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4.0
#21 of 32 hotels in Southampton
Location
Cleanliness
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Value
Conveniently located in the heart of Southampton city centre, the 4-star Novotel Southampton hotel is the perfect base for guests looking to explore. Overlooking the historic port and just 450 yards from Southampton Central Rail Station, there's plenty of transport links to get around. Novotel Southampton is also within a walking distance from the West Quay shopping centre, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton Cruise Terminal and Ocean Village Marina. It is very popular destination for all guests who visit Paultons Family Theme Park - Home of Peppa Pig World or events and games at St. Mary's Stadium. After a day of sightseeing, guests can enjoy a dip in the indoor heated pool and fitness centre with gym while the kids can keep themselves entertained with the lobby computer games. Bedrooms in Novotel are spacious, contemporary in design, and adaptable. The Novotel rooms are truly a place for living. Novotel Southampton has an own restaurant and bar. In the hotel’s restaurant guests can enjoy a range of local and international cuisine, simple yet authentic, in a casual setting. They can also absorb the lively atmosphere at the bar. In stylish surroundings, with a great array of beers, wines and cocktails served by fun and friendly staff. Hotel’s buzzing bar offers the perfect place to enjoy an evening's entertainment or relax and unwind. Novotel Southampton has also an offer for the business, incredible spaces for incredible work. With state-of-the-art facilities tailored to client’s needs, and a whole host of extras to help unwind, this is time well spent. The hotel is close to the key transportation hubs and offers the ideal venue for meeting on business. Its dedicated conference and banqueting suites offer nine purpose-designed, fully equipped meeting rooms with the capacity for up to 450 people. All meeting rooms have natural daylight and flexible layout and breakout areas. Delicious meals, spacious bedrooms, access to all the incredible health and wellbeing extras; a stay at Novotel gives you the space for time well spent.
Star ratings are intended to indicate the general level of features, amenities, and services to expect. This property is classified according to Accor Hotels.
HOTEL STYLE
Green
City View
Languages Spoken
English
Location
1 West Quay Road, Southampton SO15 1RA England
Novotel Southampton Hotel
2,480 reviews
Getting there
Somewhat walkable
Places to stay are graded on a 0-100 scale. The higher the grade, the easier it is for travellers to find restaurants and things to do within walking distance.
This summary was created by AI, based on recent reviews.
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The Novotel Southampton Hotel enjoys a convenient location for public transport and local amenities, as acknowledged by numerous guests. However, some travelers feel that the hotel does not offer good value, pointing to high prices and underwhelming service quality in certain areas such as the restaurant.
While the friendliness of the staff often receives commendation, the outdated nature of the rooms and amenities, including a cramped gym and dated decor, has not gone unnoticed. Cleanliness is generally upheld, yet several reviewers suggest a revamp is needed to enhance the overall atmosphere and comfort.
Location
Convenient
Atmosphere
Outdated
Rooms
Dated
Value
Expensive
Cleanliness
Mixed
Service
Friendly
Amenities
Underwhelming
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Booked this trip to visit West quays shopping centre and Mayflower theatre. It's an ideal location to reach both venues by foot, nice large carpark at hotel at daily cost of £10 to hotel guests (not to bad for parking in a city). No low barriers so would be able to park van/people carrier easily. Very short walk to shopping centre and about five/six minute walk to theatre from rear of hotel across road to railway, over foot bridge turn right and up road and you are at theatre (much shorter than tom tom route and all on paved path. Hotel modern nice and clean with Gym and small swimming pool (didn't use these but look ok) . We had a three bed room with large double bed and couch pull out bed (which was like a standard double size), bath with shower and separate toilet. Room was heated well and clean. Breakfast was excellent, Full English, cooked nicely and full continental range plus extra bonus pancake maker. They also offer an gluten free range of products for breakfast and were willing to cook an gluten free option of sausages and hash browns for my wife who is a Coeliac. The best range of options we have experienced on our travels. We found only small/minor criticism was to many breakfast waiting staff stood around watching whilst we were eating our breakfast waiting to take plates (sounds funny! but you can have too many). Very nice visit and would definitely return.
