Reading Central hotel

The lifts were broken which meant for both check in and check out we had to carry all our bags up 3 flights of stairs on the hottest days of the year. The room wasnt clean, there was pubes on the wall and stains on the carpet One of the towels was also covered in yellow stains. Car parking was expensive and not enkugh spaces.

Very disappointed by the service of this hotel. I used to work for PI and typically always chose to stay with them as it’s pretty budget friendly. This hotel is in a fantastic location as we like to go to London so staying here is convenient. We had to wait a while to be checked in, this is actually the 2nd time I stayed here and we had the same issue last time (we waited a good 20 minutes previously do to the restaurant being busy) the staff member was not very helpful we found. Asked for the name on the booking we told her both of our last names & she just stared at us for a minute because we wasn’t sure who it was booked under- we ended up pulling the email up and giving the confirmation number. In the morning we needed an iron so my partner went down to ask for one, the same lady was working a back to back shift & asked for a room number, my partner told her the name under the reservation & she asked for the booking reference which was on my phone, she told the lady & she stared blankly at my partner until she called me to confirm the room number. I fully appreciated data protection regs etc. but she checked us in the night before & we only wanted an iron. It took around 30 minutes for the iron to arrive which I understand breakfast was in service but we woke up & wanted to head straight out to Oxford street. Room was cleaned to an okay standard, whoever weekly cleans like the skirting board had thick layers of dust & the aircon did not work properly in our room. Temp would go as low as 17°C which when I worked for PI 19° was the lowest so not sure if ours was faulty. Didn’t complain about this though as the FOH team member did not come across approachable at all & we was only there for 1 more night... I was woken up at 5am but someone above thumping around. Although a lot of negatives mentioned the location & price of this hotel means we will probably book again. PI need to invest more in staff as I fully appreciate working back to back shifts & working all the time morale will probably be low. It’s a shame I have to write a poor review but still no survey has come through yet & I hope the next time I stay at this hotel more FOH will be deployed to offer a better experience to guests. Budget cuts on labour is massively impacting the quality of service at this hotel.

Wow!!! Nothing too much trouble

Overall pretty good and in line with what you would expect from other Premier Inns. Efficient digital check in. Comfortable room, bed and shower. Good meal and breakfast and staff working very hard and a credit to the business. Decent location about half a mile and 10 min walk from train station with other restaurants nearby. Some road noise but decent double glazing kept most of it out.

The staff are lovely and deserve a great deal of credit for working cheerfully and hard under difficult conditions. The complaint is not about them, but about Premier Inn policies of understaffing to save money. Only two staff members were on in the evening. Because of this, people were waiting too long to be served at the bar and with food because they were busy checking in large groups of people or cooking food and providing table service at the same time. Premier Inn advertises a good nights sleep (the bed wasn't very comfortable either). In conclusion, I used to choose them because you were a cut above Travelodge. Now they can't even do that. No wonder they have such a high staff turnover.