Holiday Inn and Express by Holiday Inn

Hi all, 

I would like to dedicate my first proper blog post to the Holiday Inn and more so to the Express by Holiday Inn.  As a carer value for money is a must for us.  This is a company who are compassionate, helpful, insightful and professional as well as being great value for money.  The main reasons we tend to go back time and time again!  The are widely available, have great choice of locations, through our experiences clean and friendly.  

A massive perk for us is there accessible rooms.  The tend to be spacious, the bathrooms are all wet-room style and have plenty of grab rails placed throughout.  They have emergency alarms in the bathroom and bedroom areas.  A handful of their hotels (and this is a massive asset to many non mobilising wheelchair users) have in room hoist tracking systems.  The tracking can at times be small but is most definately adequite.  The tracking does not carry through from the bedroom to bathroom but there is a small tracking unit in both rooms with a detachable hoist system.  There is a small seat in the shower area but we felt it wasn't appropriate for our service users so cannot really comment on it. 

Another huge plus point is the fact that a carer's room is more commonly than not included in the price of the disabled room although this should be requested at the time of booking.  They have a limited number of interconnecting rooms if required and these must also be requested at time of booking. 

The staff we have encountered have all been most helpful, to the point of removing furniture in rooms so we could hire our own profiling bed and mobile hoists for rooms without tracking systems. 

I will take this time to recommend one hotel over the others.  We were incredibly impressed by the Express by Holiday Inn in Cardiff Bay.  They were so friendly and accomodating.  Namely I would say a huge massive thank you to Kay Thomas who was the manager of the hotel at the time of our stay.  She could not do enough to help us.  You knew if there was any problem that she would be there with a big smile ready to help you deal with it.  This woman was a massive asset to the company and made our trip that much more special.  The car parking here was free for blue badge holders as was the carers room.  The disabled access room was massive, light, airy and had an interconnecting carer's room.  The two night stay for three adults in two rooms cost a grand total of £164!!! bargain!

hope this helps!

Catherine x