City Inn Birmingham Hotel

, Birmingham, United Kingdom
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City Inn Birmingham Hotel

4 star

Rooms: 238

1 Brunswick Square Brindleyplace - Birmingham - England - B1 2WH - United Kingdom Hotel Website | | (0)121 643 1003
607 Traveller

Reviews - City Inn Birmingham Hotel

Historical Traveller Reviews of City Inn Birmingham Hotel

My favourite Birmingham hotel

from MalcolmSu
I stayed in this hotel one or two nights a week for six months whilst working in Birmingham on business. I'm surprised at the comments other reviewers have made about staff attitudes because in my experience staff can make or break my stay at a hotel and in this case they've always made my stay a pleasure. From the receptionists to the restaurant staff they are all very friendly and helpful. Perhaps it was a result of me staying so long and getting to know them well but I certainly saw evidence of others being treated exceptionally well.

I've been back again recently and almost all of the same staff are still there - I've found this to be unusual in the hotel industry so they (City Inn) must be doing something right!

The rooms are adequately fitted out with all the facilities you could need - great showers. Best for me though was their City Cafe - a great restaurant with several awards to its name. Food was always excellent and very good value for money. It also seemed to be popular with BBC TV as I've seen more celebraties at dinner there than any other hotel I've stayed at!

If you get fed up of eating in the hotel there's plenty of alternatives in Brindley Place - all within a very short walk from the hotel.

So near but so far

from Izzyk
The really frustrating thing about this hotel is that is hovering on the brink of being fantastic but all too often little problems creep up which tip it the other way. Its location is great. Brindley Place is a really buzzy combination of offices, bars and restaurants and it is only minutes away from the city centre. The interior is sleek and modern. Someone suggested that it is an upmarket Travel Inn I would disagree with this point I think even taking into account the problems it is better than that.

Checking in was difficult with the receptionist making several errors with my name which is actually very straight forward. She admitted she was tired after a “heavy weekend” which I really did not want to know. Clearly she was tired as like many of my fellow reviewers my requested newspaper failed to materialise.

My room was great. Really nice bed. CD and DVD player, apparently you can get CD’s from reception on payment of a deposit of £20. Whilst I understand the reasoning behind this I found this disappointing having just returned from a stay in Paris where no deposit was required and the assumption was you would of course return them. The rooms are modern with floor to ceiling windows which if you don’t have a head for heights may bother you. You have no mini bar but an excellent selection of snacks if you want to eat in your room.

No bath but a very powerful shower which was great. Also you get a bathrobe which you generally don’t get in other hotels unless you are staying in an “executive room”. There are the usual film channels which you are charged for according to the booklet describing the hotel services but I have to say I watched a couple and was not charged for any. Also what I really liked is you have channels such as E4 and BBC3. I was working by myself in Birmingham and it is nice to be able to come back to your room and always be able to find something to watch.

However, as with everything in the hotel there were drawbacks. The first being the cleaning of the room. The person who had been in the room before me had left hand marks behind the bathroom door from foundation. I stayed 3 nights and every night they were still there. I also think someone must have opened a bottle of sparkling rose wine in the bathroom as above the mirror there were a lot of red marks, again this did not get cleaned during my stay. Also make sure you utilise your do not disturb sign until you want to leave your room. Room service tried to clean mine at 8am which I thought was a very early call.

The restaurant is sleek and modern and I imagine on a summer day a fabulous place to have a few drinks. The menu is good again modern café style food. The restaurant manager is excellent and attentive. I had the Tuna Nicoise Salad and the tuna was prepared perfectly rare.

However again it lets itself down. The tuna is peppered which I normally love but the pepper was so over powering it made my eyes water. I ordered white wine and I was brought red. Note to the restaurant team we can hear you in the restaurant when you are at the cash desk – if you want to have an argument about your holidays it might be better done elsewhere. The Tuna salad was badly put together with a jumble of leaves and vegetables on the plate. My desert of blackberry crumble was exceptionally tasty other than the cone of ice cream which was so hard it fell off my plate when I tried to put a spoon in it. Also the restaurant staff need to learn how to blend into the background. As it was quiet they did a lot of standing around looking at me which I found quite off putting.

Check out was great the receptionist was different to the one who checked me in and she was very efficient but warm at the same time.

All in all this hotel just misses the mark on too many occasions and as you are not paying pennies I would expect more! However if the hotel management pay attention to the reviews on this board I really feel you have a genuine opportunity to put a few things right and make an average hotel fantastic.

Be warned of the staff attitude. Go elsewhere.

from Andrew005
I have stayed at this hotel a few times whilst in Birmingham on business. Location is good, rooms are OK but bathrooms very small with only shower no bath. Parking at the hotel is tight, only about 30 places for 250+ rooms and £9 extra per night. The main problem with this hotel is the staff. A few examples the phone takes for ever to answer, literally 10minutes sometimes. The receptionists are curt and more or less unhelpful even when greeted pleasantly. It has taken at least 30mins each time I asked for an ironing board, once I asked for an iron for my room and that's all they delivered just an iron no ironing board! I can’t understand why there are four PC’s for check-in but only ever one or best two receptionists in the lobby creating long queues at check-in and out. Gym is very small and half of the equipment does not work the other half past its best. It's a shame as the general decor and contemporary feel is great, simply let down by high turnover of unhelpful staff. Even the reservation desk are unpleasant when ringing in to book a room. They should take a leaf from the Malmaison, Hyatt, Hilton, Holiday Inn Express or Novotel staff training manuals all of whom are very pleasant. I kept going back as my company had a preferred rate but I've now stopped going as I got too tired of the same bad attitude of the staff. I feel it is not worth getting wound up by staying there, be warned...