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Date of stay: February 2020
Value
Cleanliness
Service
Room Tip:We had first floor room, facing front of hotel, seemed fine on our stay.
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patrick Le Henaff, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 5 Mar 2020
Dear Guest, The team and I very much appreciate your comments. We are so pleased that you had an enjoyable time during your stay with us and your room, location and breakfast met with your expectations. I will pass your comments on to the team. Again thank you for your kind words and we are looking forward to your next stay with us. Kind Regards Iwona Kowalczyk Guest Relations Novotel Southampton
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This is the third year in a row we've stayed at this Novotel.
I write this review taking into consideration Covid19. Novotel have done a very good job putting measures into place, they've done what they can.
Unfortunately it's some of the guests that ruin it and this can be difficult to manage by the Novotel team.
Over the three years we have been staying here we have given a room on the 2nd floor bizarrely next to the room we had the previous year, possibly a floor for families with kids? This floor is always busy and at times no social distancing at all, there are guests walking up and down the corridor - no masks - room service in and out of other rooms, everyone dodging everyone, not very nice.
Given the size of hotel I think guests should be spaced out and not crammed into one floor. There were occasions when you come out of the lift and have to dodge Mcdonald's packaging, pizza boxes, beer cans etc, not nice at all.
The price points of food at the Novotel are very steep for what you get and the next best option is Mcdonald's this means the corridors smells of it especially in the mornings.
Morning's are particularly irritating as the noise can be unbearable from neighbouring rooms, one room clearly had 6 guests crammed in.
Rooms themselves need some love, a lot of dust and generally very dated. The sink in the bathroom needs to be bleached down, bedside lights full of dust.
The above comments are easy fixes and I'm sure this will get sorted in due course.
The staff are very pleasant and helpful, we've never had issues with the team.
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Date of stay: August 2020
Value
Cleanliness
Service
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patina Farnham, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 9 Sept 2020
Dear Bhav370, I would like to thank you for taking the time to tell us about your stay. Your comment about our staff is highly appreciated. We are very sorry you had a bad experience with other guests during your stay. We are informing each guest during the check in process about the rules regarding the social distancing and the mask, and are trying our best to make everyone respect the rules. During the time of your stay, the hotel was fully booked, and with the school holiday we did welcome a lot of families. We are doing our best to accommodate everyone the best way possible, I am sorry you felt disappointed. We hope we will see you in a very near future.
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We stayed as part of a stopover on our way further south. The hotel was very easy to find and there was ample parking. It's a bit of a walk into town but there were a few shops on the nearby retail park which were handy. On the pre-arrival emails there was no mention that breakfast was a pack delivered to your room with no options for kids; there was also no mention that you needed to book the pool in advance or that the restaurant was shut (we'd hoped to eat there). We ended up not being able to use the pool, got breakfast from the McDonalds next door (cheaper) and had a meal in the bar. The bar staff were lovely and very helpful; the food was pretty good too. However when we went to sit back in the bar in the evening, it was obvious that the table hadn't been cleaned which isn't acceptable under the current circumstances. Also in the bedroom there were cobwebs by the window and some dubious marks on the back of the toilet door. If the venue was being deep cleaned before re-opening and between guests then those really shouldn't have been there.
