Ibis Liverpool City Centre, Liverpool

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Good Location, ample parking
Disadvantages:	Costly for the room

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

It has become somewhat of a tradition where the usual gang travel over the water to Liverpool for our annual get together, it has been a tradition since 1998 where we booked in at a hotel and stayed the night so we could party in one of the UK's best known addresses Liverpool's Matthew Street.

However it was now my turn to find some accommodation, I am one of the laziest when a bit tipsy and refuse to walk long distances, so for me the best location was top priority, I had tried all the regular hotel hotspots, travelodge, F1, Holiday Inn, Marriott etc and none had availability, when by chance I came across the Ibis.

~**Location**~
The hotel Ibis is located on 27 Wapping Liverpool.
For those of you not too familiar with the area it is just opposite the Albert Dock and a yards away from the Yellow Submarine, in other words about 10 minutes walk from the city centre of Liverpool.
Follow signs for the Albert Dock and Maritime Museum, the hotel is located directly opposite the Albert Dock Gates.

~**The Cost**~
Weekdays the cost is 51.95 increasing to 55.95 on weekends so as you can see the price is not too bad and it does not increase on New Years Eve fantastic!!!

~**Facilities**~
There is a large car park located to the front of the hotel and there were plenty of spaces on new Years eve, although we had taken the train it was something to note for next years visit.

~**Check-in**~
The reception area was located directly opposite the entrance and was manned by 2 members of staff to check you in. You were given a guest form to complete which required you to fill in your home address and telephone number complete with a signature, you were then required to pay for your room.
You were then given your key card and directed to the lifts which are to the left of the recption area.
In the reception area is a bar/cafe, vending machine and also a tourist information stand.
The lift is pretty small and would only fit 3 people with luggage at a push, although without luggage you could probably fit 5 people in although it said the maximum capacity was 6 that would be at a push.

~**The Rooms**~
I was very impressed with the rooms despite the bathroom being extremely small. There was no bath only a shower which was very modern as it was at floor level so I was a bit worried about flooding the bathroom, there was a toilet and sink located in the bathroom but you qould struggle to fit two girls doing their makeup in that bathroom it was tiny.
The actual bedroom was well laid out with two single beds with bedside cabinets and dressing table complete with remote control colour tv and tea/coffee making facilities.
There was room to hang your clothes by the door in an open wardrobe and just enough room to get around the beds.
The view was not great but tat was because nothing had been landscaped in outside the window and as it was located next door to the F1 hotel you just overlooked their car park.
The hotel contained climate control however ours appeared to be broke. Ibis offer a comfortable stay and if you have any problems they aim to rectify them or you stay for free, so I thought that i had had a plan to have a free stay, I called reception to advise them that our climate control was not working, they said they would send up an engineer to take a look and resolve for us, the engineer appeared and had a quick look determined that he couldn't fix it, left us with a fan heater to heat the room, not exactly resolving the problem but on new years eve the hotel was booked up and we were going to be out for the majority of the evening so we took this as a suitable solution and carried on getting ready.

~**Eating at the Hotel**~
Breakfast is served from 4aam to 12 noon but is not included in the cost of the room and is an additional charge so we decided not to pay for this when we checked in.
We did notice that there was a cafe bar located to the righ of the reception area and we did take full advantage of this when we got back to the hotel after our night out, it was closed but we were so hungry we asked if they could get us anything and fortunately they had some sandwiches and crips tucked away and let us buy them for 1.50 great for our midnight munchies.

Unfortunately there isn't much to say about this hotel I do nto rate them as highly as the Travelodge or the Premier Travel Inns for the same cost, they are good for a short break such as an Airport stopover but I would not like to stay in one in the near future as the quality in the rooms was not of that great a standard.