Chelmsford City Centre

Very nice place and the customer was very helpful, everyone was good

Firstly, the hotel is a great location if you need to be in the centre of Chelmsford. It is right next to the train station and only a few minutes was to shops and restaurants and the bus station. There was no one to help us at check in - we could work the kiosk ok, but some people may struggle if they’re not great with tech. We’d booked a premier plus room and it was not up to the same standard as plus rooms in other premier inns- I didn’t see the standard rooms, but I’m guessing from other reviews that they also don’t represent the company as well as other hotels do. Our main issue was the noise from the air con and the fact it stopped us sleeping much on the first night. Even though it was switched off, it was really noisy before eventually stopping. However once we’d dozed off it stared again! This went on until at least 4am. The duty manager said it was probably due to a fault with the bathroom fan, so he gave us another key to keep the lights on all day and told us to leave the bathroom light on all night - not ideal but at least it was more quiet for our second night . It really feels like they’re trying to run this hotel on the cheap. It’s a shame, as it’s a really handy location. However, there aren’t enough staff to help guests with issues or stay on top of maintenance

Stayed in one of their Premier Plus rooms. Have stayed here before in a regular room and in a Plus room and both types of rooms in various offer Premier Inns many times over the years. In many ways it was what you expect from a Premier Inn, very comfy bed, decent in bath shower (larger "rainfall" head in the Plus room), decent TV and being a Plus room it seemed fairly newly renovated and relatively fresh compared to standard rooms. Location is right be the train station but no parking. 5 minute walk into the town centre. I did have some issues though, affecting the "Plus" experience and premium cost. The checkout desk is gone, replaced by touch screens whereby you can program your own key for each guest booked. Quite handy, but not welcoming. Also, as part of the Plus cost is free "Ultimate" Wifi upgrade for your stay, which you need a password voucher for. This is supposed to be provided as part of the check in and printed on the receipt from what I have read from Premier Inn's website, but it wasn't and suspect it is a feature of the check in system and not a one off. I had to go down from the room to the bar staff who were busy serving other guests with issues checking in and customers at the bar. Also, another additional facility of a Plus room is "upgraded refreshments" which equates to a bottle of water each in the room fridge per my experience and their website. There were no bottles of water in the room on this occasion. While at the bar, I asked about this also and the staff member said "We didn't get any delivered". No apology or offer of an alternative which wasn't good service in my opinion. I did note however that the vending machine in the lobby must have had a delivery at least, because they were charging £2.70 per bottle of water from there. We bought bottles from a local shop while we were in town instead. Baylis & Harding toiletries, pump bottles on the wall in bath/shower, but the bottles seemed to have had a bashing as it was hard work to get anything out of them. Very nice toiletries once they started pumping though. The room does come with a coffee machine, which was okay but the coffee wasn't great tasting but drinkable and also had a lot of residue in the bottom of the cup by the time you got there, not sure if it is a problem with the machine or the pods. All being all, if I hadn't paid for a Plus room it would have been a typical satisfactory Premier Inn stay. However due to the above issues, completing negating the benefits of having a Plus room and poor service, it certainly didn't warrant the extra cost. Therefore I certainly wouldn't recommend or be booking a Plus room here again and will look for alternative accommodation next time I'm in the area.