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Review collected in partnership with Accorhotels.com
Date of stay: August 2020
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patina Farnham, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 21 Oct 2020
Dear Guest, Thanks for taking the time to tell us about your experience. We are very sorry that we did not entirely meet your expectations. At Accor, we strive to provide our guests with a superior service and given the current health crisis we live in, we have implemented a series of service changes and cleanliness enhancement & social distancing procedures to ensure both our customers and staff are kept safe. We understand that changes, in areas such as our cleanliness of the room, breakfast and Leisure Centre led to disappointment. Please accept our apologies. We are also sorry for the cleanliness issues experienced. This is not usual and please rest assured we will investigate your concerns to ensure similar issues do not happen again. We hope we can have the opportunity to better serve you in the future. If you decide to stay with us again, I assure you we will do our best to give you the great customer experience our guests have grown fond of. Kind Regards Iwona Kowalczyk Front Desk Supervisor
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Went here for a conference and entered a very busy hotel through the main doors. Asked a member of staff about parking on entry who told us it was free and directed us into the conference suite. No signs on entry to the hotel itself or in the area we walked through about parking. The company putting on the conference said nothing about registering or anything else about parking. Then a couple of weeks later we were sent a parking charge notice for £100 by a scam parking company who the hotel use to persecute those they can catch out. When we returned to take photos there are no signs on entry to the hotel itself or in the area you walk through to the conference rooms. Yes small written signs were in the car park on poles high up. They gave very little info and where we parked we did not walk past one. No one said anything about registering on an iPad. The ONE iPad to log vehicles was HIDDEN around a corner (picture 4)so you do not see it when you enter the conference suites and on the day there were posters and tables in this area. There was now a large poster with the iPad THAT WAS NOT THERE when the conference was on. Management were not interested and appeared very weak and just said to take it up with the parking company. They even said lots of people get caught out ..... this says something about their signage and want to help people attending their hotel. Any management with common sense would see because we provided evidence that yes, I was a customer in the conference and the bar afterwards;yes, I was entitled to park free; yes, it was a genuine mistake; therefore cancel the ticket! But no .....they feed the parking scammers. If it was clear you had to just put your number plate into an iPad or get a £100 ticket why would you not do the former....wake up Novotel! Disgusting behaviour from a supposedly large reputable chain and if you have to attend this place make sure you badger staff about getting hold of the iPad to register your car because they will not tell you!
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Date of stay: January 2020Trip type: Travelled on business
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patina Farnham, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 29 Mar 2020
Dear Vards, Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience with us. We are very sorry to read that you were issued with a PCN and of the inconvenience this has caused. Our car park is managed by Creative car park. For this reason, we have multiple signs displayed across our premises and advise all bookers to inform their attendees that even though the car park is complimentary for conferences & events, all vehicles need registering upon arrival. We understand that the situation should have been dealt with in a more effective and less stressful manner. Please accept my sincerest apologies and rest assured we will discuss your concerns further with the relevant teams, to avoid similar situations. We hope that we can have the opportunity to better serve you in the near future. Thank you for your feedback. KInd regards, Josue Poeira Guest Experience Manager Novotel, Ibis and Ibis Budget Southampton
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My wife and I stayed here with our two children for 2 nights whilst visiting Paultons Park. I would not stay again for several reasons. First, the room had obviously not been cleaned properly. There were sticky stains in the fridge (clearly a previous guest’s spillage) as well as dust on the headboard and around the door frames. The hotel has no air conditioning and the room was uncomfortably hot. When asked for a fan, the gent on reception brought a fan which was covered in dust. I cannot believe he did not see this on his way to the room. The breakfast is also definitely not worth the £12 a night which is charged; we filled in our preferences which were completely ignored. If you must stay here, forget breakfast and walk the 2 mins to McDonalds or Ikea instead. I relayed my unpleasant experience to the manager, with photos, who offered me 50% off a future stay. As we are unlikely to be in Southampton anytime soon, I asked if there was anything else which could be done. Two weeks later and I have heard nothing back.
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Date of stay: August 2020Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Had two rooms booked for two nights as we are a family of 5 and was visiting peppa pig world. Looked up on the hotel website prior to arriving that we had to book a slot to use the indoor pool due to covid . We tried for two days to get through to reception on the phone to try and book but the phone was never answered so we couldn’t pre book and when we arrived on the Wednesday afternoon we were told that it was fully booked that day and the following day. Leaving our 3 children disappointed. We booked breakfast for the Friday morning and paid £24 for two adults as children were free and we booked a time for breakfast . We arrived on time for our breakfast only to be told that our name wasn’t on the list leaving us feeling embarrassed and humiliated whilst the lady ran off to reception to check that we had actually booked and paid for the breakfasts 2 days prior. We were then shown to a table and went to sit down only for a family queueing up for their breakfast had to shout over to us that they were already sitting there. We were then shown to another table. We then queued up for about 20 mins whilst the queue grew bigger and bigger and people were standing the length of the restaurant waiting for be served . Finally we managed to order some toast and juice and then all the staff disappeared. We then waited and waited until a man finally appeared from the kitchen and began serving again . Our toast was now freezing cold but we couldn’t get on the end of the queue again as the children were all now starving hungry. Our breakfast was all cold with paper cups for the tea /coffee and a queue of people standing just a few feet away from our table watching us eat was most unpleasant . Only positive was the rooms were clean and warm but ran out of tea bags on our first day. Would not recommend this hotel.
