The Grand Hotel Birmingham — Hotel in Birmingham

I used to stay at this hotel before the rebuild and it did need renovation but I feel they missed an opportunity. Its perfectly adequate for a short business stay it does market itself as a priemier destination but seams like a decent chain hotel. The entrance is a small door off a side street with reception being a desk at the end of a corridor. The once welcoming foyer has gone. My room was marketed as larger than average room, however I had to move two chairs to be able to get to the righthand side of the bed. There was a yoga mat in the room I didn't use as I would have to place a chair on the bed to give me sufficient room I am 5'10". Don't Look at the bedroom carpet when walking it made me dizzy. The room was adequately decorated but bland and corporate not reflecting Birmingham The tempature of the air conditioning can not controlled in the room while in the shower the temperature in my room had dropped to 15°C I had to turn it off which Made the room stuffy. Onto of the wardrobe unit were some silk flowers covered in dust. The black light switches had paint all round the edges No information in the room about the hotel. I don't know if they do room service. I looked on the website about food options but could only find information regarding two bars outside the hotel and one bar in the hotel that doesn't like fancy dress or hen parties (I have no idea why they find that information of such importance). I tried asking asking at reception but as it small and was a queue I gave up and went elsewhere. The breakfast was disappointing. Unimagative hot selection I went for Full English. The bacon was rubbery. Black pudding, scrambled eggs and sausage where bland, on the other hand the mashed tomatoes where overpowered with balsamic vinegar. The cold buffet was very poor selection you get a better aelection at a Priemier Inn. The milk was left on the table mine was room temperature I could be bothered to ask for to be changed as it had taken 5 attempts to attract a waitress to take my order. Like I say if booked by a company for a business trip this hotel would be fine. Its such a shame they could have made this hotel a real top class destination hotel in a one of the best locations...

I visited your hotel from London as there was a wedding for me to attend in Birmingham. I parked at the recommended car park (B4 car park). The car park is not close and so by the time I got to the hotel carrying my luggage, baby, and push chair, I was exhausted. Upon arrival to the hotel entrance, there were stairs and no ramp for pram, so I had to carry all the luggage to the top, then go back down and carry my baby and pram up too.

I checked in and went to my room. As I got to my room, the WiFi was not working for me or my wife. I called reception and they asked me to go back down so they could take a look. They tried to connect my phone but were unable to. They said their phones were working so there must be an issue with mine and my wife’s phone. I asked them for a solution but they said there wasn’t much else they could do. To prove the WiFi was working, the person that was assisting me disconnected her phone from the WiFi. When she tried to reconnect, she was getting the exact error I was getting and she too was unable to log in. It was at this point she realised the fault was with the hotel WiFi and not my phone like they previously stated. She apologised profusely and contacted IT to reset the WiFi. She said she would let me know as soon as it was fixed, so I went back to my room. I never heard back so I asked again around 3pm if it was working but she apologised as it was not. It got to 9pm and I hadn’t heard from reception so I tried myself to login and I was finally able to login. I’d driven 4 hours from London to Birmingham and the last thing I needed was to waste my time trying to get WiFi working. I was so annoyed and it just soured the entire experience. Even a basic hotel in a less economically developed country would at least be able to provide basic WiFi so it was disappointing to stay at this hotel without WiFi. I had planned to connect my Firestick to the tv to watch shows but was unable to without WiFi. Very disappointing.

I also had breakfast at the hotel, food was very average, nothing special.

On a plus side, the bathroom was decorated very nicely.

Overall, if I ever have to visit Birmingham again, it’s very unlikely I will stay at this...

MADELEINE RESTAURANT

I made a formal complaint following an extremely disappointing visit to Madeleine for Afternoon Tea, on Wednesday, 1st June 2022, to celebrate a special occasion. The Bar Manager took 3 days to respond to my written complaint and the response I received was less than satisfactory.

Whilst I am not somebody who usually complains, I contacted the bar following our visit as we were so shocked at how we had been treated. Not only was the service extremely poor, we were served desserts that had melted and collapsed prior to being served and found ourselves having to almost to 'chase down' a waitress for assistance on more than one occasion. Furthermore, we asked if a special birthday we were celebrating could be acknowledged in some small way, perhaps with 'Happy Birthday' written on one of our plates, and were told 'we do not take any special requests, you can do something yourselves'.

The cherry on top was us being accused of underpaying the bill we had been presented with and a member of staff chasing us out as we left before frogmarching us back through the bar, despite us having paid in full! Whilst explaining we had already paid the bill, we were presented with a new receipt detailing 30g of Caviar which we had neither ordered nor consumed, and a member of bar staff exclaimed 'I gave you a free round of shots earlier as well'. The experience was incredibly embarrassing and completely soured the special occasion we were celebrating.

We barely received an apology whilst at Madeleine and the response to the complaint was little more than 'I will open an investigation to see what has happened with all these mistakes you mentioned, I hope you'll soon give us another chance to have some fun with us'.

Would not recommend if you're celebrating something special, so disappointed as we had expected...