Excellent

from UnitedKingdomIan_UK
Sayed here as a weekend special. Booked double room with wine on arrival £75 a night. Right in Brindly place, 300 yds to Broad st 400 yds to best restaurants and bars in the gas street bowl.
Room was very modern and very clean , no bath only shower but excellent shower nice and hot and powerful. No signs of mildew or grime.
All facilities in room ok , one small gripe only one bathrobe.
Bar was very nice all leather sofas.

Great option for a short stop in Birmingham

from pauldb
Paid £70 room only for a Saturday night, with the whole of Birmingham seemingly sold-out. Room was small (TV even smaller) but fine for one night. Bathroom tiny - shower only. Parking discounted to £9 around the corner was reasonable for centre. Staff were very friendly and happy to make a dinner recommendation. Breakfast was okay for £11.50 - hot and continental buffet with extras (poached eggs, bacon roll, etc.) prepared fresh. The real plus is the location: Brindleyplace is a really nice development with bars and restaurants on the edge of Broad Street and the redeveloped canalside (also good for NIA, ICC and Symphony Hall). We'd spent Saturday at the NEC (out of town - don't stay out there, it's dead at night) and planned to shop on Sunday on the other side of the centre at the Bullring but the Broad Street side of town is a better place to be at night (busy but safe as well). The options that I know of therefore are the City Inn, the Hyatt (nice lobby and feel but more expensive) and the Malmaison (not worth the premium except for the spa IMHO). Overall, you might prefer a bigger room for a longer stay, but the City Inn is great value and really nice for oine/two nights.

Very disappointing

from JCW
The hotel itself is OK: fairly central location, modern, some nice design touches, a cool bar. Rooms are comfortable. Yet the overall feeling manages to be of a slightly more upmarket Travelodge - despite all the design efforts, the place has no real atmosphere. And it shouldn't take them 30+ minutes and a chasing phone call to deliver an ironing board at 11pm. I'd read good things, but the hotel doesn't live up to the hype.

Where it really lets itself down is on the admin side. I moved my dates, and trying to cancel the original booking was a nightmare. If you book via their website, you can't cancel online - you have to phone. They don't answer calls. Two voicemails and an e-mail giving the cancellation details met with no action. Two calls to the hotel later, and the duty manager finally cancelled the original booking. Only then then cancelled the correct booking as well, so we arrived to find no rooms booked for us. Fortunately they sorted it out, so we had rooms for the night, but this is amateurish in the extreme.

Great location, not so great hotel

from A TripAdvisor Member
This hotel is nicely located on the edge of the Brindley Place development so it's easily placed for restaurants and access to the rest of the city centre, however, the accommodation itself was pretty disappointing.

There are very limited carparking spaces in the hotel's own facility so if you're coming by car you will almost certainly need to park in the multi-storey next door, at a charge of £9 per day (this is not mentioned on the hotel's website).

We arrived at 4pm only to find that no rooms were ready and so had to wait in reception for one to be "cleaned" for us. Once we actually got to the room itself we were most disappointed - the room itself was tiny, the bed had only been half-made (under the duvet the sheet had only been partially tucked in), there was no breakfast card for in-room eating (it should have been on the bed), TV remote had dead batteries and didn't work, the free broadband access specified on the website turned out to be chargeable, the shower gel/shampoo dispenser in the bathroom was empty and so on.

Service wasn't much better - the reception staff were pleasant enough but little things niggled such as the newspaper I'd ordered not being delivered the next morning.

Bar staff were surly and rude, making us wait nearly ten minutes while they chatted among themselves.

Half the equipment in the "fitness room" was broken.

Wouldn't stay again.

Confirmed with guarantee but no room

from A TripAdvisor Member
I book this hotel thru Amadeus System with a credit card guarantee but when I arrived, the reservation officer came out and told me that "We apologize, we have your confirmed booking but we don't have a room left" And advised me to stay another place!!!

hip hotel in the quiet part of city centre

from sirlawrence
it was like staying at a "low end" W hotel. Great location just off broad st with a nice, young and attentive staff with a great bar and cafe where the breakfast staff took care of your every need. Room was "euro" and isn't that the reason you travel. I would stay there again because it beats the high rise hotels on broad st or downtown on high street. Birmingham is a wonderful city to visit !!!!

lovely breakfast at a price!

from A TripAdvisor Member
Modern Hotel and is in a great location for going out and shopping.Disappointed with the size of the rooms rather small for the price.
Booked on the net thinking breakfast was included in the price but ended up paying 11.00 each extra, receptionists not over friendly although other staff members were polite and helpful.
Overall for the price we paid i would rather have stayed at the Hyatt not much difference in price.

Top Local Tips for Birmingham

Keep an open mind. If you have not been to Birmingham you will be very pleasantly surprised. My first trip there on busines (well, you woudn't go unless you had to) left me totally impressed with the place and the people. This is a city full of surprises at every turn. The famous Bullring is OK but fairly mundane by current standards. However, check out the area ( 30 seconds walk from the City Inn) around Brindley Place, an absolutely stunning example of a business area with an outstanding social scene. The whole place grows on me every time I go. If you are thinking of a city break - check it out, you wont be disappointed.

Big place Had literature on Birmingham, be careful, "a few minutes walk" can actually be half an hour's walk. Allow extra time, or take a taxi if you're on a deadline.

Nights Out If you wish to have a good night out in Birmingham - Don't go to Broad Street, it is crowded, loud, yobbish and tacky. Try Brindley Place or the Arcadian.

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Other names for City Inn Birmingham Hotel

  • city inn birmingham
  • city hotel birmingham
  • birmingham city hotel
  • Address: 1 Brunswick Square Brindleyplace - Birmingham - England - B1 2WH - United Kingdom
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