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Date of stay: October 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patina Farnham, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 10 Nov 2020
Dear julesharrison, thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. I'm sorry to see that you did not enjoy your stay. As we navigate the changes in guidance to keep our guests and our teams safe we genuinely appreciate all feedback that helps us make changes to the way operate our business. With the current restrictions we have closed our restaurant, but are using this time to improve the processes in place, ready for a successful re-open in December. I am pleased to see that the cleanliness was of a good standard, and do hope that we have a chance to change your mind about the hotel in the future. Sincerely, Patina Farnham General Manager Novotel Southampton
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We stayed for 6 nights and found the hotel to be in a good location. 15 minute walk into the centre of Southampton, 10 minutes from West Quay. We found the room to be a little small, however, there were 4 of us in it. Disappointing that there was no air conditioning in the room, especially as a couple of the days were really warm. It was a lot warmer inside the room than outside, I'm not sure how. The hotel did have fans available, however they don't cool the room down and are noisy. For obvious reasons the hotel has to restrict the number of guests allowed in the swimming pool at anyone time, however, we were able to use it on a couple of occasions without having to wait. On all occasions the water temperature was on the cold side and the changing rooms are a little cramped. We stayed for 6 nights and didn't have housekeeping visit us during that time, we had to get fresh towels, toiletries and tea/coffee/milk from the busy housekeepers. Breakfast was a self serve buffet with bot hot and cold food. On the whole it was good, however, on one morning I made do with toast as there was a queue of 25 people waiting for hot food to become available. There didn't seem to be anyone in charge notifying guests and it was left to the chef to come out and advise what was happening. Parking is pricey at £10 per day, luckily we rarely moved our car so didn't have the problem others did in finding a space. If I return to Southampton I don't think I'll be staying here.
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Date of stay: August 2021
Rooms
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We stayed here for 3 nights in August. The rooms were comfortable but a little dated.
The main issue was with the Covid safe breakfast served in the room. The selection was not great, you could only have hot food or a continental breakfast but not a mix of both, so we went to the supermarket to buy some cereal and croissants.
In the hot breakfast we got 2 sausages, one egg, bacon and a bread roll. Some days we got butter and cutlery, others we didn’t! Tea was served in a paper cup with no milk and there was a tiny bottle of orange juice too.
On the second morning we ordered breakfast for 0900 and at 0950 it still hasn’t been delivered. I went down to reception complain and the receptionist blamed it on everyone ordering breakfast for delivery at the same time. It eventually turned up at 1000 which meant we’d lost an hour of the day and had to rearrange our plans as we’d missed the train we were planning to catch.
I’m an Accor loyalty member and this was probably the most disappointing Accor hotel that I’ve stayed in.
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Date of stay: August 2020Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patina Farnham, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 12 Oct 2020
Hello pmd76, I hope you are well and keeping safe. I thank you for choosing to stay with us at Novotel Southampton and we value your loyalty to Accor. I am so sad to hear that on this occasion your stay with us was not as pleasant as we would like. We have taken into consideration in regards to the breakfast, and we have added more measures in line with Government guidelines to now be able to have our breakfast to be served in our restaurant. I wish that if you do choose to return to Southampton, you can experience this. Kind Regards, Novotel Southampton
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We stayed here last weekend, initially we booked it because ayse of the swimming pool, upon arrival the swimming pool was closed which we were disappointed about the receptionist deducted the £10 pounds parking fee as compensation which was very kind. The bedroom was clean and comfortable the heating was very delayed and it was freezing in the room for about 2 hours before we could get warm. Location was great because it was right next to a mcdonalds drive through and near a kfc drive through. In the morning we went down for breakfast, unfortunately I'm exempt due to having chronic asthma, they asked me to wear a mask and I explained without giving reason as by law they're not allowed to ask, they then asked if I had a a exemption badge which I'd left at work, they sat us down at a table and a member of staff came over and loudly announced that because I don't have a mask I can't go up to the continental breakfast area, I was very embarrassed at this point, the lady who showed us to our seat then repeated the same thing where all the families could here, it wasn't that I didn't have a mask it was that I can't wear one, at this point I had enough, another family came in with children(ages around 8)obviously children are also exempt from wearing face masks but we're not told they couldn't go up and were allowed to go up to the continental area. I felt absolutely mortified and angry that my husband asked the lady who was welcoming guests into the dining area why they were allowed but I wasn't her response was a shrug on the shoulders. In other hotels we have stayed if I am not allowed to go to the continental area neither are the children but in this case novotel did not have this procedure and it was just boast against me. For this reason i would not return here. Definitely avoid if you're exempt from wearing masks.
