Holiday Inn Express Manchester City Centre Arena

The pros: Excellent shower Relatively clean rooms Some of the housekeeping staff are friendly. The cons: Used teacups in the room. Iron board/ Iron is available on request, but be ready to be told to carry it yourselves. The staff are not pleasant to deal with. We checked out in the morning yesterday and left our luggage in the luggage room to collect later. Upon return at around 4pm, there were a few customers waiting to be served at the reception and we promptly queued up to wait to be attended to. Another customer did not follow the queue but the sole man at the reception (did not get his name) chose to serve this person before us. When this customer who had broken the queue rightly pointed out that we should be served first, the staff member said he would rather finish off with him ‘quickly’ first. Why so? Because we are Asian or because you don’t have the manners. Its okay if he would have explained to us the reason for it, but he did not find this necessary. Finally, when it was time for us to be attended to, he opened the luggage room and asked us to go and collect it, never once checking if we were collecting the right one! To my fellow Asians, looking to book at this hotel, book only if you wanted to be treated as second class customers. To Holiday Inn group- Allowing such a culture to fester is a fine way to dilute the value of your brand. P.S: This review does not reflect our experience with Holiday Inn in other locations where staff have been courteous

Booked 2 night stay 8 and 9 June for my son and his friend who were attending music festival at Heaton Park,Manchester. Week before booked an additional night for them on 7 June. All paid in full at time of booking. On arriving they were told hotel fully booked !!!and couldn’t find reservation for the Friday night even though my son had email with confirmation details. They were advised they would have to stay in another hotel nearby. I On arriving at nearby hotel they discovered double bed when twin beds had been booked in original After driving for nearly 4 hours they were both very tired and decided one would sleep in bed other would sleep on floor. I called holiday inn to complain on their behalf and was advised that they had now found their reservation but no room. The cost of the room for the 3 nights was £500 and to have received terrible service like this is unacceptable

I like the cleanliness, the room was really nice, the bathroom had a big shower. Enough towels. We waited over 10 mins to be checked in because one of the guest was complaining at the reception, when we finally got to the check in desk, the receptionist left and when to attend to the bar as she was the only staff on duty at the time. She sis not warn us and we had 2 very young children. I thought she would have prioritised serving a family rather than pour liquor to bar customers. The receptionist came back with a faint apology, and a very poor and cold reception, checked us in and gave us a very scripted explanation of check out and of our complimentary breakfast. Not impressed at all. The breakfast staff in the morning made up for the poor service the night before. Very kind staff. Very friendly towards my children. Very king receptionist staff in the morning who greeted us nicely and wished us well as we left. I would have rated it excellent if it wasnt for the poor check-in experience.

On arrival check in was very slow and not many staff were available. The shower in our room had a split hose which was eventually replaced however this was either poorly fitted or the wrong size so we still did not get a good shower. The room was poorly cleaned with some areas very thick with dust. The in room drinks facilities had one tea bag and two coffee sachets so not really enough for two people but after many long waits at reception (and unanswered phone calls) we did not report this. The woman clearing the tables in the breakfast area was very kind, hard working and cheerful and helped us with our questions about the food offerings.The only person who was interested in our issues was the manager on check out who offered us that if we came again she would ensure we had a good stay but this will not make this visit (which was part of my Christmas present) better.

We stayed for two nights. The room was a great size with blackout curtains and was very quiet even though we were on the first floor. Our room had a clean bathroom and a very good shower. The hotel is in a great location within a short walking distance of most of the Manchester attractions (galleries and museums), bars and restaurants. The main shops, Harvey Nichols etc are just around the corner. Tram stops and busses are also within a short walk. Breakfast was in the bar area and felt cramped. The staff did their best to keep the tables clear and stock up the quickly disappearing food from the serving corridor, which felt very claustrophobic. Mattress was OKish but the bed seemed a little small for a double bed.