Hotel Indigo Chester by IHG — Hotel in Great Britain

Returned home from a three night stay. ||Tip - ensure you book directly with the hotel. We registered with IHG and the next day thought we had booked directly with the hotel but unfortunately we were re routed to a third party website who took an additional £300 out of our account for our stay. We were scammed and will have to follow this up separately.||This part was not the hotels fault, but this led to some issues as our three days progressed, with the hotel charging us again for our three night stay. Resulting in us paying out nearly £1400 for a three night stay.||||Positives||1. Lovely decor- very modern, perfume at door.||2. Good lifts to room ( we were situated on first floor, next to the lifts)||3. Room ( small in size) but quirky and a nice design with complimentary drinks and snacks.||4. Sophie on reception was very considerate and kind in her approach to us both, a real asset.||5. Bar staff always courteous and friendly.||6. Tasty sausages for breakfast!||||Negatives||1. PARKING. As I have a disability ( blue badge) I contacted hotel. Informed there was one at front of the hotel, available on a first come first serve basis. In other hotels with limited parking, a space is often appointed on a first come first serve basis, like yours but you can reserve it. Turning up on a whim isn’t something a less able bodied person would do, planning of journeys/ parking are an essential part of life for a disabled person. Please consider the booking of said space.||To ensure we had a space, we booked the multi storey car park and I was dropped off with the luggage at the hotel door, on the assumption someone at concierge would assist me. No one did.||The hotel disabled space is also not immediately visible as you approach. During our stay, a portable advertisement sign was in front of it. This may be useful to know in the event that you are travelling alone as you could easily miss the entrance on the right. You may need someone to move the sign that blocks the entry to the space, again another barrier for a disabled person. To conclude, we couldn’t book this space or gain access to it. We booked the multi-storey, and saw the space sit empty for our stay. This did not sit well with us at all.||2. CHECK IN.||Checked in to the hotel. Friday afternoon. The bar area was full / standing room only with large groups of males shouting ( clearly drunk ) at approximately 3pm in the afternoon. They were spilling over into the reception corridor which was exceptionally busy with no seats available.||I presented my booking paperwork and pushed my luggage over. There was no staff to help me.||I filled in my details/ address and was asked to swipe my card. It was very difficult to hear what the receptionist was saying due to the noise from the bar.. What I thought was a card swipe for additional drinks etc. turned out be the hotel taking a full second payment for our hotel payment on top of the already inflated price I had paid via the booking agent scam!|| ||3. ROOM- Entered room. Lovely first impression. Entered bathroom - no toilet paper. Clean sink and shower, bathroom floor dusty and dirty with toothpaste splatters all over the floor. I cleaned the floor with a wet wipe on my foot. Popped down to reception to raise concern/ request toilet paper. Approached reception again later to query why we had been charged twice? No feedback or information shared that night re a resolution or refund.||4. SLEEP - unfortunately the party in the bar reached the rooms in the evening. The room was very quiet in general but we were woken by a drunk older gentleman attempting to get in to our room at 2.30am knocking and trying the door handle.||Beds are firm and quilts are heavy ( winter tog)||5. RECEPTION- Day 2 Contacted reception again, no resolution regarding double payment. Room not serviced. Informed reception and had to once again go down to the reception to request a roll of toilet paper.||6. RECEPTION- Day 3/4Room was not cleaned at all throughout our stay despite it being vacant during the day, every day. Had to track down the cleaners ourselves to request towels on the third day. By day four, the shower drain was backing up and the odour was not pleasant. We binned bagged up our rubbish and left them in the corridor as our bins were not emptied.||||7. RECEPTION- On day 3 Sophie ( reception) explained that she would be doing her very best to ensure the money taken in error by the hotel would be returned. We are now home and it is still not in our account. I understand this may take time.|| Sophie was vey kind, she prevented me from tears, as by this point the amount of things not going right were taking its toll.||||8.OVERALL, we left feeling really disappointed with our stay , the whole being charged twice, room cleanliness and barriers faced as a disabled traveller were well below what we expected from this hotel.||||This is a lovely looking hotel, we clearly did not experience it at its best.||||TO CONCLUDE||1. Sophie on reception- kindness appreciated.||2. Disabled consideration-please rethink what you offer. Not all disabled residents have wheelchair chairs and may need help. You could do this better, please see guidance from the disability act 2010.||3.Visit/ refresh/clean rooms. Provide toilet roll and at least one change of towels and empty bins.||4. The bar was busy to bursting on a Friday afternoon, racing on the next day? Coincidence or normal? You might want to consider this if booking. The ambience of the hotel on entry was most undesirable with Saturday still being busy but less rowdy.||||5. All of the points above was raised with many different members of staff in the interest of transparency. We were treated so kindly by Sophie, however the over £500 has still not been returned to our account. || The hotel was missing the very basics such as room refreshing and disability awareness.|| I would think twice if booking here if any of the above points are a priority to you.||||6. We were offered 12000 IHG points for our poor experience, which means we would need to re book with this hotel chain to cash in a £50 discount. We are not sure If we will use this……… we left feeling down trodden. We would really just like over double payment refunded as quickly as...

