Welcome to the world's deepest hotel!
419 meters underground.
I'm really scared now.
To spend the night in the "Deep Sleep", you have to go into an abandoned mine.
How dangerous is it? -Very dangerous.
I'll show you what's waiting for you on the way and what it's like to sleep down here!
I'm in Cwmorthin, Wales, in the UK.
My destination is in Snowdonia National Park.
The guides of Go Below offer cave tours, perfect for adventurers.
Welcome to Go Below. I'm Nick.
On this really hot, sunny day in North Wales,
you are going to get to experience a big difference
in a really extreme underground adventure.
First, I'm given climbing equipment.
So how dangerous is it actually going in that mine?
On your own without all the kit and someone to look after you? Very dangerous.
Luckily, I have Nick with me: He's been offering tours of the mine for over six years.
Welcome to Cwmorthin. Cwmorthin is the name of the mine. Com is the name for a Welsh word for valley,
usually a bowl shape valley, like a glacial valley. And an orfin was a giant.
So it's the valley of the giants and we're in a mine that's named after that.
This used to be the largest underground slate quarry in the world until the mine finally closed
in the 1990s.
Look at this old mining equipment.
It's all as the miners left it. So it's almost like walking in a time capsule in here.
The slate was mined with tools and muscle power and later with compressed air and explosives.
The slate was used for roof tiles, for example. Numerous accidents occurred underground, earning
the mine the nickname "the slaughterhouse.
I mean, how dangerous was life for the miners back then?
It was really dangerous.
They had maybe three things to really consider: falling off of something,
some rock hitting them or something, machinery, falling on them. And then the killer that was
the most dangerous is a thing called silicosis. When the men were blasting the rock, they would
have a puff of slate dust into their face each time they drilled. And that dust goes into their
lungs and it builds up in their lungs and gives them reduced capacity. So they basically drowned.
So it would be really a horrible way to die.
Until this point, the trip was easy for me.
But it's easy to slip on the wet slate. Now I really need the climbing equipment and ropes.
If you hear that nice snap, that's a good indication that it's closed.
Sometimes it get jammed in your glove or is a bit of dirt and it might not shut.
So you just need to push it shut.
So look, listen, make sure it's shut. And then you're going to go
along your journey. So imagine there's a big cliff there. I'll end up getting stuck because
there is a knot. So to get past the knot, I'm going to take one carabiner at a time across
to the next section. So I'm always attached. So if I slip now, then I'm still attached.
Really? So now I've put this back there. And this into it.
Now it's getting serious. We make a steep descent. This is the most
unusual hotel experience I've ever had.
You need to clip the ones to the rope that is kind of awkwardly going over your shoulder.
Yeah?
So you need to move your clips.
One at a time.
Wish me luck.
It's so wet!
And that was just the beginning. If you're claustrophobic or afraid
of heights, this isn't for you.
Okay, so we've come down an incline,
we've got a bit of a more exciting way of getting
down to the next level. So we're going to do an abseil. Yeah. Are you up for that?
Sure.
Did I really just say that?
I'm really scared now.
So I just fall off now?
Okay.
It's gonna get better. You need to turn around. So get your feet on the rock.
Just push yourself with your feet.
It's hard to do.
Like this, yeah?
So, should I still, like, touch the wall?
After that wall we are there nearly.
Okay.
Almost on the ground.
So this was actually fun, and it wasn't as bad as I imagined,
but just going down somewhere without being able to see anything that's still sort of scary.
Deep Sleep is just around this corner, so there's an iron door to open
and then head on in. So, let's go.
We're almost there.
Wow!
Ok, after you. -Thank you.
Wow.
Look at this!
Here it is: 419 meters below ground.
Deep Sleep, the self-professed deepest hotel in the world. It can accommodate up to ten guests.
The founder and manager of this unique hotel is waiting for me.
Hi. I'm Miles. - Hi, I'm Gönna. Nice to meet you.
Welcome to Deep Sleep. -Thank you.
Would you like a cup of tea?
Yeah, that would be lovely. -Follow me up these stairs.
To build the hotel, Miles and his team had to carry all the materials here through the tunnels.
It opened in April 2023.
It's been a lot of fun building it.
I like mines, I like technology,
I like crazy projects. It answers all of those things for me.
And I like showing people this mine and telling them about it.
What reactions are you getting from your guests?
Some people are really interested in mines and they want to experience being down here.
Other people are a sort of thrill seekers, and they just like doing lots of really different things.
I'll show you the inside one of these cabins.
Yes.
Each cabin can accommodate two visitors.
There's heating, electricity and even Wi-Fi. A tour with overnight stay starts
at 175 pounds. That's 202 euro per person.
So you're not going to be sleeping in this one.
We have a special room for you. Would you like to come and have a look?
We enter a side chamber of the mine.
The roof's a little low here. Mind your head.
Okay, are you ready? -My room! This is my check-in.
Come on in. -Wow!
So this is like the suite?
Yeah.
The so-called "grotto room" is built directly
into the slate rock and even has running water.
Thanks to good insulation and electric heating it's dry and warm.
But one piece of furniture posed a major challenge.
It's an enormous amount of work to get a double bed down here. The mattress mostly.
This involved lots of guys in their underwear, wading through deep water, holding the mattress
up to keep it dry and clean. It's a big operation. So there is only one double bed and this is it.
What about meals?
We can't have a commercial kitchen down here, so we have expedition food.
I'll take this chicken keema curry.
My guide is also the chef.
It's really tasty, Nick.
Oh, good. That's wonderful.
Catering for guests is elaborate and requires lots of planning.
Everything on the table has been brought here in backpacks by the hotel team.
I'm really looking forward to my bed!
Good night.
Good morning. I'm just waking up from my deep sleep and it's really weird waking up
without any sunlight, but yeah. It's time to go, time to get up.
On the way back up we take a different route through one of the mountain's many tunnels.
Nick shows me a kind of museum along the way.
What's that?
So what we've got here is a cabane. A cabane was a canteen. So somewhere simply to be out
of the noise and the dust and the danger of working in a quarry, in a mine. Some of the
objects over here do give a bit of an insight into the lives that they led. So there are lots
of teapots. So tea was very important.
It gets challenging again. It's a steep climb to get back out.
The journey takes about two hours.
Finally I see daylight again.
Keep your helmet on for a little bit and then as you're walking out,
see the heat haze and have a breath of outside air.
I made it back out. I'm really, really happy. This was the most unique place I've ever stayed in.
And it was probably also the hardest to get to for any night in a hotel.
What's the most unusual place you've ever stayed in?
Let us know in the comments.