Warwick hotel

We booked an overnight stay to break our journey from Cornwall. We've stayed many times before and were satisfied with both the food and accommodation. This time however, we were extremely disappointed... We arrived around 17.30 on Thursday October 2nd, tired, and looking forward to freshening up followed by a meal in the Thyme restaurant - whilst there are good eateries in Warwick, we really did not want to go out again having travelled so far. The hotel now has a parking prepay machine at the the entrance, so we duly paid the £5 for an overnight stay. On entering the reception area, there were a number of people waiting to check in. The self service check in machine was out of action, one member of staff was on duty. Whilst we waited we heard the phrase "no food this evening". Apparently a staff member had gone home feeling unwell earlier in the afternoon, and evidently was sufficient to bring about the closure of the restaurant. When our turn came, we asked what contingency plans existed and were told that there were none. We made it quite clear how unhappy we were and were told to contact Customer Relations. That department closed at 17.00! We were also asked if we'd paid for parking and were told " if you'd asked we would have told you that the first two hours are free". I pointed out that we are not clairvoyant. Rather than stay we chose to spend the evening at another hotel a couple of miles away. There we had a comfortable stay, good food and a complimentary drink at the bar too. The next morning we 'phoned Premier Inn Customer Relations where we politely told that individual hotel managers have the authority to close the restaurant if necessary. Additionally, whilst pre paid meal deals would be refunded, the accommodation cost would not. The outcome of that conversation was that Whitbread (who own Premier Inn) do not entertain further discussion on the subject - we were told to pursue the complaint "outside of Whitebread" A quick look at the low rated reviews here on Trustpilot indicates that others have also had a similar experience at this hotel. At the very least, the manager could easily informed customers by email that very afternoon, but no, that doesn't appear to be part of Customer care. Similarly, whilst managers have the authority to close their restaurants, they do not appear to ensure that they have contingency arrangements. Customers are simply faced with a staff member who has no authority to compensate them - even refunds are not processed on site. Well, Premier Inn, we are frequent customers, but this experience at Warwick is simply not good enough. Chris & Elaine - Lincolnshire.

I wrote a review that was critical of our stay 2 weeks ago that has not been published. The hotel suffered from insufficient staff. Our room was not ready at 4:00pm. The evening meal was a disaster. The 3 staff had to do reception, bar and serving and taking orders. The restaurant was full so they knew of this before the evening. Most of the diners were complaining of the delay and the number of missing items on the menu leading to apologies by the staff. It would have been preferable if senior management had done this. Things only got worse with the breakfast. No milk. The cooked buffet was a disaster. Eggs so overcooked and dry that I could not cut the white with a knife. Bacon and black pudding burnt and dry. So poor it was that we were offered a refund. Dinner that night was a little better because of the paucity of diners. Breakfast the next day was a lot better. At least the young man in the kitchen knew what he was doing. Thinking that a Premier Inn was a Premier Inn, I did not look at reviews before I booked. How wrong I was.

The staff were very friendly and chatty. Just as they should be. Car parking is limited and I think more disabled parking bays would be be better. The room was clean and tidy. The wet room was the same, with no issues. Air conditioning worked as expected.

I’ve stayed in many Premier Inns, but unfortunately this has to be the worst. The TVs in the rooms don’t work properly—the remote controls are either unresponsive or have sticky buttons. For example, pressing 233 for Sky News often ends up as “222223” or something similar. The air conditioning isn’t individually controlled; it’s centrally managed by the hotel, which means the rooms are often freezing unless you specifically ask staff to adjust it. The cleanliness is also disappointing. In the standard rooms, the carpets are filthy—after walking around once in white socks, they turned brown/black from the dirt. I’d strongly avoid standard rooms for this reason. Even the “Premier Plus” rooms don’t solve the main issues. Staffing is another big problem. There are rarely enough staff at reception or behind the bar, which means service is very slow. The kitchen is often closed at dinner, and when it is open the menu is limited. The food itself is bland and tastes like it has been reheated in an oven or microwave. Overall, this hotel falls far short of the usual Premier Inn standards. I wouldn’t recommend staying here.

I’ve always stayed in Premier Inn’s when travelling to a new area, you know what you are getting; unfortunately this Premier Inn fell well short of expectations. We paid for the meal package, on arrival we were informed that they were not serving evening meals due to a lack of staff, no prior warning (email, phone) no apologies from the staff (who were obviously having a very bad day, which showed in their demeanour and attitude). The bar service was slow, poor range of beers. Breakfast was sparse, not the normal standard for this hotel chain, I think due to the lack of staff. We won’t be returning to this Premier Inn, will use a different hotel chain in this area.