Premier Inn Weston Super Mare Jct 22 M5 (Lympsham) hotel — Hotel in Great Britain

In my work, I have stayed at many Premier Inns across the country and have almost always received an exceptional service.

However, on this occasion it was unbelievably poor. As I arrived, I was greeted at reception by Mary. Mary said that she could check me in now... but would have to charge me an extra £10 because I was early. The time was 2:52pm, and check-in was at 3pm. This seemed a bizarre thing to do for a service-based business, but I said "ok, I'll come back in 8 minutes".

If I have ever arrived early at a hotel before, they would either check me in without fuss or they would say, "I'm sorry but your room is not quite ready, please take a seat and I'll be with you as soon as I can".

Anyway, I returned in 8 minutes to find a manager waiting for me. Mary and the manager then said that my room was not ready anyway... which means they were going to charge me £10 for being 8 minutes early, then they were going to make me wait 8 minutes until my room was ready. What madness is this?!?!

I appreciate Mary and the manager are basically just doing what they have been told, so really this is a culture problem. Someone at Premier Inn Head Office needs to recapture the essence of what it means to stay in a hotel. Premier Inn is cheap... but it is clean, convenient, and at the very least you expect a good level of service because that costs nothing.

If a customer is early, say "I'm sorry your room isn't quite ready but lets do the checking in procedure and it shouldn't be long"... but don't say, "You're 8 minutes early, so I need to charge you £10 extra, and then you need to know your room is not ready anyway", because the customer will think you are being purposely awkward and rude.

My business usually spends thousands of pounds every year with Premier Inn, but this will be the last time I...

I believe your staff would benefit from better training to understand and meet guests’ needs. I had two bookings – one for myself and one for my son – but we were placed on different floors. When I raised this, the receptionist simply said, “I don’t know why you aren’t together,” and made no effort to resolve it. It felt as though they either didn’t know how to help or weren’t interested in trying.||||The same applied to the restaurant staff. We booked breakfast for 9am, and had four additional guests who hadn’t pre-booked. We were told we would have to sit separately, and when my guests decided to leave, the greeter showed no concern. Even for the five of us who had booked at 9am, when I suggested using three nearby tables of two, I was told, “it depends on what the computer says,” with no flexibility or common sense applied.||||In the bar, I waited an unreasonably long time for a drink in the early evening. There was nobody serving, only one staff member on a computer who didn’t acknowledge us. When another member of staff arrived, instead of serving after we had already waited 10 minutes, they said they had something else to do and walked away. Again, the focus seemed to be on back-office tasks rather than customer service.||||The overall service felt impersonal. Food was placed on the table without care, and staff didn’t come across as welcoming, despite us being a friendly group. By contrast, when we ate at a nearby pub and things went wrong, the staff made every effort to fix the issues, so we were understanding. At Premier Inn, however, the impression was that staff either weren’t trained well enough, or simply didn’t...

Pleasant quiet room and facilities after a tiring day. I appreciated the opening window. A bit draughty (on a windy day) when closed, but not excessively bothersome in a September night. Had a good night. ||||Parking facility is good and spacious. ||||Upgrading to opening, uPVC-framed replacements would cure that issue.||||Prior to my arrival, Laura on the phone was very helpful in allocating me a quiet, top-floor room with an opening window.||||Finding the concealed hotel in the dark when driving from Weston-Super-Mare was extremely challenging - I overshot it and sat-nav had to send me on a narrow country lane via Eastertown to get back to it. Even then, the hotel wasn't clearly signposted.||However, that challenge probably helps to keep the hotel exceptionally quiet for those guests who succeed in finding it !||||The Reception desk needs to position the buzzer more prominently for when a reception-team member is at another part of the hotel.||||One end of the pillow I used had...