Holiday Inn Express Amiens, an IHG Hotel — Hotel in Amiens

Booking the room

Needing to a find a hotel that was central to where I was coming from, and where I was going to (along the North French coast and slightly inland) I found myself looking into Amiens. After using some hotel and travel comparison site I settled on booking the HI Express.

As with anything, I use comparison sites to research, but always book directly through the hotels own website set up if they have one; this hotel was no exception.

With easy, simple to follow instructions, room choosing and booking was a doddle. However, make sure you double check your information, as it wasn't until I printed out my confirmation ready to take along with me, that I noticed they had listed me as a MR. It took several emails to get this sorted (there is a phone number but I refuse to pay for premium rate numbers when I can email for free). Eventually someone got back to me and my booking was amended for me. I know how some hotels can get a bit iffy if the booking information doesn't match exactly, which is why I didn't relish getting there to be told the room was booked by a Mr which I most definitely am not.

Location and Car Park

The hotel itself doesn't have a car park, but under the building there is a public car park that is open 24 hours. Getting to it is not the easiest thing in the world. My best advice to anyone travelling there is to make sure your map (or sat nav) take you by the hotel on the same side of the road. My co-pilot lives by his sat nav (I hate the bloody thing and several times while we were touring almost threw it out of the window) and as such rather than follow my map reading skills, his modern technology saw us on the opposite side of the road to the hotel. Not a biggy you would think. Until you realise there are 2 lanes of traffic on each side, with barriers through the centre. "No worries" we told ourselves. A turn here, one there and another there will get us on the opposite side of the road where we needed to be. An hour later, after finding pretty much every road we went down was part of a one way system (those that weren't had road works and diversions on them) we finally found a car park. Thinking we were in the correct one we headed out, only to find we were over half a mile away. Exiting the car park also took us away from the side of the road we needed to be on.

By this point my driver was getting stressed and I wasn't the happiest bunny that something so simple could take 2 pretty intelligent people so long. Thankfully my legs were happy of the walk, and I strolled down to the hotel to ask how we get into their car park.

The receptionist could not have been more helpful if she tried; Her excellent directions got us from the car park we were in, to the one under the hotel. The only thing she got wrong was the cost. She told us it was €6 for 24 hours; it was in fact €8 but that's neither here nor there.

The Hotel and Amenities

Entering the reception I was struck at just how tiny it was. More like a foyer than a reception area, but you can't miss the desk. There is also an entrance to this area via the outside road area for those of you that don't use the car park.

To the left of the reception desk is the bar/breakfast area. It looks long and thin and not big enough to hold many people, but it opens out around the corner. We never ate the breakfast (annoying really as it was included in the price we paid) but some other guests we chatted with said there was a great selection of cereals, breads, cheeses (all the food you expect with a continental breakfast) to choose from.

To get to the rooms you go slightly right and behind the reception desk to the lifts; this felt almost as though it was a storage/staff only area for some strange reason, but it's the only set of lifts we found (and the ones we were told to use) so we knew we were in the right place. Just opposite the lifts is where the business centre is located. Here you will find a computer, and some shelves with information brochures on. The hotel does have free wifi throughout (which is really easy to connect to) so if you have your own laptop, tablet or phone with you then there is no need to use this very public area.

I was led to believe there is a conference area in the hotel, but I never saw it. I also never saw any stairs up to the rooms, and as is customary with this style of hotel, the lift was tiny and quite claustrophobic feeling. There were 4 of us in there at one point and I have to say it wasn't a nice feeling.

The Room

The bathroom was located to the left as we entered the room. Not only was this room clean, it was also huge by comparison. In fact they could possibly have made the bathroom a bit smaller, to give more room in the bedroom area, as the beds were so close together it could have been classed a double, instead of twin room.

The bath was full size, and a good depth for those of you that like a soak. The shower had a moveable head so you could have it on spray or pulse. There was one set of towels in the bathroom (2 face size, 1 bath size) which seems to be the norm for all hotel rooms; imagine my happiness when I found another set in the bedroom on a shelf. For 1 person the 1 set is fine, but for 2 it was lovely to be able to have the extra.

There were 2 lots of soaps in the bathroom. 1 in the shower which was a combined body wash/shampoo, and one by the sink for washing your hands. There was also a note in the bathroom that stated if you had forgotten your razors, toothbrushes, or sanitary products, then the hotel would happily provide these for you; free of charge. Now I wouldn't suggest you deliberately forget these items, but I thought it was a nice touch.

