I recently had occasion to stay at the Holiday Inn, Garden Court, Aylesbury.
For the benefit of your records, this took place on 11th and 12th March,2008.
I would like to point out that I have stayed in many hotels over the years and never had the need to voice my concerns in this manner until now. I would have to say that I am particularly unsatisfied with the standard of accommodation offered the Garden Court, Holiday Inn.
I travel on business and pleasure on a regular basis and use a variety of different hotels. I am quite a forgiving and tolerant individual and am quite prepared to take a realistic view of the occasional shortfall.
On this particular instance, I would have to say that things have gone beyond the occasional shortfall and the standard of accommodation experienced was far less than and well below the standard I would expect from The Holiday Inn.
In particular, on arrival, I was issued with room number 111, first impressions were that it was a reasonable room although the bath room fixtures did appear a little tired, this was not something that I would normally take issue with. As the evening progressed however and I prepared for evening meal things started to go wrong. Whilst using the shower, I became aware of a large number of what could only be described as small black coloured pieces of debris accumulating within the bath. These it transpired had come from the water system. Following this, whilst shaving at the sink, I experienced the same problem from the water there.
Given the amount of foreign objects in the water and having regard to possible health issues, I contacted the reception and asked for someone to come and see the problem. I have to say to be fair that the female receptionist arrived within minutes and having viewed the problem for her self, declared that there was no way she would be washing in that. A change of room was immediately offered and gladly accepted following which I was moved to room 205.
An immediate check of the water proved satisfactory and things seemed back on track. If that had been the only issue, I would not be writing this review, unfortunately there are more.
The following day I requested and was provided with an iron and ironing board. Yet again this was not a good experience, the cover on the board was badly stained and indeed had two tears in the material, the overall impression was not one of hygiene. More significantly was the state of the iron, it had some form of repair to the cable whereby insulating tape had been wrapped around the wires as they exited the main body of the iron, as if this was not bad enough, I could clearly see the live wire protruding from the edge of the insulating tape. I should point out that this wire still had insulation around it however this was the inner insulation which was already showing signs of wear and there is no way that this could be regarded as a safe piece of equipment.
This matter was brought to the attention of a member of the reception staff who stated she would remove it from the room.
In addition to the above, the fridge within my room (205) was inoperative and my experience at breakfast on the first morning found the service sub-standard and less than satisfactory.
In particular, on arrival within the dining room, which was not busy with only one other table in use, I was directed to a table which had clearly been used earlier and had not been reset. I was left to make up my place setting using a mixture of cutlery gathered from the other incomplete place settings at my table. Not good.
I have to say apart from the iron, any one of these I could have put up with but cumulatively this was a less than satisfactory experience.
I have photos of the iron if required.
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