My girlfriend & I recently stayed at the Indigo for our friend’s wedding at Old Palace Chester. We’ve stayed at the Indigo at Printworks, Manchester and I must say that this is ahead of it for me in terms of service, comfortability and all-round interior and design - the hotel is stunning and is given its solid 4 stars deservedly.

Upon entering the hotel there’s a lovely little outdoor patio area to greet you at the entrance which looked a lovely place to sit and watch the world go by on a sunny day in Chester. The reception area is equally as lovely, dark wood panelling adorns the walls of the lobby and the choice of furniture really adds a touch of class and luxury (I do wish I took some pictures of my own looking back but they have some great shots of it on their instagram page)

The effort and attention to detail given to greet guests upon arrival doesn’t go amiss.

We booked a deluxe king room (highly recommended) which came equipped with chilled beverages in the fridge, different types of teas, a kettle and a coffee machine with some different strength coffee pods for preference.

The interior of the room based on Chester’s famous Tudor architecture was quirky, cool and homely all at the same time, although I do believe they offer rooms inspired by Chester Racecourse too which would suit if you were staying there for the races. Our room was incredibly comfortable and pleasant. A great place to relax and unwind (especially after a wedding!).

The unsung heroes that I think made our stay what it was though were the two ladies on reception, Jackie and Helen. We got back to the hotel quite late after the wedding and they honestly could not do enough for us. They treated us with warmth and care, the type of feeling you get being looked after by family so-to-speak. Whether it was a friendly chat or helping with any late-night requests, they made us feel right at home. Their thoughtful and personal approach really made our stay memorable and we’re incredibly grateful for their exceptional service.

Pros: a really comfortable environment exceptional customer service breakfast in bed!

if you had to put the telescope on how to improve this hotel, you’d find only subtle adjustments are needed to improve guest experience

‘Cons’: it’s not so obvious that the second bath towel is hidden away in the walk-in wardrobe, we called reception thinking we only had one but later discovered the original second towel in there. It could just be as simple as it being mentioned at check-in breakfast in bed can be ordered by filling out the door-sign menu and hanging it outside, but I couldn’t find a pen anywhere in the room to fill it out with very fussy, I know, but a pillow menu would be a great touch to an already exceptional experience as a guest

All-round a fantastic hotel and I wouldn’t recommend anywhere else to stay in Chester. In fact, I’d recommend going to Chester just to stay at this hotel! It should definitely be first choice should you find yourself...

The cleanliness and the design of the room was excellent, and well supplied facilities in the room. The hotel staff left us waiting at check in, despite a few coming in and out of the staff room, a polite “hello” or “won’t be a moment” could have made the first impression a bit more comforting. I had made requests on booking and followed through in the week and a couple days prior to this stay. Upon checking in they informed us the notes were not added to booking - despite the person online saying they had. The front desk person seemed to be in a rush and asking us to check back later in the day for one of the requests we had made, we kindly accepted this as we could see the rush on their face. As we departed the hotel for dinner we asked if their was any feed back for a earlier start to breakfast (which was one of our requests) the front desk person said no that the breakfast starts at a certain time, we acknowledged this despite being confused as we were asking for only continental breakfast and up half hour before. Just as we started to leave, they then informed us that we wouldn’t get in for breakfast without booking, so we stepped back to their desk to agree the earliest start time. We arrived 5 mins early to our breakfast slot, the food was all out and ready the restaurant was empty and we were not allowed to our seats until the exact time. We sat and waited this wasn’t a problem. Our waiter was lovely, and keen to help. We had our granola and went back to the room. A few other people had the same, and we’re staying at the hotel for the same reason - to compete in the Chester marathon. The request for the earlier breakfast might have been on their minds too so putting out a spread of cereals and fruit could have made feel valued, as no requests for hot food were taken from any of the guests in the restaurant at the time I was in there. Another of our requests was for a later check out, we did not mind the extra charge the importance of having a shower after running 26.2 miles out weighs any cost on a long journey home. So we tried to get the front desks attention to confirm the late check out, they seemed to be busy but I think they heard us. When returning we double checked that the room had not been touched and we were going for showers and soon return. The water temperature and pressure was amazing, a really excellent bathroom and hair dryer comes in the room. When leaving/checking out there was no one at the front desk when the elevator opened, seconds after getting out and to the desk the front desk person appeared and informed us straight away of the charge. After the charge had been taken they then wish that we had a good stay. Which was lovely to hear some...