Bloc Hotel Birmingham — Hotel in Birmingham

As a hotel brand that advertises itself as "affordable and luxurious," this turned out to be the polar opposite. At first glance, this appeared to be a fantastic hotel – however, this was not the case. Due to my OCD, I requested that my room be cleaned after the initial inspection; however, I was told that this would not be possible and that the room was cleaned/ examined before my arrival. Even though I said that I had OCD, I was not taken seriously, and the situation that followed would not have happened if I had been listened to. Returning to the receptionist, I accepted her word and proceeded to the nearby store to acquire my cleaning materials, knowing full well that the staff would be problematic. When I returned, I lifted the bedsheets to see a tangle of dark hair, some long and others short; there was hair in six different places across the bed, to be precise. I subsequently had to request that my room be cleaned once again. I'll give credit where it is due and add that Joanna, the head of housekeeping, went out of her way to assist us, even allowing us an extended checkout time to apologise. We were happy at this moment and prepared to head out. After putting up a sign that stated 'do not disturb' on one side we used the 'make up my room' on the other, so the cleaner would know we were gone and could make the necessary changes. We did this at Joanna's suggestion so that housekeeping could see that we had left the room. We then went out, as previously said. When we returned, we discovered we had no towels since they had been removed but not replaced, and we had to ask reception for more. The lighting and TV were fine, but no matter what we did, we couldn't access Netflix since the TV kept blocking it, even though there was a designated button for it. We were fortunate enough to have a window through which we could lookout, but the room's temperature was controlled by climate control, which was not ideal. However, because we were mostly out during the day, this was not an issue. We pulled our curtains down at night to find many stains that made the room feel much dirtier, in addition to the unsanitary bed. We chose not to report this to reception due to the hour, as we were tired and wanted to sleep. The next day, though, we left our blinds open so that housekeeping could inspect and clean them. We also placed a note on our door requesting that our room be cleaned, as Joanna had earlier advised us. We had been gone from the hotel all day and returned at 7 p.m. to discover that our room had not been cleaned and that the moist unclean towels and rubbish had been left in it. Despite offering visitors a mechanism to request cleaning, I raised the matter with reception, where - I assume was the manager (no introduction of who he was) informed that our room will not be cleaned since they only clean them after people depart. He did, however, offer us a different room, but we were hesitant because we had previously had troubles with the first one and didn't know whether this one would be clean either. He claimed there was only one hair in our room the day before, but I corrected him and told him I had photographs, demonstrating a lack of regard for his guests and an attempt to be clever. - I do have photos, and I'm going to share these on Google. He then proceeded to explain that there was nothing he could do about the room not being cleaned. I also had to ask for fresh towels because this was not indicated. The entire setup is a shambles, and the rooms themselves lack even basic amenities like a kettle and cleaning. Coffee is an additional charge in the mornings, and you can only obtain it for free if you join their VIP programme. I'm shocked. I anticipated a lot more from a 'luxury' hotel after travelling from Hertfordshire. A premier inn in town would have sufficed the level of service we acquired. It was a complete waste of money, and BLOC has breached the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982/ Consumer...

My boyfriend and I stayed at the Bloc Hotel in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter for one night (Saturday into Sunday) and we really enjoyed the experience. We will definitely be repeat customers to this hotel and will look for them in other cities! First of all, there was great customer service! The two women on the front desk when I arrived could not have been more professional or helpful. I arrived ahead of my boyfriend and I was quite stressed and I had my hands full with two small bags and my ironed clothes for the evening. Although you can check in online and bypass reception I had not managed to do so due to driving there, so they helped me check in and had already moved me to the first floor ahead of time as the lift was not working. They also helped me carry my bags up to my room and ordered a taxi for me when I asked for a number to call (I didn't have Uber on my phone). I should say that this hotel is made for people who like great tech, as you are sent a link ahead of time that you can use to access the hotel, get into your room and control features such as the lights and temperature of your room all from your phone. It makes it so much easier and if you can't find the key card that you can get from reception its all on your phone so you can still get in after a night out. On seeing the room, it was very clean and all the furniture made great use of the space. It needed to do this because the room was small, but it was the perfect size for what we needed which was a place to crash overnight. The bathroom had a shower, toilet and sink. The shower was amazing, though it did take a few seconds for me to work out how to get the water to come out of the right attachment and I did accidentally end up spraying the toilet on my first try. The bed was comfy and was a good size, which my boyfriend noted on arrival later on (he is 6 foot 5). The TV was in a good spot to comfortably watch it in bed. Two other things that are important to note is 1) we paid extra for having a room with a window which was worth it and 2) the room had ac which meant we actually slept at night rather then end up sweaty messes. The only thing I would say is, you should definitely be comfortable with whoever you share a room with as the close quarters and glass bathroom door does mean that you can hear and see a little too much! Overall a great stay and would...

Disappointing. Great concept on paper but in practice there were many issues. Firstly, the tablets in the walls controlling climate and lighting had a fault meaning we could not control the air conditioning. We reported the fault as we left for an an evening out and were assured the issue was known and it would be fixed whilst we were out.... 5 hours later and we came back to a freezing cold room and error messages and battery low warning from the tablets built into the wall. Since the rooms don't have phones, we called reception from our mobiles and were told the system would be reset and rectified in 10 minutes.... 15 minutes later, we still had no control of the air conditioning. A very nice girl came to our room but was honest enough to say she didn't know much about the system and people who did were not working as it was late (now around 11.30pm). Eventually after unplugging the tablet a few times and blatent button bashing, the air conditioning switched off and we could warm up. Unfortunately the night was warm and so the climate control would have come in handy; we'd gone from freezing to hot! With an unresponsive tablet and an lovely, albeit unqualified staff member, we tried to open the windows but this was useless as the blind and pelmet blocked the window from opening fully, furthermore the window failed to close properly again once opened, both windows in the bedroom and lounge/kitchen area were the same but seemed to function differently.

Overall, looked great in photographs and appeared to be technologically advanced but in reality, materials used were cheap and flimsy, technology was unreliable and faulty and poorly thought window design left us uncomfortable, dissatisfied and ultimately disappointed. I would not recommend.

On the plus side, staff genuinely tried thier best to help us, the lighting system did work reliably and the concept was refreshing compared to most hotels.

I would advise owners to carry out intensive quality checks and focus on better remedial action plans in the event of inevitable technology failures. I'd love to have left a better review as I love the concept but the stay was genuinely a disappointment and we were...