The beds were exceptionally comfortable and having 2 pillows on each really made my day. The addition of 2 boiled sweets on each bed was a lovely touch. There was also a feedback form left for each of us to fill in.

The in-built desk area was plenty big enough for those of you that like to sit down and catch up on some work; this had a small led lamp attached to the desk wall that was attached to a moveable/positionable flex. Oddly though I would have expected to find the phone on the desk, but instead that was wedged against the alarm clock, on one of the bedside tables. The TV was above the desk so fairly high up, which made it difficult to watch unless you sat (or laid on your bed) at an odd angle.

There was plenty of wardrobe space (and hangers) along with shelves for a weeks worth of clothes and bits and pieces; on one of these shelves I found the tray with the kettle, cups, tea and coffee on. An odd place to keep it; I can only assume they will hope that people won't want to use these. This thought was added to when we found there is nowhere to plug it in around the desk area, which is the only place it could all safely sit (this lack of plug would also be a pain for someone wishing to plug in their laptop). The only socket we found was next to where the clock was plugged in so to make a cuppa we had to tuck the clock onto a shelf in the wardrobe; pop the phone on the floor, then balance (while the other one of us held on to) the tray (the kettle base was attached to the tray so we have no option but to use the whole thing) on the bedside cabinet.

There was a hair dryer attached to the wall outside the bathroom, and the hotel also offer a laundry service; this is same day if you drop your bits to them by 9am, they will get them back by 7pm that same evening.

The only other major downside to the room (aside from the lack of plugs) is the lighting. While there are excellent bedside lamps for each bed, the only other light in the room is a similar lamp on the desk. There is no main light in the room, so unless you switch all the others on and angle them into the room, it can appear quite dim.

Conclusion

Would I stay here again? Most definitely. I'd like to go back and explore the city more and would happily stay at this hotel again. Whilst it is lovely (and good manners) to try and speak in French if you possibly can, don't worry if you can't as the all the staff we spoke to were...

I stayed here twice in 8 days. The first time I was put in a disabled visitors' room - which, as you would expect, was very large & spacious (although no low level auto- activated room access so I wondered how a wheelchair user actually opens the two access doors?!). It was, however, rather noisy being on the front of the hotel onto the main road and sleep quality was not good with street cleaning machines going up and down the boulevard at 3am. Not the hotel's fault, I hasten to add!

The second stay just 8 days later, I was given a room near the lift (although as a member I had expressed a preference to be away from the lift) and given this room was booked well in advance, I was disappointed with the location. However, nothing prepared me for the tiny size of the room! It was just 2.65m wide and so "compact" that there was nowhere to open and access our two overnight "cabin" suitcases unless you opened them on the bed. I mentioned this at Reception on check-out but just got a shrug and "Yes they are small!" comment.

The desk/work area was also very tiny (wide enough to take my laptop only) and the seat did not even slide under the desk, meaning you lost even more living space out of the room!

I have to say I have stayed in rooms this size in "budget" hotels but did not expect this at HIE, given it cost twice what you would pay at a budget hotel including breakfast.

As the room overlooked a roof-top garden from the next door office building, it was quiet and offered good sleep quality.

Overall, very disappointing. If I want to be caged for the night in a room of this size I would stay in a budget chain hotel for 50€ incl breakfast. I will not stay here again on trips north/south...

Superb little hotel right in the middle of town. Easy walking distance to most things. Directly next to train station although you won't hear any noise from it.

Very small room but had all we needed in it. Clean and great housekeepers.

Reception desk staff very helpful, particularly the ladies. The young man was nice but disappeared often into the back office or out to the front for a cigarette and not as keen to help!

Breakfast was ok. Very small selection compared to most Holiday Inn Express's we have visited.

Car park is hard to deal with when you have luggage so better to drop passengers with luggage at the top of the ramp before driving underground. If the next door supermarket is open, you can use their escalators but otherwise you have to lug it up steps!

Beware the car park doesn't like many English bank cards- we tried 3 different ones and ended up driving to the security office twice as machine in supermarket and on top level wouldn't accept notes too so take coins...lots of them!

Finally, a mention to Megan who works on reception. She was very helpful and spoke English when my French failed me! She also filled up my hot water bottle several times a day when I was in agony and seemed intrigues by it!

We left her a small tip as who tips reception staff normally? She seemed delighted and very humble and we were touched to be given a thank you note when we checked out the following morning.

We will definitely return here as a perfect place for a short...