Holiday Inn, Sheffield

...Sheffield, we stayed at the Holiday Inn. The hotel is relatively easy to find, no matter how you get to it and the website has detailed instructions as well as a printable map to help you find it. I've cheated and copied them below (probably not really allowed to do that, but you're only going to look them up anyway if you ever want to go) to save you the bother of looking for yourself, but if you want the map, you will find it at the following address:
...FACILITIES

The Holiday Inn has been open for 143 years and offers modern, yet traditional accommodation in a fairly tranquil setting, whilst being very close to the city centre. It is an impressive, domineering grade 2 listed building with 100 en-suite bedrooms (all refurbished with new bathrooms), a Ballroom, 6 Conference rooms and various other suites with generous capacity for the purpose of business events and functions (16 in ... more

I recently attended a hen weekend in Sheffield and, since none of us actually live in Sheffield, we stayed at the Holiday Inn. The hotel is relatively easy to find, no matter how you get to it and the website has detailed instructions as well as a printable map to help you find it. I've cheated and copied them below (probably not really allowed to do that, but you're only going to look them up anyway if you ever want to go) to save you the bother of looking for yourself, but if you want the map, you will find it at the following address:

http://www.holidayinn-sheffield.co.uk/location/MAPDIRECTIONS.pd f

DRIVING

The hotel has 250 free secure car parking spaces. From M1 Junction 33 follow Sheffield Parkway to City Centre (approx 6 mi). At Park Square Roundabout follow signs for A61 N. Exit the Roundabout in the far right hand lane of the A61 N Barnsley. Follow tourism sign for the hotel. Turn right onto Furnival Road at the first set of traffic lights (approx 300m from roundabout). The entrance of the hotel is immediately on the left.

TRAIN

Sheffield Train Station is on the Midland Mainline train line and is located close to the Hotel. It is: 10 minutes walking distance, 5 minutes drive time or 10 minutes walking distance from the Super-Tram from and to the Fitzwilliam Square Stop.

AIRPORT

Sheffield City Airport (SZD) - Exit the airport and head for the A630 Sheffield Parkway then follow the above directions. Included on the website are details of journey distances, estimated taxi fares and directions from alternative airports.

HOW DID I GET THERE?

I decided the best option for me would be to take the train since I live in Yorkshire. Armed with the website map, I found it fairly straightforward to get to the hotel which is about a 10 minute walk (15 if you don't know where you are going) from the station. It is actually pretty straight, but the roads are unbelievably busy and, although you can be a daredevil and take your chances, you'd be better off opting for the not-as-the-crow-flies route. I was on the lookout for a subway until I realised that the main pedestrian crossings were overhead (next to the tram lines) so remember to look up as it's quite a strange set up. Obviously the crossings make the route a bit more meandered, but a fair bit quicker.

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE HOTEL AND ITS FACILITIES

The Holiday Inn has been open for 143 years and offers modern, yet traditional accommodation in a fairly tranquil setting, whilst being very close to the city centre. It is an impressive, domineering grade 2 listed building with 100 en-suite bedrooms (all refurbished with new bathrooms), a Ballroom, 6 Conference rooms and various other suites with generous capacity for the purpose of business events and functions (16 in total). There is also a lot of meeting equipment available for business functions, such as overhead projectors and screens etc. The hotel also provides a photocopying service along with secretarial assistance, a fax service and a dedicated meetings host, should you require extra support.

All bedrooms are equipped with a direct dial telephone, modem points, tea/coffee making facilities, satellite TV, pre-pay movies, a safe and a hairdryer. There are also mini bars available to those in Executive rooms, of which there are 32.

The hotel has a garden and a gym on site which includes a dance studio, cardio theatre and sauna. It boasts an award winning restaurant which serves both continental and British cuisine, but those who do not wish to dine in the restaurant have the option of room service. As well as all the function rooms, the hotel also has a quiet lounge, a grand lounge and bar, a cocktail bar and the means to host barbeques in the garden in the summer.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The hotel is at the end of an eerily quiet side road, despite the fact that there is also a Hilton hotel in the immediate vicinity. Externally, it seems very grand and quite unlike the sort of place that Mrs Tadders would ever frequent. I tend to go for cheap and cheerful rather than glamorous and glitzy. The reception area is quite striking as it is a bit like stepping back in time. With very high ceilings and traditional Victorian décor, it does not evoke the sense of neglect, rather the fact that they have tried to remain traditional in their decorative approach. I've never been a huge fan of those practical sensible patterned hotel carpets and garish wallpaper, but there is the sense that this place wouldn't look right any other way. It is too grand to carry off a modern, minimalist interior and there is something quite comforting about the fact that they have not tried to change the period features. The other point to mention is that the cleanliness of the place does not seem to be a problem, which is often a bit of a rarity in places this large.

