Stafford North (Spitfire) hotel

Booked to break the journey back to Devon from Scotland. I’ll admit, I didn’t look to closely at the booking and didn’t realise there are 2 Premier Inns at the location - Hurricane (next to the Shire Horse pub) and Spitfire (next to Starbucks). This caused some confusion, but we found the correct hotel & were checked in. We were in room 301 which is just inside the door in the separate block, behind the restaurant. Despite this, the room was quiet, spacious & with a lovely double headed shower cubicle. I don’t think the room had been prepped properly as we only had 1 towel and no coffee or milk, but we mentioned this to reception on leaving for dinner and the items were waiting for is when we returned. Standard Premier Inn breakfast with good range of hot and cold food. Fried egg was rubbery, but everything else delicious.

Just left after my evening meal. Food was fine but I'm really writing to shout out for the superb service provided by Kate. She was courteous, professional, knowledgeable, witty and chatty. Fantastic! And an added bonus - she explained I could have cornflakes if I wanted them. I did, and had two bowls. Thank you, Kate. It was a real pleasure, Premier is privileged to have you.

Check in and check out were the only smooth things about this trip but that's because I checked in online and dropped the key in the box on check out as no one there. Took my parents to their room (3) and no TV remote, went to reception to let them no and they said they'd get one to the room. Went up to check my room on the first floor all seemed to be fine. My parents when back to their room the remote was there, nobody obviously thought to try it as it didn't work. Took that back and said they get another to the room, which they did and left and again didn't work. Do the staff not think to actually check things work before leaving??? The some of the others arrived. One of them asked on reception if a table could be booked for us (15 ) and was advised if we could wait until 8.30pm that could be done. A few of us went to the bar for 8pm to have a drink whilst we waited for the others. This area is not fit for the size of the hotel. Watched while others kept being seated at tables that were emptying. 9pm comes as still not seated us not even acknowledged that they were looking to seat us. Then at 9.30pm we're finally told we'll just have to sit where we can. Food ordered, some came out cold, some came out undercooked. I asked if I could have some cutlery to eat my food with to which the waitress huffed back at me, didn't catch her name but she had dark hair ans it was so in a claw clip. On to the sleep, my parents in room 3 had very little sleep due to the noise from above. Then we move to breakfast, my parents arrived first, me and my daughter joined them a little later. We have finished our food but we're debating if to have more, my mum was still drinking her coffee when we were asked if we would mind moving so that others could have the table........ are you actually kidding we had to wait the evening before. Its not our fault you don't have the space to sit everyone. Then we checked out. Would I stay here again? Absolutely not Would i recommend it? Absolutely not. One of the worst premier inns I've stayed in

On arrival there was a notice saying as they were short staffed please use the self check in. The self check in then proceeded to give me a blank piece of paper that should have had the room number on. So then I had to ring the bell and hang around for a member of staff who appeared to be bothered by the situation. Walking into the room it was like walking into a wall of unbearable heat. Two large fans did nothing but blow 30 degree heat around. It was the worst stay I've ever had in any hotel. I had 3.5 hours sleep if that as the heat was unbearable. My daughter also barely slept. In the end I got up at 4am as it was pointless trying to sleep, I went to have a shower and it was broken and the temperature could not be altered from freezing cold. Talk about going down one extreme to the other! We ended up sitting outside from 5am due to the unbearable heat of the room which did not drop below 30 all night. Then the breakfast was cold and not at all nice. The evening meal wasn't much better, short staffed again and the food took however to come and the chicken was almost too tough to eat. Absolutely awful from start to finish and had never been so glad to leave a hotel

Nice staff always working hard. In many cases doing extra work due to skeleton staff and labour shortages. Nice man at reception, 2 nice staff members at breakfast. Location next to an awesome chinese buffet. Clean rooms. Comfy beds. Sadly, no air con in this hotel, rooms were ridiculously warm at night. Myself, daughter, sister and fiance all mentioned that we were up through the night regularly. There was a fan, but its blowing air. It doesnt have a cooling function. The hotel clearly has air con, but likely turned it off due to cost. Not good enough. Room was close to 30 degrees celsius through the night. Reason for this not being a 3/4. Toilet seat didnt even fit the toilet, toilet paper dumped on unit [rather than in dispenser]. I had to prepare a spare bed myself. Breakfast was nice but poorly stocked though. Virtually no fruit, no berries, no pastries... I understand this can be the case at end of service. Not at 8:30.