Holiday Inn Jesmond, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne > Reviews (1)

My husband and I stayed here for our wedding anniversary weekend. We used to stay here when it was the swallow imperial hotel and I have to say when we walked in we were pleasently surprised at how nice the place looked, and it was nice to note they had kept the same names for the suites/meetings rooms etc.

Anyways check in was fast with no problems and our room was on the third floor, so up we went in the lift and into the room. They have vastly improved from the dated swallow rooms I can tell you that, comfy bed, nice tv, there could of been more storage as there was no drawers for clothes only really shelves in the wardrobe which is annoying as half of them dont have a door in front so they are kinda just left out for all to see, there was also a digital safe in the wardrobe which is always good. The bathroom was nice with big shower (dual shower heads), sink with lit up vanity mirror, clean toilet and a heated towel rail/radiator - very clean. One thing I will say about the bathroom is that it has a seethrough door!! wtf who wants to pee or poop with a door that people can see through and on top of that theres a mirror right outside the door on the adjacent wall so if your on the loo and your other halfs outside getting ready looking in the mirror its hard not to see them! bad idea....plus when my hubby was on the loo housekeeping entered the room apologised apparently they didnt know it was occupied yet as we had arrived early then she left but I have to say that wasnt a nice experience for my husband not sure if she saw him but the big mirror was there so who knows, beware!! There seemed to be a lot of light switches which took a bit of getting used to cuz we kept hitting the wrong ones to turn things on and off lol. The aircon was great infact it was so good we woke up frozen and had to put the heat up lol. Oh there is a mini fridge in the room with juice, water, kitkats and such in it and all is free so thats a nice wee touch.

We went out for dinner and drinks on the first night and came back to a fruit platter and bottle of wine in our room which was a lovely touch for our wedding anniversary, even if the wine was a bit vinegary it was free so who can complain haha.

Our first nights sleep was fine though at 7am we could hear people outside the room talking and whatnot only then a wee while late to have a housekeeper trying to get into our room, thankfully we had the dead bolt on!! She apologised but apparently our do not disturb button wasnt working grrr....so we got some towels and restocked the fridge and she left. so much for our nice anniversary lie in that was us up and awake :( so we left the used fruit platter and wine outside the room only wee while later the housekeeper knocks the door to see if were finished with it....uhm no I left it out there to get cold I was going to finish the fruit later ffs of course were done with it (still no getting back to sleep) We tried again to get back into bed only for a while later the door to be knocked again for someone to shout in to see if the room had been clean omg seriously!!

we decided to get up and go out for some shopping!

The second night we went to bed around 10pm as we had an 8am flight and had to leave the hotel at 6am. We were woken by drunk people shouting and running up and down the corridors like idiots, got back to sleep only to be woken again at 3am by people shouting again I can still here that woman going "Darrrrrrennnnn, Darrrrrrrrennnn" I actually had to shout would you shut up were trying to sleep! I then got up to pee and our bathroom absouletly stunk of marijuana!!! someone next door must of been smoking the stuff. Finally got back to sleep again, got up at 5am by my alarm.....my 5am wake up call finally came at 5.15am when we were already up and drinking our tea! (there are tea making facilities but I suggest buying a pint of milk to keep in the fridge).

Thankfully our taxi was on time and the lovely taxi driver even waited while we complained, my husband filled in a comment card and told the front desk everything, the guy said "oh well if I had of checked you in I would of upgraded you to the next room and defo wouldn't of put you in the section you were in as its were all the singles/stags/hens were staying" seriously whoever checked us in obviously didnt have a clue!!! He told us someone would follow up with us but to email the complaint properly.

I wrote an email and they finally got back to us, the Manager Amy was very kind and helpful and we were satisfied with the compensation that was offered to us.

I have to say the hotel is lovely its had a major facelift, can't comment on the food as we never ate there but the drinks can be quite expensive over ten pounds for a magners and a bacardi, the staff were nice and although annoying the housekeeping staff were very friendly and helpful and we cant fault them especially as our dont disturb button was broke (they were only doing their job). The hotel is close to the metro which is great and its priced ok for a Holiday Inn I don't think its 4 star thought lke they say maybe a 3 star would suit it better, I would of given it 2 stars for the trouble we had but didnt due to the manager sorting it out and the hotel is very nice. Can't comment on anything else as we only used the room for sleeping (or trying to sleep) and were out the rest of the time.

I would give the hotel a second chance but will defo be telling them when checking in that we better be in a quiet part of the hotel away from the weekend drunks!