THE STAFF AND SERVICE

The night before the hen night, I had managed to lose my mobile phone. I've never done this before and had only left it in my local, but I couldn't have picked a worse time to be without it. I took down three phone numbers of ladies I knew would be on the hen night from my hubby's phone and realised I would have to try and find a payphone (long time since I've done that) when I reached the hotel.

I explained to the lady on the reception desk that I was with a rather large party, but I wasn't sure of the name under which it had been booked, because I wasn't sure if our arrival was known to the hen at that point. To make life easier, I gave her a few of the names in our party and asked her if it would be possible to try and track them down to find out which room I should be checked into. I wasn't really sure whether or not she'd be allowed to tell me the room numbers of the guests in case I was some scary psychotic, but she was very professional about it. Instead of giving me the room numbers, she dialled the extensions and then handed me the handset, so I would be able to talk to people without knowing where they were. When all the room numbers rang out, I explained my phone predicament and asked if there was a payphone anywhere so that I could call their mobiles. She very kindly let me use the main reception phone free of charge and I eventually got through to one of them. It turns out they were all sitting in the large bar area (which is all of 10 steps from the reception area) guzzling wine and if I'd just popped my head around the corner, I would have seen them! Mind you, this isn't the kind of place that you try and wander about in without knowing where you're going. It really is huge! Before I checked in, the receptionist seemed quite happy to let me go and join my friends for a drink in the bar and she was incredibly efficient and friendly when I finally did come back to do the necessary admin and get my key card.

She was also very honest about the fact that my room might be a bit noisy because they had a function on that night and the event was situated directly below my room. She offered to change it for me, but I mentioned that our function might be even noisier and that we probably wouldn't be getting much in the way of sleep. I have to mention that the function was actually a wedding and you could clearly feel the beat of the music through the floor of my room when we got there. Obviously this was not an issue given our reasons for being there and the fact that the receptionist had flagged up the fact that it could cause disturbance, but it could be a bit annoying if you were after a sound night's sleep. As it turned out, it just got me in the party mood and I can only assume that said wedding finished a long time before our party did as you could hear a pin drop by the time I eventually got to bed!

As we were only staying for one night and most of that was spent painting the town red, I didn't really have much to do with the staff, other than at breakfast and when we arrived back from our night out. However, I didn't have much to complain about. When we got back to the hotel (at about 2am) the staff seemed more than happy to open up the bar for us (if they were grumpy they didn't show it) and keep it open until we went to bed at about 3.30am.

They were equally attentive the following morning at breakfast. It was a buffet service, although tea and toast were served by waiting on staff. The bloke who brought us our tea seemed to have a little difficulty understanding us, though I'm willing to forego this, as I imagine much of his difficulty was centred on the fact that we were all so hungover, we were finding it virtually impossible to string a sentence together, let alone make any sense. It's an absolute miracle we even made it to breakfast come to think of it and anyone who brings me tea when I feel like that can be as confused as they want just as long as they continue to bring the tea.

THE BAR

I'm assuming that the bar we saw was the large one, which led off the main reception area. It was basically a very large (in terms of width and height) room filled with leather chairs and sofas which wouldn't have seemed out of place in a doctor's office. I'm not overly keen on that kind of décor, but I have to say that it worked really well and was very comfortable. Maybe the traditional approach is just more suitable in hotels in terms of making them feel homely. This felt a bit like doc's couch meets Yorkshire pub and maybe that's why I felt so at home there. Nothing to do with the bottle of wine of course! The bar had a good range of drinks and they even dimmed the lights to change the mood every now and again, though I'm guessing that was a subtle hint for us to go to bed!

