Chippenham hotel

I have stayed in many Premier Inns over the years - this was singlehandedly the worst experience I have ever had with this company. I was greeted by a room that smelled of mould, and then found a bathroom with dried urine all over the toilet seat. This was either not cleaned at all, or exceptionally poorly cleaned by the staff. I immediately raised my concerns with the duty manager, and they didn't seem particularly surprised or shocked, nor tried to reassure me this was a one off case. I quickly decided to check out immediately and move onto a different hotel as there was no way I could trust their hygiene practices. The duty manager said they couldn't provide a refund as it wasn't a flex booking (although this is only fully refundable up to 1pm on the day of check-in, and you have to check-in after 3pm - so, not at all a suspicious policy!) They did give me a card to contact their customer services team though... ...which was frankly appalling - no full refund for their inability to provide a clean and sanitary room, as apparently cleanliness doesn't fall under their "Good Night Guarantee" - but on pressing they couldn't explain to me the purpose nor actions available from their CleanProtect Promise that is so obvious on their website. Congratulations Premier Inn - through exceptionally poor customer service and your inability to be accountable for your poor quality hygiene you have turned a very loyal customer into someone who genuinely may never book with you again.

I've stayed in so many Premier Inns as a wheelchair user that I've finally had enough. You can't book an accessible room from the website, so you book and pay for a standard or Plus room, then ring up and hope for the best. They assign you an 'accessible room' but don't tell you that two thirds of them have a lowered bath, not a wet room, so most of them aren't really accessible for most people - although if that works for you, you're in luck. So the next time, you ring and ask for a wet room and they say yes, there's one free, you can have it. Although it may be a plus room that you have to pay extra for. But maybe they've got what you need and you're happy... Until you check in and discover that they have given it to someone else for no apparent reason. (That wasn't Chippenham.) Or you may want a plus room, because most of them have a walk in shower, which is really all you need, so you pay extra for that privilege, but when you check in, they tell you that they are all upstairs with no lift, or there's one downstairs but with a lowered bath, as was the case in Chippenham. So they give you a standard room with a wet room (hoorah!) but no aircon because only Plus rooms have that. And they don't refund the difference but do refund your breakfast, which feels like a sleight of hand which probably, but not necessarily, rips you off, but who knows? My advice? Most chain hotels have good accessibility and will let you book a disabled room, which they will describe in detail, direct from the website. I've had all these experiences with Premier Inn over just the last year (because I travel for work and work use Premier Inn). The information they provide about accessibility is totally insufficient and staff seem to have no concept that there is a world of difference between a room with a wet room and a room with a lowered bath (and I mean, just WHO is that accessible for?). I resent having to pay extra for a Plus room just to get a shower, or paying for a Plus room that I can't get. More often than not, when I've stayed at Premier Inn, I've just had to go without a shower, even though I've paid for a room, and that's just not fair. So trust me when I say, my life is much easier and much less stressful if I stay somewhere - anywhere - else.

The room itself was absolutely fine, nice, clean and comfortable, and all of the staff I interacted with were friendly and helpful. So no complaints there! It's more the amenities, location and general atmosphere that let this Premier Inn down for me. The vending machine was broken, meaning you couldn't even buy a bottle of water, in the middle of a heatwave! The nearest option was walking to the petrol station. It's not that far away, but still... water feels like a fairly basic thing for a hotel to have available 😂 The attached Brewers Fayre was probably the biggest disappointment. Breakfast was pretty poor, with limited options, and the buffet/display areas looked dirty and messy whenever I went in. I tried dinner there one evening as well, but as a vegetarian there was hardly anything available. They'd even run out of pizzas. Pizzas! How do you run out of pizza?! 😂 Needless to say, I didn't bother eating there again. I also found the atmosphere around the hotel a little odd at night. On several separate occasions I saw groups of people drinking, smoking pot in the car park. I don't know whether they were hotel guests, coming from the Brewers Fayre or neither, so I won't speculate. But it didn't exactly add to the atmosphere. The highlight was coming downstairs one evening to find a man absolutely blathered on the front step, who then proceeded to urinate nearby. 😭 Obviously the hotel can't control the behaviour of every random person who comes onto the property, but when you're staying somewhere on holiday, it's not particularly pleasant to have to navigate that on your way in and out. The other big issue, particularly if you're visiting without a car, is the location. It's around a 40-minute walk into Chippenham town centre, largely along a busy main road. There is a Morrisons nearby, plus a Greggs and Burger King, so you're not completely stranded, but it's hardly the picturesque Cotswolds experience. And I think that's ultimately the problem. This hotel gives me very strong "I'm here for work and need somewhere clean to sleep for two nights" energy rather than "I'm on holiday in the Cotswolds!" energy. If you're here for work, have a car and just want a clean, comfortable room, it'll probably do the job perfectly well. But if you're coming to explore the Cotswolds – particularly without a car – I'd personally spend a little extra and stay somewhere more central, or look at a local independent hotel/B&B/Airbnb instead. Nothing was catastrophically bad, and again, the room itself was clean and the staff were lovely. It just wasn't the right location or atmosphere for the kind of trip I was on. Perfectly adequate for work. Not where I'd choose for a Cotswolds holiday.

Booked a 2 night stay in August for an event over the weekend. We initially had a family room booked for two adults and one child. On check-in the heat in the room was DIABOLICAL. We were in a ground floor room at the front of the hotel and the heat in the room was 29.5 degrees C. This rose to 30.5 overnight when temps outside were 18 degrees. The standard rooms at this hotel do not have air-con so they provide a fan, however it's VERY noisy and was like sleeping next to a helicopter overnight. The windows only open a fraction so no hot air escaped overnight even with the windows open. To top it off, the toilet was leaking too. The saving grace at this hotel were the staff. I ended up going down to reception at 3am very overheated and the night reception staff member was absolutely lovely and looked into other available rooms for us, but said we'd need to wait for housekeeping to come on shift to sort it fully. I went back down at 7am and the morning staff were then able to move us to a Premier Plus room and even arranged to move a mattress into the room for us (which isn't the norm/standard in the premier plus rooms so I really appreciated it). Our second night was infinitely better than the first and I would highly recommend anyone staying at this hotel in the summer months - and especially during heatwaves - just save yourself the aggro and book a Premier Plus room for the air-conditioning alone, plus having a fridge to put drinks in was great. However if you're travelling with children bear in mind Premier Plus isn't available for family rooms at this hotel and I'd recommend booking elsewhere. Overall I'd rate our first night as a 1/5 and our second night as 4/5.

Check in staff were friendly. Bathroom was mouldy - when you pressed the soap dispenser mouldy water splashed on the wall. Shower head was grim - so much so that I wouldnt use it. Bedsheet was stained. We've used premier inns all over the country for years and never had an issue, but I would avoid this one if you can.