Ipswich Town Centre (Quayside) hotel

I was awoken by an extremely high pitched fire alarm gone 11pm. Turns out it was a false alarm (information not given out very well in my view, or safely). Ever since then I’ve had extreme pain in my ears and my head whenever I move it, which is obviously a lot. I don’t know if the fire alarm is at too high a pitch, because it definitely triggered the current pain I am experiencing, but I barely slept that night. Didn’t say anything to reception because we were only staying one night and we had better things to do with our time and energy frankly. At dinner we had decided to do the meal deal. Got given slips which said we had paid and breakfast was free- this was what we were told by the person who served us. After we finished, the lady disappeared, so me and my partner assumed the charge was added to the room. At no point was a bill offered or were we asked if we wanted one, so it was fair of us to assume it was charged to the room in some way. We went to our room where this same person quite loudly in my view said we hadn’t paid for our meal. I can’t remember if any other guests were around in ear shot but I was embarrassed, although didn’t say it at the time (out of politeness). Went and paid just so we could get to bed. Overall I am extremely disappointed with this visit. I stay in their hotels quite a lot and this has put me off a lot. The “good night guarantee” is worthless it seems because they only make complaints valid if you mention them immediately. I wasn’t going to complain in my pyjamas at nearly midnight about the fire alarm and I had better things to do in the morning. It doesn’t make my complaint less valid. I am also highly disappointed in the way the meal payment issue was dealt with. If it was the fault of the person serving us, they should be very discreet. Me and my partner would have been in bed had we got to the room half a minute earlier, and I would not have got up and gone down to pay had that been the case.

Lovely clean room. Central to where we needed to be.

Great staff who worked particularly hard to ensure we had a good stay, especially at breakfast. However, you need to sort out your booking / reservation system - was a disaster!

Ideally placed hotel. Not a fan of the automatic check in kiosks as they never seem to work. And true to form this one wouldn’t pick up the QR code. But many thanks to Leanne who checked me in manually, (as it should always be), and sorted out all my requests. Five stars for Leanne. Polite and extremely helpful.

We enjoyed our one night stay at Ipswich Quayside, having a nice meal and drink at a local restaurant Bistro on the Quay, and the wine bar above, both of which we would recommend. We later had a pleasant walk along the River Orwell south of Ipswich. The room was standard, good quality and staff were friendly, helping with check-in in particular. The main negative was a faint damp / mouldy smell in the room. It wasn’t so strong that we asked for a different room - we did open the windows which helped, but at night it was too noisy from the road traffic. The room and bathroom were all very clean so not sure of the source – possibly the ventilation (the room didn’t have air con but what looks like air con but is just a heater with vents). The road traffic was a little noisy even with the window closed, but not too bad overnight, so we slept well – the bed was very comfortable as usual. We probably should have requested a quieter room on a higher floor (we were on the 2nd). Breakfast was the usual good value Premier Inn offer, served in a pleasant room, with local pictures and some views of the marina. We didn’t have to wait. We used the parking under the hotel for £9 a night which was very convenient, though we did turn too early when approaching the hotel and ended up in a local traffic jam and one way system, wasting 15 minutes! Given that, it would be good to be told on exactly where the entrance is in advance – the email we got said “… opposite the ABP Port of Ipswich turn off. The entrance can be identified by the small purple sign for Premier Inn.” Not knowing the area I saw a sign for ABP port and turned down the first street – I should have gone another few yards and turned in directly from the main road – knowing the actual road name where the entrance to the car park is would be useful.