Holiday Inn Express East Midlands Airport

The value is incredible. Includes breakkie. They are less than a mile away from the EMA airport terminal. Very straightforward to get to. Easy peezy check in . Took no more than half a minute , or thereabouts. We had to stay near the airport as we had a red-eye flight to the Canaries at 5.50am . Brilliant service - they make their breakfast available from 4am. Spacious rooms with all the mod-cons. Not a bad word to say about this establishment. ✅✔️☑️

Booked this stop-over with trip.com on Christmas day. Just awful from the start! Although I had paid for the booking online, on arrival, I was told that it was just a reservation and that I needed to confirm payment with my credit card again, which I did. I was charged again. I requested a refund the following morning. I was then told that I needed to pay another £10 for parking for the night - nearly 25% extra on the total cost of the room. There was no mention of this parking extra on the Trip.com website when I booked. The first two rooms that I was allocated had sofa beds made up so you couldn't sit at the desk or get to the window to shut the curtains. This could not be fixed as there were no room service staff. The third room had 2 light bulbs that didn't work and cobwebs on the ceiling - I was tired, I took the room. I was only offered food from the limited night menu - it was 6pm - there were no kitchen staff. Having to sort out the problems that I experienced put the two staff members under extreme pressure - I was not the only guest. I support the fact that staff had been given time off for Christmas, this is commendable IHG, but you can't do this at the expense of your customer and your brand. I strongly doubt that I will use either Holiday Inn or Trip.com again

Needing a pre flight bed for the night I chose HIE for its value for money and standard of room. I was not disappointed on this count. Personally I chose to eat my evening meal elsewhere due to the menu choices not being to my taste , but that's a personal choice. Breakfast was adequate, started at 4.00am and was included in the price. Parking is £10 for guests but you need a code from reception. Do not pay for this until you have checked in. Unfortunately HEI were not good at communicating this. I have taken this up separately but have mentioned it here to save you the hassle of making my mistake.

Smelly reception area. I was surprised that the reception area had a smell like a blocked drain. Maybe a temporary thing that will get sorted. Reception staff seemed to be less than enthusiastic and wanted us checked in and gone. The room was fine. Clean and fresh. Only gripe was the bathroom fan didn’t turn off at all all night even though the light was off. Breakfast was modest but clean and fresh. Waitress who cleaned the table needs a customer care course. Without a word or eye contact, she jumped between us mid conversation and cleared everything, even the clean cutlery and napkins we had ready to fetch more food. Very rude.