£20 pppn clean room supplement! (Holiday Inn Express - Glasgow)

Member Name: gollygumdrops

Product:	Holiday Inn Express - Glasgow
Date:	11/11/01 (240 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Spot, Speedy response from Holiday Inn/Bass Hotels

Disadvantages: Hell On Earth, Filth, Crappy Staff

The Holiday Inn Glasgow West is in a great spot on Bothemore Street, just a two minute walk from Central station and all that Glasgow has to offer.

Given the choice I normally select Holiday Inns of any grade over equivalent hotel chains as they generally offer clean, comfortable rooms and efficient unobtrusive staff.

On arrival reception looked great. Recently refitted by the look of things. This Holiday Inn is one of the many PostHouse Hotels that have recently been bought by Holiday Inn, and it looked like they had a cracking deal.

Reception wasn't the worlds most efficient and I discovered after reaching my room, the first one, that they hadn't given me my coupon to win a Mazda MX5, or a gazillion Priority Club Points. I was so looking forward to driving home!

I went up to my room and the wall of smoke hit me immediately so I rang down to get a non smoking room (as booked). After 20 minutes of me standing around not messing anything up or making a coffee so that I could switch without fuss they told me there were none available unless I paid a £20 fee.

I told them to forget it and I planned to go out for dinner and leave the window open and switch on the aircon to reduce the stink.

The aircon didn't work and the window wouldn't open as the rotting frame was held together with duct tape. The wallpaper around the window was stained with water and mould marks. The curtains had handy little cigarette burns in them allowing me to guess the time. I switched the lights on, and noticed the wallpaper throughout the room had a wide array of interesting stains kindly left by previous guests. The carpet had at least two toe nails (not mine) and along with fluff, shopping tags and a receipt showing that someone had spent an awful lot of money at Stanstead duty free in the preceding month.

I went back to reception and insisted on at least a clean room fit for human habitation, but again,
no such thing was available without paying a £20 surcharge. Eventually I agreed as I needed to sleep there as I was meeting folk.

So what did I get for my £89 plus £20 per night. A small double room with the use of a bathrobe. A Mars bar and 250ml bottle of water (not replaced on day two). Tea and coffee making facilities (with no coffee) and an over priced mini bar. Oh, and Neutrogena bathroom goodies rather than the standard Holiday Inn ones.

Morning arrived, but my wake up call didn't, nor did my newspaper, which I didn't read at breakfast because I got up to late because I didn't get a wake up call. No gym, no pool.

The meeting rooms are well past their sell by dates and have erratic heating and cooling systems. The conferencing staff are just a rumour, I didn't get to meet any of them, and reception refusded to take messages for them, insisting that I got transferred to a phone that just rang out instead.

On day two I did get breakfast - £13.50 for yogurt, cornflakes, juice, coffee and croissants. I also got housekeeping waking me up, followed my some dim wit who wanted to check I hadn't stolen anything from the mini bar.

I didn't get my wake up call or newspaper. I believe I have been billed for them, but as I rang reception to tell them I wanted to check out three days early so I could stay in a proper hotel they despatched the bill to my home (although I haven't had that yet) and insisted they didn't have a copy to show me on check out.

I would not recommend the Holiday Inn Glasgow West to anyone used to living indoors.

UPDATE

Unleash the hounds!

I got my bill, and passed it straight to the good folk who look after my travel bookings (not folk you want to upset under any circumstances). Holiday Inn have apologised unreservedly and refunded all accommodation charges.

I'm going to give them a second star for speedy corpora
te response. They have restored my faith in the Holiday inn Brand, but next time I'm in Glasgow I think I'll pick another hotel.

The hounds are now safely locked back in their office for your safety.

Summary: