Harrogate Town Centre hotel

Worst premier inn we have stayed in, yet in a lovely setting! Miles off it in relation to their normal standard. Stain on the roof from a water leak above, bad smell in the room upon arrival, paint flaking off the skirting boards and walls. Generally poor and well beyond ready for a refurb. Final straw was going to plug the phone charger in the socket and the unit fell away from the wall exposing electrical wiring, not acceptable to be charging for that level of accommodation. My advice is to definitely book elsewhere until they refurbish.

Firstly location is excellent! 5 minute walk to the centre where there are some lovely restaurants but the hotel itself? Well our room overlooked a park area which was lovely except we were on the second floor with people walking right past our window and there were NO net curtains, meaning we had to keep our main curtains shut most of the time and sit in a dark room when there was glorious sunshine outside and a beautiful view! So weird! Never been in a premier inn that didn’t have net curtains! The room itself was typical premier inn but it did have a fridge and air conditioning that actually worked! The bathroom needed some TLC but was ok. Parking is about a 5:10 min walk but a bit of a pain. Just a real shame about the net curtains.

We arrived earlier than planned which was fine we thought we would spend some time in the town before getting access to our room and preparing for our evening event. The plan was to go to the hotel get our barings before we started getting our belongings out the car and ask about possability for earlier check in. After parking in the exhabition centre car park which we had recieved an email prior to our visit about changes to the PI car park due to ongoing works. This email as so advised that signage was in place to direct customers from the carpark to the hotel. Aftwer 30 minutes of trying to work out how to get out of the car park looking for indicated signage. Lifts indicated us to level 4 PI we came out of the car park door to the main street to find again no signage for direction not knowing the area we looked around and could see the crown plaza but again nothing for PI we assumend wrongly that there must be an entrance to the PI further round and procedded to walk all the way around to the right which took us 30 mins in the end only to fined the PI entrance was neatly in between another hotel and car park car entrances. This was frustrating but at this point was a amusing. However we entered the hotel lobby. With noone on reception so rang the buzzer for attention. Staff in the restraunt were cleaning floors and had no interest that we were looking for help and just said keep of the floor. Another staff member from house keeping appeared and said she couldnt help we did however managw to have a question answerd about car park access and was informed this was via a set of stairs which we proceded to go through only to come out into a building sitw where workmen had sparking machinery in action. At no point from the hotel was there signage to say no access to car parks and /or warnings for building site or danger to public from a Health and safety professional point of few this is a great concern. We continued on with earlier plans and found a place for lunch. On return to the hotel 2.40 we were aware that other members of oir group gained early access to their room. Standing at the desk while 1 staff member attended to other customers at no point was another colleague called on to help with the now building que to hell guests which was now 3pm and issues with the check in boards now seems to be an issue as well as the lack of staff. Once i collected our keys i explained what had happend earlier in the day and the staff member (manager) shrugged and laughed when i said there was no signage and repeated what i said about the car park and said no you cant go that way its a building site. OMG. I also wanted to clarify our room charge and payment but advised this was all fine. We accessss our room which after all this was even more disapointing room 220 felt empty, tired and was in state of dire repair following a flood from the room and bathroom. Also a air vent in the ceilng was absolitly filthy and a fire hazard. Premier inn was more like 0 star box room i have stayed in many a premier inn across the uk and never seen anything like it. I have photos to show this. I went to the reception twice again rang the buzzer which again was unsuccessful . Staff in the bar were unable to help as they were also busy. Another unpleasant issue with this room was a toilet that didnt flush absolutely awful. Breakfast food was fresh for 6.30 am. However staff setting up tables obviously dont check them as there was a lack of cutlery. Did we sleep absolutley not noise from next room and bathroom fan. Never again.

I believe this hotel is significantly understaffed, and that the staff who are on duty require better support and training. We had booked two Premier Plus rooms, one of which was an accessible room. Unfortunately, the television in the accessible room could not be operated using the remote control. We reported this issue, but it was not resolved during our stay. When I later raised this with the manager, she informed me that the television had been in this condition for over a week. Expecting a guest who has specifically booked an accessible room to manually operate the controls on the television is simply unrealistic. If the fault was already known, we should have been informed at check-in rather than discovering it ourselves after entering the room. On our second evening, we visited the bar for drinks. We had to wait some time before a member of staff became available to serve us. We ordered two large glasses of white wine and a ginger beer. However, there were no clean wine glasses available, so the member of staff washed two glasses for us, which did not even match. The ginger beer was served in a lager glass because no suitable soft drink glasses were available. While this may seem a minor issue in isolation, it reflected the wider lack of resources and organisation throughout the hotel. Breakfast on our second morning was, regrettably, a complete shambles. There were no clean tables available when we arrived, and once we eventually found one, it was unstable and wobbled throughout the meal. There were no clean cups for hot drinks, so we were given disposable paper cups instead. When we went to collect our cooked breakfast, there were no clean plates or forks available. The service for the hot food was chaotic, with items arriving from the kitchen sporadically rather than as a complete offering. My mother wanted a croissant, but these had already run out before 10:00 am. As we left, the dining room remained full of uncleared tables and generally appeared untidy and poorly managed. The entire breakfast service appeared to be run by just two members of staff, both of whom were clearly working extremely hard but were completely overstretched. I attempted to raise these concerns during our stay. On three separate occasions I pressed the reception call bell, but no one came to assist. I therefore returned to the restaurant and spoke to the person in charge. Although they listened and apologised sincerely, they explained that they were unable to offer anything beyond what we had already paid for. I want to emphasise that my complaint is not directed at the frontline staff. They were courteous, apologetic and clearly doing everything they could under extremely difficult circumstances. The business, however, had let them down. There were simply too few staff to cope with normal demand, let alone any unexpected issues. Basic resources such as crockery, cutlery and food items were repeatedly unavailable, and staff appeared to have received insufficient training to deal with dissatisfied customers. Several guests became visibly frustrated, and their complaints were heard throughout the restaurant. The staff handled these situations as professionally as they could, but it was evident they had not been given the support or training needed to de-escalate such incidents effectively. More broadly, the hotel appeared to be operating with insufficient staffing to run safely and efficiently, which raises concerns about how it would respond in the event of an emergency. I chose Premier Inn for this stay because I have previously enjoyed consistently high standards of service across the brand, and the Premier Plus rooms represented excellent value. Unfortunately, this experience fell well below the standards I have come to expect. It has genuinely made me question whether I would choose to stay with Premier Inn again.

We had just one night here in room 409. We had a few problems. Firstly there were no reception staff on duty so I had to check in on a touch screen. It was OK but I had questions I wanted answers to about the immediate area. In the room there was only one towel. This is Premier Inn policy and I should have realised but getting a clean one for the next morning was very frustrating. We were dashing to catch a train and the now, three people at check out were the most dozy ladies I have come across. The lady that eventually helped us, after a long time was, I think the duty manager. Blond, Irish lass I think. The room was scruffy in appearance and needs an upgrade but it was also above the hotel entrance and what congregates outside hotels? Smokers and the room stank the following morning as hoardes of them gathered to cough it out. There was no TV remote so we had no TV. I only found out late so we didn't disturb anyone. The hairdryer was useless and persisted in cutting out. I put my phone on to charge overnight and it had gained 30% in the time. Maybe the missing TV remote was another ploy to save electricity. One plus point was the black guy working the bar late when we got back. It was hot and I asked for a couple of bottles of cold water. They had none but he got us a pint each in glasses he filled with ice. He was a really nice man who ended our day on a positive. I don't know how I didn't notice the hotels either side. The Crowne Plaza and The Majestic Doubletree by Hilton which I'm sure would have remote controls and towels and hairdryers. I'll notice next time I'm there though. Now you know too. Check those out first.