Holiday Inn Express Stockport by IHG — Hotel in Stockport

I stop in a lot of mid-range and budget hotels, around 25 a year and this is the very first time I’ve tried a Holiday Inn Express so didn’t know what to expect from this chain, but I have to say I’m extremally impressed by it.

Here is my very detailed review which hopefully will answer any questions you may have, I think I’ve pretty well covered everything in this.

I’m a trusted Google street view contributor so I have photographed the room, reception, and the exterior for Google Maps. You can wander through the room and look around the outside in full 360 degrees. I have taken 13 in the room, 8 in reception area and 12 outside the Hotel and nearby area so you can see its location relative to the Railway station. Hope they help you get an idea of what this hotel looks like. Go check them out once you have read my review.

All the staff were very welcoming and friendly. Check in process was quick and easy, there are two quick lifts to get to your floor. Access to the lift area and your room is by a NFC key card, this worked perfectly for my entire stay.

Location:

This hotel is located in the centre of Stockport, just off the main A6 road and also its right next to Stockport railway station which is very handy if you want to go to Manchester etc. There is an NCP car park less than 2 mins walk from the hotel, it has 1000 spaces so had no issues finding a space at 11:30am.

Currently this car park is 19 a day but before you check out the hotel they will validate your ticket and reduce the price to 8.50 a day which is a considerable saving. Once you have validated it at the hotel, got to the payment machine on the ground floor of the car park and pay, this will give you your ticket back but you don’t ned it as the exit barrier lifts automatically due to ANPR.

Its just a 12 minute walk from the hotel to the Merseyway shopping centre and other visitor attractions such as the Hat museum, The Plaza and Stockport Air Raid shelters.

There is a very convenient Sainsbury’s Local on the corner of the building adjacent to the hotel with an ATM.

When I was there, they put out lots of deck chairs, bean bags and lawn games on the triangle of grass outside the hotel which was rather a unique thing to see.

The hotel is pretty much directly under the flight path of Manchester airport but didn’t notice the planes when in the hotel due to good soundproofing.

The Room :

The room was modern, clean and fresh and there was plenty of space. It has a small two-seater sofa which was comfortable.

There was a small movable table which was handy for eating food at while at the Sofa. There was a small storage unit for opening your suitcase on which had a shelf in it and also a footstool stowed away under it.

The room includes an Iron and Ironing board and also a Hair dryer which had a 4 Metre long cable on it rather than being tethered to the wall.

There were a total of 9 free mains sockets around the room, Not only was there a double socket on both sides of the bed but also two integral USB charging sockets on both of them !

It had air conditioning which was a welcome relief in the hot weather. Both the aircon and the lights require that you insert your rooms key card in the activation slot just inside the room.

It had a large wall mounted TV, this is lined up to be viewed in bed.

The usual tea making facilities were on a shelf near the TV with 4 servings of milks, Tea and Coffee.

The curtains were excellent blackout curtains, and the double glazing did a god job of keeping the room quiet. The bed was very comfortable and was supplied with 4 pillows. The bedside lights operate by pulling them out from the wall, they turn off again when you push them into the wall unit. There were 6 Coat hangers and two bins, one in the bathroom.

The bathroom :

One of the best things in the room was the bathroom, most hotels have shower curtains which stick to your leg while your trying to shower or they dangle over the bath and you get loads of water on the floor. If they do have glass shower guards then they only go part way and again you end up with a wet floor.

This hotel is the first one ever to have an actual full shower cubical, not only that but it was very large so no banging your elbows in there. Also the shower head was not fixed to the wall, it had plenty of power and hot water.

The toilet, sink and overall finish was modern and clean with floor to ceiling tiles. The bathroom included a box of tissues, spare toilet roll, drinking glasses. Another unique feature was it had a blue light which wasn’t as harsh on the eyes if you need the toilet in the night.

There was a floor towel, hand towel and a bath towel as well as two spare ones.

Wi-Fi

Another plus point at Holiday Inn express is there was free fast wi-fi 52Mbps download/73Mbps upload with no sign in screens or anything.

Breakfast :

The hotel has a complimentary all you can eat breakfast included as part of your stay. The cooked breakfast was particularly good quality. The three days I stopped there, there was Bacon, Cumberland sausages, Grilled tomatoes, Scrambled egg, baked beans and potato Rosti’s. All of these items were cooked perfectly, Bacon had minimal fat. The Rosti’s were especially nice, never had them before. White or Brown bread for use in the toaster machine. They also offer the usual continental style offerings and cereals etc. the Breakfast area is to the left of the reception and had plenty of seating, ran by friendly chatty staff.

The breakfast serving times are rather confusing and very inconsistent but I’m sure they can sort this issue out very simply, these are the wide range of serving times I found :

07:00-10:30 every day (a sign in the lift)

06:30-09:30 every day (IHG App– This hotels breakfast info)

06:30-09:30 Mon-Fri, 07:00-10:30 Sat/Sun/Bank Hols (large sign in breakfast area)

06:30-09:00 Mon-Fri, 07:00-09:00 Sat/Sun (in-room TV info page)

As you can see that’s a right inconsistent mess.

