing gum.
The bathtub was very high up, so it was precarious getting in and out. The shower functionality was weird and non-intuitive. You also couldn’t turn the shower on without being in the bathtub under the freezing cold water as the screen didn’t tilt outwards, so that wasn’t ideal either.
In fairness, the hotel is in a fantastic location right next to The Cavern Club and our friends thankfully didn’t have any issues with their room. However, after ending up in two crappy rooms and experiencing non-communicative service numerous times during our stay, Shae and I would absolutely avoid staying at The Hard Days Night Hotel in the future.
Our next stop was in Scotland where we’d visit a couple of quirky attractions – more about that in our next post.
Saga 2025 Trip To London, Liverpool & Scotland – All The Posts
Here are links to all of the posts in this series:
- Saga 2025: Trip With Friends To London, Liverpool & Scotland – An Intro
- Saga 2025 Day 1: London – Police Station Hotel, British Museum, Dinner In Darkness & Abbey Road
- Saga 2025 Day 2: Liverpool – Cavern Club, Hard Day’s Night Hotel, Cocktails & More
- Visiting The Kelpies In Falkirk, Scotland By Day & By Night
- Saga 2025 Day 3: Falkirk – Kelpies, World’s Only Rotating Boat Lift & More
- Saga 2025 Day 4: Drive From Falkirk To Fort William – Castles, Distillery, Monument & More
- Hotel Review: Inverlochy Castle Hotel In Fort William, Scotland
- How To Watch The Jacobite Steam Train On Glenfinnan Viaduct (Harry Potter Hogwarts Express Train)
- How To Find 6 Harry Potter Filming Locations Near Fort William, Scotland
- Jacobite Steam Train Review: What It’s Like Riding The Hogwarts Express
- Saga 2025 Days 5-7: Fort William – Harry Potter, Castles, Waterfalls, Mountains, Distillery & More
- Review of The Two Byres – Vacation Home On The Isle Of Skye, Scotland (Booked Via Cottages.com With Wyndham Points)
- Talisker Cask Draw & Tasting Experience – Fun, Tasty & Strong!
- The Three Chimneys Restaurant Review (Isle Of Skye, Scotland)
- Saga 2025 Days 8-9: Isle Of Skye – Whisky, Fairies, Castles, Waterfalls, Views & More
- A Tearoom Where You Can Feed Highland Cows? Yes Please!
- Saga 2025 Day 10: Skye To Inverness – Coos, Castles, Nessie, Another Whisky Experience & More
- Saga 2025 Day 11: Inverness To Aberdeen – Standing Stones, Pyramid, Castle & More
- Saga 2025 Day 12: Aberdeen – Time Travel, Castles, Coos & More
[…] a night in Liverpool, the four of us continued our journey up to Scotland where we’d be spending the next 1.5 […]