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Date of stay: June 2021Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patina Farnham, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 7 Jun 2021
Dear 300kazp, thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. I am sorry to see that there were a few different aspects of your stay that were disappointing. Please accept my apologies for this. As we continue to develop our operations to ensure we remain covid-19 safe whilst balancing the normal guest experience we welcome all feedback and suggestions, and as such I have shared your feedback with out team to enable us to evolve our processes to be the best that they can be. I am sorry to hear that you would not return, however I do hope that you may change your mind, and that we do have an opportunity to welcome you back in the future. Sincerely, Patina Farnham General Manager Novotel Southampton
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Birthday weekend celebration post lockdown staying for the weekend. Arrived Friday, checked in, then went straight off to our first 20 min swim we pre-booked - our boys (3 & 6) LOVED it. I then popped across the road to get them Happy Meals (it was awful weather so didn’t fancy going out for dinner) and also grabbed a couple of drinks / snacks from the big Food Store place. My partner & I decided we’d take it easy and also grab a takeaway to the room, but thought it would be nice to have a drink in the bar first. It was about 6pm and lots of other families so didn’t feel out of place. Clearly the team were not anticipating so many people and were struggling to keep on top of drinks / food orders. This wasn’t exactly the end of the world, first weekend since Lockdown lifted, so to be expected and didn’t detract from our evening. The team did a great job coping with so many irate customers (people have clearly lost any ounce of patience during the lockdown!) and was quite amusing listening in on their “3rd world problems”. We had a lovely curry takeaway delivered to the hotel and our room (Forest themed) even had a fridge that was helpful.
On Saturday we had breakfast at the hotel. The cooked breakfast was ordered off the menu and took about an hour, but the kids always have continental so worked out great for us, nice leisurely breakfast. Yet again more irate hotel guests complaining how long their breakfasts were taking (there were not exactly wasting away) yelling at the poor hotel staff making a big scene. We just found it quite amusing and was nice that it wasn’t one of our children having a meltdown attracting unwanted attention! The rest of the day we explored Southampton and Sunday we swam again before checking out. We also left our car there on Sunday to go exploring and having read previous reviews I was fully aware of the parking charges so factored this into the room cost so no issues with that either.
Overall an excellent stay. Good amenities, good location, hard working friendly hotel staff, good value for money but don’t arrive expecting the “Ritz” otherwise you’ll be disappointed - other negative reviews clearly were!
If visiting Southampton again would be happy to stay here again.
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Date of stay: April 2021Trip type: Travelled with family
Room Tip:There is a small fridge in the Forest theme room
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from Patina Farnham, General Manager at Novotel Southampton Hotel
Responded 7 Jun 2021
Dear Nicksaw, thank you so much for your review. Whilst you may have experienced a few things that we are still working to fine tune, your understanding and compassion to the team is really appreciated. I have shared your review with the team, as I know this will help them carry on through these unusual and tough times. We can't wait to welcome you back! Sincerely, Patina Farnham General Manager Novotel Southampton
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There are more places to choose from in the Southampton area.
PRICE RANGE
HK$660 - HK$1,313 (Based on Average Rates for a Standard Room)
ALSO KNOWN AS
novotel southampton hotel southampton, accor southampton, southampton novotel
LOCATION
United KingdomEnglandHampshireSouthampton
NUMBER OF ROOMS
121
Prices are the average nightly price provided by our partners and may not include all taxes and fees. Taxes and fees that are shown are estimates only. Please see our partners for more details.
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