In short; the manager showed no care for customer service, her staff seemed held hostage to her inflexibility, the hotel is a poor version of what Premier used to be, the restaurant next door serves prison food and the hotels policies are driven more towards profit than customer satisfaction. Drive along and find somewhere else.
If you want to know why, read on: Myself, and two fellow travellers, traveling on business, arrived at this hotel at 14:27 on a Thursday afternoon to an empty car park. We encountered three ladies at reception, one of which was a manageress keeping watch over her staff with an eagle eye. Under her observation we were told that to check-in 33 minutes early would incur a £15 fee. For each of us. This is lunacy and totally not hospitality. Especially considering that later on when I sat on dozens of customers arrived to check-in, so I am almost certain they had empty rooms waiting for guests. The staff seemed genuinely intimidated by her presence, as if she took it upon herself to join them at the desk for the hours leading to check-in, in order to make sure they enforce a silly hotel policy. Even when one is minutes away from checking in.
We were also told there was no toilet facilities that we could use, despite my colleague busting for a number 1. And that we would get a parking fine if we had parked for longer than 20 minutes, but couldn't access the parking system until we checked in.
Talk about holding your guests hostage, and blackmailing them to check in.
So we sat down and waited - what else could we do - having a lengthy discussion on how this once-trusted brand of hotels is just becoming greedy. How we are witnessing in real time a reduction in quality of their hotel chain, and are subject to head-office constructed hotel policies that ultimately preventing staff from using their judgement on when a decision they make is about serving the customer, or spiting the customer. Alisha seemed delighted with her sense of power in denying us early access. It was nothing but spite.
This is despite all of us using Premier Inn very often. I used to be big fan but what it going on?
As an aside - as someone who has worked in hotels for many years - after I checked in, I had a few chats with several of the staff members and they are clearly working in an environment of fear and dogmatic bullying from their management team. In 2026!
And when will companies learn that 'the system won't allow me to do that' is such a flimsy excuse. When we all know that all systems can be overridden.
The real kicker was when, while we were waiting to checkin, a regular customer walked in - also before the 3pm check-in, and after he had a congenial chat with the manageress, she decided (5 minutes before check-in) that he was allowed to check-in early and then so were we. How gracious.
Not good enough. When will businesses learn that by creating uncompromising penalties for customers, well, you may earn a couple of pounds in the short term, but you lose any and all goodwill in the longterm.
No need to reply to this with some benign "We apologise... but it is hotel policy... and if we did it for you... yadda yadda... it's hot air."
DD
Donna Davidson
Aug 4, 2026
Room was very hot. No air con. The restuarant next door was tired with staff who looked as though they didnt want to be there!!
Food was not great at all.
Great as always for a premier inn, beefeater restaurant very ran down but to be expected as they are closing them down!!!
JK
Jacob Kilpatrick
Jul 20, 2026
Not the best Premier Inn ever, but not as bad as some of the other reviews make it out to be. Some reviews showed mould in their rooms - no mould in mine, and it looked like it had had a relatively recent repainting on the walls and ceiling. The room was clean, only thing I noticed were a few stray stranger hairs on the wall of the shower but I suppose those are easy to miss. The staff were helpful and check in and out was smooth, but they weren't super friendly and just looked bored (not saying they should be jumping for joy but still). We did have the breakfast next door, all the normal Premier Inn options and were decent enough, all of it was self-serve. As before, wasn't exactly wowed but would stay there again if I needed to.
Quite the experience, I arrived late; and headed up to my room. To be honest - I was a bit high and genuinely thought I walked into the on-site sauna instead. Turns out it was my room. For the records there is NOT sauna or any amenities at this place.
I walked into my room, then into the shower. I was not the only living organism in the bathroom. I was joined with multiple specs of
BLACK MOULD, along with a few flies. The smell was unbearable. The black mould affect my airways, there was a slight smell of smoke.
After my refreshing shower with the mold I hopped into my frame with a place to sleep. I was roasting so I went and opened the window. I caught a rat - actually more than just the one in the bushes. Pest control should really visit more than once a week.
I am outraged at the service here and will NOT be returning under any circumisions.
I have been blessed with the news about the “restaurant” shutting, ideally they can demolish the building and create less of an eye sore.
Overall, the toilet handed the brewers farye better than I did 😉
Turn around before it’s too late.