To sum up, I was blown away by many aspects of this hotel and will certainly consider stopping at a Holiday Inn Express again in the future. I look forward to returning to this...

Me and my parents stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Stockport for a wedding on Saturday. We booked a Queen room supposed to be for 3!! There was no way this was for 3 people. The room wasn't ready when we arrived at 130 and we were dashing to a wedding and had to go very promptly. When we came back at 9pm, we got to the room where there was a double bed and a put me up bed near the window, talk about couldn't swing a cat, spent most of the time banging legs or hurting legs on the side of beds. My dad is on warfarin so he had to be very careful. ||||What also was concerning was the put me up bed was really quite dangerous it had a large metal sticking out pieces at the side of the bed, the room very hot. We kept banging our legs on the beds as they were that close together. The room was very hot. We tried to work the air con but didn't appear to be working properly. We were asked by a member of staff who buzzed us through if everything was ok? But he was very grumpy may as well have never asked us if everything ok. When we said the room was not a Queen room and couldn't swing a cat around, there was large metal sticking out on the side of the bed, there was also damp coming in. ||||His answer was "what do you mean"! Very off!! And I don't understand what you are going on about!! I said if you would care to come to the room you will find out!! He slammed the phone done and you could actually hear him loudly coming upstairs. He said all we can do with the bed is give you some extra towels and cover up the metal bits!! but all that kept happening the towel(s) fell off! We also said about the air con he was very dismissive never looked at it and said it would kick in, in 15 minutes the room was very hot and never did kick in. There was literally no room for 3 people in the room. Very uncomfortable nights sleep, pillows were hard and the bed too. There was noises of people running up and down during the night upstairs. The shower was not good either there was a high step which my dad fell out of the step, the door in the shower wouldn't close and water was everywhere. Pretty awful. Ended up going home and going ||||As for breakfast the bacon was hard and had foil on!, the nutella chocolate was all oily, bread was hard. The milk was left running as someone not switched off and literally was leaking all over desk and on the floor!! The milk and water so far back you couldnt reach it! You would have to be 6' tall to reach it! No mushrooms 🙁 tea was awful had a skim on it when you put water on pretty yuk 🙁None of the tables were being cleared away full of dirty plates and cups including ours 🙁 ||||We paid £189ish of which had points brought it down to £150 but then had to pay extra on bank statement as you charge an exchange rate!! ||||It was also my parents 55th Emerald Wedding Anniversary which we also mentioned to the Hotel nothing all very disappointing. Got 30,000 points back from IHG which means thick...

Hotel is in a great quiet location. NCP car park is situated a 4-5 minute stroll, from the hotel. The car park has super fast closing lift doors, always a plus if you’re alone; and when you want to move through the car park quickly. It’s bright, airy and lots of people use the car park. There’s a car park ticket card reader at the hotel reception where you scan your ticket, and you get a 50% reduction in price, you can come and go as you please. The car park ticket machine, is based on the ground floor of the NCP by an automatic glass door, that opens outwards onto the pedestrianised area, which is great. The area from the car park to the hotel is completely pedestrianised, and is full of people leaving the train station, going into the great Sainsbury’s (next door to the hotel) using the space for resting, and there’s also a busy bar restaurant in between Sainsbury’s and the hotel entrance. There’s about 15-20 parking spaces near the car park, allowing for a thirty minute stay. The massive negative is no car park under the hotel, or a drive up to the front door. Saw lots of people making several trips back and forth, it’s not fun, it’s not ideal. Holiday Inn should arrange a collection of bags from your car, to your room - I’d definitely pay extra for that! Hotel feels new, although it is already showing wear and tear. Breakfast wasn’t that great. Spooning jam onto your plate with children in tow, people impatiently waiting for you to finish, all whilst battling flies everywhere - not great. Staff were friendly. As the title of this posts says, I booked this hotel specifically because it was air conditioned, as there was a heatwave going on. Stayed for four nights, every night the air conditioning stopped and every night I was woken up, boiling hot, trying my best to get it to work!! I started calling down to reception at 4am, and they sorted it out for me. So my entire trip was without sleep. Obviously the windows do not open, and I had the sun in my room throughout the day. It was hot! I’ll give them a zero for that. Why turn off the air conditioning?? It’s a very important service that is advertised. Bar ok downstairs, limited drink menu. Didn’t eat in the hotel, too many great restaurants around. It was a pleasant stay. Did not like the seating outside the hotel doors, too many people loitering in hoodies. Not gangs, but enough to make you feel nervous. The hotel is quiet, great sound proofing, planes fly over head, and you can barely hear them. Great view of Stockport train station. The surrounding area is very well considered, newly paved, greenery, grass, deckchairs, children’s games and...