I've neglected Ciao and been away but as from next week I will be back with new reviews - so watch t...
I've neglected Ciao and been away but as from next week I will be back with new reviews - so watch this space!
Member since:12.04.2005
Reviews:104
Members who trust:104
Monday mornings, don't you just hate them? To be honest I hate most mornings (except Saturday and Sunday) but out of all the remaining days of the week I have to say that Monday mornings do not fill me with joy.
His Monday morning is no different. It's freezing cold and dull and dreary outside and after a wonderful weekend in which I saw two of my friends get married it all seems quite rubbish to be back at work. The only good thing is that the boss is off so at least I can have an easy day today.
So thinking about my weekend I decided that maybe I could write a slightly different review to my normal health & beauty ones. Thinking of something I could write about it suddenly dawned on me that over the weekend we had stayed in a hotel as the wedding was in Manchester and it didn't really make sense to drive all the way up and back from Milton Keynes on the day itself.
After looking at the options (basically what was cheapest) we opted for The Ibis Hotel, there are two of these in Manchester City Centre, we stayed in the one off Charles Street. Situated about a 5-10 minute walk from Piccadilly train station it is in a good location easily accessible by road and rail (Oxford Road train station is also about a 5-10 minute walk away). The other is on Portland Street but having not stayed there I cannot comment on how that measures up to the one situated off Charles Street.
We needed a room for 2 people for 2 nights, staying on a Friday & Saturday. You can easily check for room availability on the Ibis website http://www.ibishotel.com/ibis/index.html using the simple form in which you input the date you want your stay to start, how many nights you need a room for and how many people you require it to sleep. The website will then tell you if there are rooms available and the price. You can then book the room online using a credit or
debit card or you can phone and reserve or book the room.
The 2 star hotel, which is accessible to disabled guests has 126 rooms, each featuring an on suite bathroom with shower. It is 15km from Manchester airport. The Chinese district is literally a stones throw away with plenty of places offering all you can eat buffets at a fantastic price. The Palace theatre and the Opera House are just a few metres away from the hotel and there are plenty of pubs nearby if you fancy a drink or two. You are never far away from all the action as a short walk, bus or taxi journey will take you right into the heart of Manchester's City Centre so it's ideal for a base to stay during a shopping or clubbing weekend.
The hotel has its own restaurant, a themed bar area which is open 24 hours which will provide food off the menu at anytime of day all at pretty reasonable prices, there are a range of snacks and meals available. The drinks were quite expensive but each room is provided with a kettle, mugs and tea and coffee and you could always just take your own drinks if you want to (that's what we did). Breakfast is not included in the price of the rooms but you can purchase this separately. At a cost of £5.25 you can have an all you can eat buffet style breakfast consisting of cereals, pastries, ham, cheese, bread rolls and tea/coffee etc.
We make a reservation for our rooms as we don't want to lose them, we are told that we can cancel our reservation up to midday on the day we are due to arrive. This is pretty good as it means you can hold the rooms and if you were to find somewhere cheaper you could just cancel them at no cost to yourself. We don't find a room cheaper anywhere else so we stuck with our original booking.
As we were driving up to Manchester we checked out the parking options - the hotel does not have its own car park which is quite annoying, although as it based slap bang in the centre of the city it's hardly surprising that they don't. Opposite the hotel is an NCP car park which they advise you is the nearest available place to park, this costs £10 for 24hrs, not bad when you consider how much NCP car parks usually cost but as we would be there for 2 days we decide against paying the extra £20 and left the car in East Didsbury at a friends house and caught the train into the city saving us a considerable amount of money.
We arrived at the hotel at 10.30pm on the Friday night and were greeted by a very cheery gentleman. He explained how they were required to take a 'holding charge' on the room which was £70 per night, my boyfriend used his card for this as we were told the charge is not actually taken from the account but just used as a kind of deposit and would be cancelled when we paid upon checking out.
Our room was on the 4th floor and the hotel had 2 lifts and stairs to enable you to get up to the required floor. With a heavy bag in tow (well I'm a woman aren't I) we opted to take the lift. The lock on the rooms door was operated with one of the card keys and after a bit of fiddling around trying to work out which way it went in we got the door open.
The room was large and well laid out. There was a massive window that looked out over the city and gave a wonderful view of the hustle and bustle. There was a small wardrobe with hangers inside, a built in table/shelf under the window (which later came in handy for ironing!) a TV with plenty of channels and a little shelf underneath with the kettle and tea and coffee etc. The lighting was perfect and had a main room light which wasn't too bright and then two bedside lamps, one on either side of the bed.
