Holiday Inn Haydock M6 Jct23

Enjoyable

This is a very relaxing spot for a hotel to be in. No road noises, easy access to main highways/ motorways and local towns. If your walking it is less than a mile into town. I was there for 6 days and and walked into town for my meals each day. I found the hotel restaurant meals a bit on the high side for average food. The hotel staff where very nice, front desk excellent and housekeeping staff the same. Would score high except for renovation work being done and my room overlooked two dumpsters/ skips which I had to look at each morning when I opened the curtains. If it was one night , it would be ok but, I had an extended stay. I chose to say nothing as I had unpacked and settled in - that was my fault!

Was told 3 hours before check-in by hotels. Com that the hotel was full. Took 7 hours to sort out another hotel away from the couple we were going with. Being cut off on a number of times and with very little help. Ruined the whole trip. I asked to be contracted by hotels.comto explain what went wrong and have not heard anything since.

There was a smell when we first entered our room which was mainly coming from the bathroom. The smell was like damp, over used rags being used to clean. It didn't smell nice at all.

The hotel was very comfortable and clean. The Breakfasts were excellent and I must compliment the Chef on the Black Pudding - one of the best I have tasted. Also superb was the Breakfast Manger, I think her name was Jan. However my wife and I were not at all happy on the final night of our stay. We need to eat early in the evening so we went into the restaurant about 1900 to eat. There was a coach party of about 40 already in the middle of their meal. When we went to sit down we were refused service from the Restaurant Manager, who said that, since another coach party of the same size as the one already eating was due in 'soon', the restaurant wouldn't serve us until 2030. (This was far too late for our health needs). The Restaurant is very large and was almost empty. Is it hotel policy therefore to 'exclude' any other hotel guests from eating at that time? - there may have been many more bona fide guests who would have liked a meal. I find the hotel's attitude incomprehensible when, ostensibly, they should be able to cater for every guest in the hotel to eat if they so wished. We were then forced to eat out - we visited 5 local pubs/restaurants nearby only to find they were all full. In the end we managed to find a local Chinese Takeaway and took a meal back to our room. Even then when I went into the restaurant and asked for two plates and some forks the staff were reluctant to give them to us. It spoiled the last night of our holiday.