Some of you may have noticed that I have been away for a few days. Or, in most cases, non of you will have noticed my absence whatsoever. Anyway, I have been away and I obviously had to stay somewhere. First of all, I’ll say that the Holiday Inn was not my choice of Hotel. I was sent on a conference and this is where the venue was held, and it does make sense of course to actually sleep where the conference is taking place!

The hotel I stayed in was in Coventry, just off Junction 2 of the M6. Its know as the Holiday Inn Junc. 2, Coventry! Pretty simple eh. I now have both experiences of their conference facilitys and also their sleeping facilities, so this is going to be a rather long, but informative opinion I should think, get ready to be bored!

- BEDROOMS

The room I stayed in was an Executive Room. Sounds good doesn’t it, and I suppose it is, I didn’t pay and I didn’t expect to be put up in one of the posh suites, but hey, I wasn’t complaining either. My first impressions were great. As I walked in the room, I was greeted by the TV set showing on the screen ‘Welcome Mr G Ray’ and giving me a few instructions for the hotel and where to find further information. A nice touch, especially for gadget freaks like me. I then had a look around the room and was pretty impressed, this room would make an interior designer proud. The fixtures and fittings were mostly chrome, with a light pastel colour for the lampshades etc. The tables and desk were a nice pine effect, with more chrome and the walls were done in a nice, warm, light terracotta with one of the walls done in a darker shade.

To compliment the room, you have an en-suite bathroom which is all done out in white with a large mirror in front of the sink. I also had a heated towel rail which was nice, although it did take ages to warm up. You also get a full size bath (by full size I mean normal household size) with a shower above which a
lso acts as a massage shower, below that, connected to the taps is another shower which I presumed is for the ladies when they want to wash their hair over the bath. Theres an abundance of towels, I had 5 (I know I’m big, but I don’t use 5 towels!!) and also a good, small range of sample type things which included Bubblebath, body cream, shampoo, conditioner, nail files, shoe polish, sewing kit and cosmetic pads, handy for my own travel wash kit, so I stuffed them in there, needless to say, I got some more the next day! However, you can go to reception and ask for other supplies such as shaving gel, toothbrush, toothpaste etc just in case you have forgotten them. Sound good? Well it gets better!

Also in your room you have a kettle, a range of coffee and tea and a hot chocolate for the missus. A trouser press with no instructions and for me who still can’t wash clothes or iron (aint mums/girlfriends great things!) takes about half an hour to figure out. A minibar crammed with different drinks and chocolates, which costs the earth if you do decide to divulge in any of the naughty things on offer (£1.25 for a can of coke!!!). You also get a hairdryer, some sky TV channels, pay movies aswell as adult movies (but a movie costs £6.95), stationary, wardrobe, selection of glasses, lots of lights and lamps, extra pillows and more bits and pieces. The bed was very comfortable and provided a good nights sleep, I had extra special linen apparently as I was in an exec room, and it did feel nice, and also, the curtains and the thick sort, so even if it’s daylight outside, it will be pitch black inside when the curtains are closed. And of course, you get your all important phone to phone for a porter.

They offer you a wide range of material in the room to help you get the feel for the hotel including magazines, breakfast and dinner menus, room plans, a whole information pack telling you everything you need to know about the room, brochure
s and also those groovy ‘do not disturb’ signs that hand on your bedroom door, although it normally helps if you hand it on the outside as opposed to the inside!

- THE HOTEL & IT’S FOOD! (oh come on, it’s the most important part!!)

The hotel itself was very posh, with nice surroundings and a very modern bar and restaurant. It did have other facilities such as a swimming pool and a gym, but not being the fittest of the bunch and not having the body that stands up to the crowds of onlookers, I never actually ventured that way, plus, I didn’t have time anyway! Although, going on the rest of the hotel, I’m sure it was delightful one could say!!!

On entering the hotel, I went straight to the reception desk, as you do and was greeted by a very nice looking girl who booked me into my room within minutes, gave me my credit card style key and off I went venturing down the long corridors in search of my room. I finally found it and went in.

The hotels bar is very open plan, with enough chairs and tables for most people, although if you do happen to be involved in a conference with 230 people, you might find it a bit hard to actually get to the bar, nevermind sit down with your drink. Plus the fact that most people didn’t know each other and opted to sit on their own and read their paper (like me) didn’t really help the seating situation. There were 2 bars, one for the alcoholic drinks and one for coffee’s. To supplement that, there were menu’s for the bars lights lunches and snacks. However, be prepared, the first sandwich I set my eyes on cost a whopping £6.95 (hey, that’s even worse than when your on the train!) however, still people seemed to pay that much money for a sandwich. More fool them I say.

The restaurant was very clean and quite spacious, again, very modern. As I was getting free breakfast, lunch and dinner, half my time was spent in here, so I had p
lenty of time to check it all out. First of all, the food was delicious, but having said that, it should be for the money your forking out on it. A lot of the time the food was self service, i.e., you went and got the food yourself like in a supermarket café. However, when it came to dinner, you picked what you wanted from the menu and it was all bought to you by again, some extremely nice looking girls (I do actually have a theory for al the nice girls that were working there!) The chairs were comfortable, but a lot of the time, you found yourself sitting on a sort of sofa type thing, you know, one big seat, which I found a bit to far away from the table and you ended up dropping half your food (especially if your me) between you and the table. Thank god for those silly napkin things, which I never ever put on my lap for the sake of my reputation, but in this case everyone was doing it because basically it’s a must if your in your decent suit!

I have just got to give credit to the restaurant staff, they managed to feed 230+ people for lunch within 1 and a half hours. That’s two sittings and clearing up and relaying involved, and as I used to work in a restaurant, this is something close to my heart!!!

- CONFERENCE FACILITIES

The hotel has its own conference facilities. With about 10 rooms, all called ‘The something suite’ of varying size, it did actually make the perfect venue for a party of our size. The conference facilities are out of bounds to the ‘normal’ hotel guests and were got to by walking through some big glass doors and I must say, the conference facilities were actually posher than the hotel.

The conference went very well, and this is all thanks to the facilities. They have a lot of electrical sockets and various points aswell as a projector that plugs into laptops through sockets in the floor hanging from the ceiling in the major suites. One of the suites will actually divide in
to 2 separate rooms when needed. A nice touch. Along with the conference rooms there was a lot of conference stationery available like white boards, big pieces of paper that people draw on (no idea what they are called) and also paper for the conference guests to note down those all important coffee breaks. Which leads me onto something else. At the end of every two sessions, coffee was provided by the hotel and again, the lovely young ladies which was very nice and the service was excellent.

So, to wrap this up, I was very impressed. It is a little overpriced, cans of coke for £1.25 and breakfast for £15, but along with that the service is great and if you can get away with going to mcdonalds for your breakfast, you’ll save yourself quite a bit of money! Just one thing, they do catch you out with some things, for example, at breakfast they ask you how many slices of toast you would like and also, which you would prefer, tea or coffee. You then find out that the toast has been charged to your room account along with the coffee. This isn’t included, even if you are paying £15 for brekkie. What is included is orange juice. They could potentially catch a lot of people out!