The bathroom which was absolutely stunning had a large shower cubicle (big enough for 2) with glass doors and an amazing power shower, there was a toilet and then a basin with a vanity area surrounding it. Again the lighting was really well done to provide the best amount of light without blinding you, which sometimes you find with hotels. There was a shower gel dispenser in the shower and individually wrapped soap provided next to the basin, along with two glasses.
The bed was massive, it was supposed to be a double but I think it may have been a queen sized bed as there was so much room in it even with me and Dave laid in it. It was easily the biggest bed I have ever experienced in a hotel and it was extremely comfortable. The only gripe I had was that the covers weren't quite thick enough but then I am always freezing cold and love the comfort of a big fluffy duvet on my bed! There was a control unit for the heating in the room so you were able to raise the temperature slightly if you wished to - I decided against that as Dave is always warmer than me and he would've roasted had I have turned it up!
On Saturday morning we decided to grab some breakfast as we knew we would have along day ahead of us. We were in two minds over what to do - whether to have the buffet breakfast in the hotel (you can decide on the spot and charge it to your room) or to try and find somewhere nearby to have a bite to eat. After looking at the options available on the buffet the latter seemed the better option. There were 2 types of cereal, some overcooked croissants and pastries with currants in, some sliced ham and chicken and small baguettes. I have to admit it didn't look very appealing so we went on a mission to find a place that did breakfasts nearby but to be able to do this we needed some cash so we asked the receptionist where the nearest cash point is - turn right and then take the next left and its just there by the shop - off we go and lo and behold right by the cash point is a pub called the Retro Bar and they sell breakfasts.
For £3 you can have a full English - fried egg, 2 sausages, 2 rashers bacon, fried bread, black pudding, beans, tomatoes, 2 rounds of toast and unlimited tea and coffee. I opted not to have the black pudding (I just can't even stomach the thought of trying it) beans or tomatoes but I have to say it was absolutely delicious! So if you ever decide to stay at the Ibis I would recommend giving their in-house breakfast a miss and going on a wander to find somewhere that does a good fry up. Not only will it be a lot cheaper but I would imagine it would be a lot more appetising too.
So after that we get all glammed up for the wedding and head off to the Town Hall for the ceremony. We returned to the hotel about 6pm to get changed into our evening attire and the maid had been in and put new towels out and filled up the tea and coffee which was a nice touch and totally unexpected.
The only bad thing that happened during our stay was in the early hours of Sunday morning at about 3am when the people in the room next to us decided to create a right racket as one of them had got locked out of the room and was attempting to kick the door in, shouting and screaming to his mate to open the door (which he was refusing to do). After being woken up by the noise going on (which there was plenty) I found it extremely difficult to get back to sleep again which really aggravated me! I must admit I almost rang down to reception because the noise was totally unacceptable but after about half an hour it settled down again - by this time however I was already awake.
Other than that I can't fault the room at all. It was clean and tidy and a very good size. The bed was larger than we expected and the location couldn't have been more perfect. We paid £55 a night for our room which I thought was a pretty good price, in comparison to some of the other hotels we'd looked at in the area on the same nights which were a lot more expensive for a similar sized room etc.
This is my first stay in an Ibis hotel and I have to say I was quite impressed, the staff were very friendly and extremely helpful. The room was of a much better standard than we had expected and the price was good too.
They guarantee that if you report any problems with the room to reception they will sort them out within 15 minutes of you calling and if they don't they give you your room for free (we should've tried that with our noisy neighbour problem).
They also offer a deal where if you find the same room at a cheaper price within 24 hrs of your stay through any other websites etc they will give you £10 plus 10% of the cost of your stay back.
Until the 25th February they have a promotion for the new year where they have reduced the rates of a lot of rooms by £10 so they will cost just £45 per night.
I would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone looking for a comfortable place to stay in Manchester.
You can find out more information on their website www.ibishotel.com
Ibis Hotel Manchester Charles Street is located in the city centre, next to the Manchester ... more
Conference Centre, Manchester universities and the BBC.Manchester Central and the MEN Arena are 15 minutes' walk away. The hotel is close to Manchester Piccadill...
Information:
Price is per double room per night and may vary depending on date booked...
exceptional by (9%):
very helpful by (91%):
