南伯明翰長橋普瑞米爾飯店

nice hotel

So on paper this looks fine but overall it was not a great stay. When we went to check in there was a group ahead of us and it took absolutely ages for the two staff members to check them in. I don’t know what the problem was but two staff members took over 10 minutes to sort it out, meanwhile there was a queue forming - for some reason they couldn’t organise themselves so that one staff member dealt with the problem while the other got everyone else checked in? We got our room fairly quickly when we did finally get checked in, but the room itself was looking very tired. The walls were marked, holes in ceiling tiles and curtains, the bathroom smelled of mildew (I think the shower curtain needed changing, it was not looking in good repair). The toilet paper was the cheapest I have ever encountered in a premier inn and the water pressure in the shower was meh. One of the bedside lights made a horrible buzzing noise. The bed was clean and comfortable but that was about the only positive comment I have! Then, in the morning, my partner managed to get quite a serious cut on his arm in the shower. They have fitted a holder for the shower gel which has a razor sharp edge underneath. Words fail me.

Opinion of PIs is slowly but surely declining. We still stay in them a fair bit for family breaks, main reason being the wide coverage and price. But overall things are declining with the previously unchallenged breakfast ( in terms of value vs quality) being the recent notable. 1) the divestment of Costa by Whitbread meant the end of their coffee beans. That has been followed by the dispensing machines, with the replacements being atrocious- basically all you get is a froth of milk for lattes and cappuccinos with no coffee flavour. 2) I believe they’ve now ditched Kelloggs for most of their cereals presumably cost saving. The cornflakes particularly taste very unlike kelloggs and it’s no longer advertised as Kellogg a on the menu cards. Selection of cereals has declined too - granola no longer appears to be around. 3) Quality of bread also appears reduced In terms of the rest, I’ve also noticed that air conditioning where it exists, is now controlled centrally and in my view not cold enough, again presumably saving money. Our room was much too warm still on the days around 11/12 August that were hot outside and we had the fan set at maximum. Also noticed that food cleanliness on arrival is variable. This visit we found several large hairs on arrival in the bathroom. A PI we stayed at in Liverpool a week earlier was however really clean. In summary, we continue to use them but now regularly look at competitors and at times choose them over PI which would have been unheard of for us in the UK until a year ago.

The hotel was so easy from check in to check out. In the room, there was a hidden duck for the children to find and once they found it and returned it to reception they were given a Freddie and a little basketball game. The room was set up ready for us, with all beds made. Every member of staff we encountered were very freindly and asked the children about their stay.