Holiday Inn Hotel

I spent one single night at this hotel on my way from London to Scotland. The hotel is clean and neat, not luxourious neither a dump.The breakfast is just ok. The staff is friendly, and willing to help (or maybe beacuase we were a bunch of portuguese at manchester gates!). I advise this hotel for a couple nights if you are on the route for some place else since is quite far from the city center.

This is just a fairly poor motorway hotel which was cheaply built 20 years ago in the middle of nowhere. It really needs a fair bit of money spent on it. We booked a superior room thinking that that would improve things but that involved 2 small bottles of water and 2 warm 250ml bottles of wine for £10! All the rooms are the same glum 80's decor and the whole place is just depressing. It is not too bad at anything but there are much better places nearby.

Have stayed here on a couple of occassions (not by choice - was booked for me - would always always choose Prem Travel Inn over Holiday Inn) and on both previous occasions, it's been an acceptable stay. No major gripes about it this time but it's just not an overall great hotel. The decor in the room was bland and somewhat dated. The bed and the pillows were uncomfy and both our evening meal and breakfast were over-priced and of a poor standard. Have to say, the receptionist was a nice, pleasant and helpful lad but I wouldn't and won't be staying here again.

We stayed one night, Saturday 24th March, enjoyed the experience and were quite happy. The room was spacious, quiet and well furnished. The bathroom was immaculately clean and warm. Breakfast was a plentiful, varied buffet with coffee served by cheerful smiling ladies. What more could we want? Only the hour less sleep we had because BST required that the clocks should be advanced one hour that night !!

I stay frequently in HolidayInns throughout England however this is one of the worst HolidayInn Hotels I have been. The service is very unfriendly if not rude and although I had a non-smoking room confirmed I was give a smoking room which I declined. They did not have any non-smoking rooms left upon my arrival and therefore I was given a converted meeting room. The room was not too bad as it has everything in there what I needed however the heating didn't work and when I told reception they did not even to bother to apologise but gave me instead a littel fan which stank like hell and because I was put on the ground floor (which doesn't happen often as a women when you stay in a hotel) I was not even able to open the window. Be aware Room Service costs you a £2 tray charge and the food is not only little in portion but although low in quality. Not enough I had to go to the restaurant in order to pay for my room service which is a joke in itself. There are no shops in walking distance and the vendor machines are usually not filled - very useful in a hotel. I would not recommend it although their standard rooms are ok but if you want to eat there or expect a friendly service - you are definitly better off staying somewhere else.

We stayed here over the end of December start of January 2007. The reception upon arrival was very impressive, gradually things changed. We dined in the restaurant 2 nights and both nights we were given the wrong menus only to discover when we ordered that they weren't serving from these menus. The standard of service wasn't great, food at night was fine. The breakfast selection was poor compared to other Holiday Inn Hotels that we have stayed in, no choice very basic, and one member of staff serving tables, welcoming and clearing up. The best laugh was New Year's Eve, we were charged extra money for the room for this day. On New Year's Day there was no cleaners to service the rooms but we never received extra towels for the 2 days and the choice at breakfast this morning was worst than any other day, and also there was no soft drinks available in the bar as their gas had gone off. The standard of cleanliness in the bathroom left alot to be desired. The fan didn't work and also around the bath grip there was black dirt that had been there for a while. The rooms in general could do with a complete revamp and modernisation.

This hotel is a typical chain hotel catering largely to business travellers. As such it is mostly impersonal with both it's rooms and it's services being functional and adequate rather then something to remark upon. The staff are friendly (but not always overly compentent) but the bar/restaurant prices definately reflect the fact that there's not a lot of alternative in the immediate area. It's not somewhere I would stay for anything other then business convenience - there are a number of very good bed and breakfasts in the area (for instance in Lynn) which would be much higher on my list if I were to stay for pleasure.

Don't let them swipe your card a second time! Upon checking my bank statement, I realised that when they said they were 'pre-authorising' my card for drinks etc, they were also charging me the full price of my room a second time. Getting a refund was turned into a chore by the inept reception staff suggesting that they'd swiped it once for each guest. Mistakes happen, fact of life, but normal people admit their mistake & apologise. Some, however, prefer to make themselves look ridiculous & try to cover up their mistakes by trying to deceive. No wonder the place was practically empty!

Check in involved the somewhat unorthodox practice of having to compulsorily pre-authorise your credit / debit card to the tune of 1p, even if you have no intention of purchasing any additional food, drink or other services from the hotel. Rooms were reasonably comfortable & clean, with decor straight out of the eighties & the odd patch of paint beginning to subtly peel off the wall as if to invite replacement. The 'Pillow Menu' is a thoughtful touch I suppose, but I doubt whether more than 1% of guests would bother to change from the perfectly adequate ones already provided. The shower was worthy of special mention, on account of it's unparalleled ferocity. By careful juggling of the mixer tap, it was eventually possible to reduce the power down from fireman's hose level to just a pleasantly punitive jet wash, but only after saturating the bathroom floor. Prior to departure, we did a quick recce to try & discover the reason for the 'Garden Court' label. As far as we could tell, this amounted to a tiny patio area with 1 or 2 picnic benches & a view of the lovely skips & containers in the rear car park. Overall you get what you pay for & on that basis we were quite happy with what we got.

Excellent hotel. Wonderful and very helpful staff. Comfortable, neat, clean, even stylish. Great food. I never expected it to be this good.A word of warning: go armed with your laptop because there's no internet cafe for miles...in case you are an internet junkie like me.