THE ROOMS

The bedrooms were massive and I found myself fretting about the potential cost of my room - it's the pikey Yorkshire in me! I had a twin room which I shared with another lady, but a twin consisted of two double beds in one of the biggest rooms ever. There was a good sized TV, refreshments hidden away in a cupboard (which always makes me smile, as tea bags are hardly messy and it's almost as if they don't want you to find them) and a hairdryer - also hidden in a cupboard? I'm convinced that the cupboard thing made me forget to make myself a cup of tea, because I was gagging for a non-alcoholic drink before bed and the water wasn't drinkable. I'm funny when it comes to hairdryers and always take my own with me in case the one provided is pants. So, I can't really comment on the one in this room, but I'm willing to bet that it was about as efficient as a chocolate fireguard and my friend assured me that the one in her room wasn't much to write home about.
The beds were fairly comfy. Again, I always prefer my own bed to any other, but for as long as I actually did sleep, I slept well and there was none of that nasty saggy bed syndrome going on that you get with so many hotels these days. They did go a bit overboard on the whole decorative scatter cushion effect, but I just chucked them off the bed so that I could sleep horizontally rather than vertically. As is the case with most big old Victorian buildings, this one has big windows which let loads of light into our room, although there were several other lamps/lights at our disposal.

THE BATHROOM

The en-suite bathroom was also pretty big, very modern and came equipped with a power shower (a godsend the following morning) and complimentary hair and shower gel as well as two large, fluffy white bath towels, two fluffy white hand towels and a bath mat - also white although not quite as fluffy. Complimentary tissues were also provided and it had a nice big mirror with a strong light above it - obviously for make-up purposes. My only criticism of the bathroom was the fact that the mixer tap over the sink was a bit dodgy in that the water never ran cold on the cold setting. Not only did this mean you couldn't drink it (probably so that you'd fork out for bottled water) but it meant cleaning your teeth with tepid water which is really not good when you have a hangover! I don't normally mind paying for bottled water, but we didn't have a mini bar in our room and I would have killed for some cold water at 6am! Pity I didn't remember the tea, eh? That would have done the job, if I could have been bothered to make it!

THE RESTAURANT

I only had or should I say tried to have one meal at the restaurant and that was breakfast. In the end, I only managed a bit of toast, some bacon and scrambled eggs (the eggs were divine by the way - no doubt full of cream - yum!) due to larging it the night before, but the room was airy and light and, under normal circumstances, I would have devoured the buffet. There was a lot of choice when it came to what you could have. There was the bog standard cooked breakfast with hash browns, tomatoes, sausages, eggs, mushrooms, beans etc. or a continental selection of ham and different cheeses for those who favoured the colder savoury option. There was a good selection of fresh fruits, yogurts and cereals and a fresh orange juicer that you throw whole oranges into to make your own juice. I think we may actually have broken this machine by the time we'd served ourselves (hopefully the jammed orange was easily removable!) but there was a variety of different juices available in jugs for those who couldn't be bothered! As I mentioned tea and coffee was served at the table along with warm toast and butter and there was a choice of different jams. I was just annoyed that I didn't have more of an appetite!

OTHER FACILITIES

Unfortunately, I can't really comment on the other facilities at the hotel because I wasn't there long enough to experience them. If they are anywhere near as good as the rest of the hotel seems to be, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

CHECK-OUT

As it was a Sunday and the trains are desperate at the best of times, I decided to jump on one fairly early rather than wait another two hours for my next one. Since my room mate wasn't checking out until later, I asked the lovely lady on reception if it was possible for me to check out of and pay for my half of the room without my friends, as she wanted to keep the room for a bit longer. Again, she was more than helpful, letting me pay for my half and hand in the key card. I was charged £40 which I thought was more than reasonable given the service and lovely accommodation. It had almost been like a mini holiday and I didn't really want to leave and go back home where I had to look after myself again!
I'm afraid I don't know how much breakfast was, because the hen's mother kindly paid for it and I very much doubt that the room rate is only £80 if you haven't negotiated a special rate. From the website, it looks as though prices start at about £120, but it seems that they are willing to negotiate different rates if you are bringing a fair amount of business to the hotel. I'd highly recommend staying here, whether for business or leisure if you are ever in the area. It's a long time since I've found so little to complain about at a hotel.

You will find the Holiday Inn at the following address: -

Holiday Inn Royal Victoria
Victoria Station Road
Sheffield S4 7YE
Ph: 0114 276 8822
Fax: 0114 272 4519
E: sales@holidayinnsheffield.co.uk
 

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