Holiday Inn (Nottingham)

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money
Quality of Rooms	Good
Standard of Service	Good
Quality of Food & Drink	Good

Advantages:	Good food, good location
Disadvantages:	Rooms can be a bit tatty

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Christmas comes but once a year, and when it does, the all-important Christmas office party needs to be arranged. As you may have read in my review of NG1, my party last year was a bit of a damp squib, but I must say that I was quite pleased with the team’s choice of hotel. The Nottingham Holiday Inn was selected for its central location and for the price that was offered for bed and breakfast – and I’m quite confident that I would come here again.

LOCATION

The Nottingham Holiday Inn occupies a superb central location. For a start, the hotel occupies several floors, and is perched on the top of a hill, so if you get a room on one of the upper floors, you are guaranteed a good panoramic view. My room was on the sixth floor, and looked straight out over the city, directly in front, and onto the floodlit castle to the left. If you do decide to make arrangements to stay here, make sure you deal with the City Centre hotel, as there is another Holiday Inn at Castle Marina Park.

The hotel is situated on St James Street, which is a side road off Maid Marian Way - one of the main roads in and out of the city centre. The hotel is located on one side of a one-way system, but is very close to a roundabout, so is easily reached from whichever direction you arrive in the city. We had parked lower down in the city centre, as we had visited another building beforehand, but there is a NCP car park situated adjacent to the hotel, which I understand is free for guests. If you are arriving in Nottingham by train, the hotel is probably a twenty-minute walk, but if you have luggage or its raining (or both) I would advise the use of a taxi.

The hotel itself is in a particularly good position, because it really is very close to all the different locations. A short walk across the main road will bring you out in the middle of the city centre, where you can find all the shops during the day and all the pubs and clubs by night. Nottingham Castle is within walking distance from the hotel, as is the Tales of Robin Hood Museum – an interactive tour of Nottingham’s history. The National Ice Arena and Trent Bridge Cricket Club are also both close by.

ARRIVAL

The hotel itself is quite a strange building in that it seems to perch on the side of the road and towers upwards rather than outwards. This is evident as soon as you walk in, because the ground floor contains only the reception desk and a few lounge chairs and tables. The next floor up is for the cloakroom and toilets, the floor above that is the bar and restaurant and it isn’t until you get one floor further up again that you find any of the bedrooms. It’s worth taking a minute or two to familiarise yourself with this, otherwise you’ll find yourself in and out of the lifts all evening.

The checking in procedure was fairly brisk. All the relevant documentation had been prepared and all that was required from me was a signature and a card swipe. The receptionist didn’t really offer any information about the hotel – this suited me, but I know that some guests prefer a bit of a verbal guided tour.

ROOM

The hotel was generally clean and tidy, but some of the corridors and carpets had started to look a bit tired. The décor of the corridors leading to the bedroom was very reminiscent of a 1970s office building, and wasn’t the most inspiring way to get in. Heavy fire doors segregated sections of the corridors, and I found the whole atmosphere rather oppressive. The bedroom doors worked with electric swipe cards, and after the usual struggle to get the thing working, I managed to get into the room.

The bedroom was a decent enough size, with a double bed, bedside table, desk and small armchair. It has to be said that there wasn’t a vast amount of floor space around the room, but I think “cosy” would have been a fair description. The room was extremely stuffy – the weather was quite cold outside, and so the rooms had been heated to sauna-like temperatures. Even though the air conditioning was on cool, the room still seemed very hot, and I had to open the windows to let in some fresh air. As the room was up high, the windows were fitted with safety catches, to stop you falling out – but it has to be said that they didn’t feel very strong, and wobbled rather precariously whilst I was sat on the window ledge.

All of the rooms in the hotel feature satellite television, as well as pay-per-view movies. I had some time to kill in the afternoon, and settled down to Men In Black 2 (yawn!) but I have to say that the £6.75 price tag was a bit excessive, given that the televisions weren’t very big and the reception wasn’t very good. Although there were sports and news channels, I was disappointed to find that there was no music channel, which I generally have on in the background whilst I’m working or having a bath. It took me ages to work the lights out too. The room was covered in switches, and as fast as I turned one light on another would go off.

The bathroom was larger than average, plain and artificially lit. The bath was a good size, and there was plenty of hot water, but the shower came without a spray attachment, so the water blasted out of it like a police water cannon. The shower curtain was a bit flimsy and I quickly found myself with a large puddle all over the bathroom floor. The floor itself was covered in linoleum, which had been kept very clean but had clearly seen better days. The edges were cracked and curled, and overall the room looked a bit shabby. The toilet had the heaviest lid I have EVER seen and whilst using it in the night, I opted to sit down rather than stand up for fear of getting something trapped under it.

EATING AND DRINKING

Due to the seasonal timing of our visit, the restaurant was serving a pre-paid Christmas menu, which gave a three-course meal for £15 per head. This was certainly a popular choice – the restaurant was packed when we turned up and I was glad that we had booked a table. I really enjoyed the meal in the restaurant because the hotel had tried hard to get everyone in the mood. The table service was very quick – perhaps a little hasty in hindsight – and everyone was given party poppers, hats and those balloons that scream round the room when you let the air out. This was not the place to come for a quiet meal, it has to be said.

The food was served buffet style from the carvery and there was a good selection of different meats, vegetables and potatoes. As with all these things, the food was not quite piping hot, but there was such a quick turnover of food that things didn’t sit and get cold or crusty. Comedy highlight of the evening (for some, anyway) came when the young male chef gave me some slices of turkey and then proceeded to ask me if I would like stuffing. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about myself… We ordered a bottle of champagne with our food, which tasted fine to me, but the others thought was a bit nasty, but otherwise, we all agreed that it was a good spread.

After the meal, we went into the bar, which was not the cosiest of venues as the lifts opened straight out into one end. There was a Christmas disco playing, but after a few drinks, I was whisked away into the night for fear that The Cheeky Girls would start to play.

During the night I also ordered some rounds of sandwiches from room service, and these were delivered promptly. The sandwiches were wonderfully fresh, and came with fresh salad and Kettle Chips. To say that I devoured them would be an understatement, but at £7.00 a round, the usual room service pricing clearly applied.

In the morning, we had our breakfast in the restaurant, and this went down an absolute treat. The breakfast normally costs £13.95, but was included in our room rate. Everything was once again served buffet style, but the food was all piping hot and very fresh. Anyone that regularly eats cooked hotel breakfasts will know that this isn’t always the case. I filled my face, much to the dismay of my colleagues, who could barely manage a glass of orange juice. Am I the only person in the world who gets ravenous with a hang over?

RATES AND STUFF

Holiday Inns are generally quite flexible when it comes to price and it’s always worth checking out offers before you book. We negotiated a £70 bed and breakfast rate, which was a fair price given the standard of accommodation. I wouldn’t be inclined to pay much more than this, because the rooms (and the bathrooms) are a bit tired, but the standards of service were very good, and we had a very pleasant stay. The location was great and the view of the castle a nice extra. I would, of course, reserve final judgement until I undertake a non-festive stay, but otherwise was very pleased.

Recommended