Durham North hotel

Difficult to find using satnav, but, on arrival, parking was easy and there was a pleasant welcome from the receptionist. Very good standard of room which was expected given the usual consistency of Premier Inns. The only downside was that the onsite restaurant was passing into different ownership a fortnight after our stay. So the Mealdeal was farcical. A printed sheet purported to be the thinned-down menu for that day. However, a number of dishes listed there were unavailable. The only pleasing aspect of dining was the service of the staff who did well in trying circumstances. Happily, the staff assured us that they would have jobs under the new regime.

Truly terrible experience. The room was 28 degrees when we arrived which made us feel very uncomfortable. I asked if there were any cooler rooms as we were leaving for the evening but I was told that there wasn't, instead we were given an extra fan. To make things worse, the extractor fan I the bathroom was broken and after a shower the steam had nowhere to go and made the rest of the room feel extremely humid. I expected that the room would have cooled significantly when we arrived back at 11:30 pm. Instead, the room was 29.5 degrees! This made sleeping very difficult and uncomfortable. Needless to say, we did not get a good nights sleep. On checking out, we were told by an individual that this particular wing of the hotel is an extension to the original building and always gets hot and is hotter than the rest of the hotel. They could not believe that we had got through the night with that heat! On check out I complained about the temperature issues but was told to contact the company to lodge a complaint. The staff member acknowledged that the rooms in that part of the hotel can get very hot. Premier Inn dismissed my complaint as the website does not advertise that the hotel has air conditioning. My question to them is that if this is a known problem, why has it not been fixed!? Extremely disappointed with the whole experience, including the complaints process. I would not expect a hotel room to be 29.5 degrees, it would have been cooler to sleep outside! Shocking!

Lovely staff on reception- always willing to help and will do anything for their customers. Although the hotel is an older one, the cleaning team have the place immaculate. Looking forward to our next visit when we can have a better breakfast inside the hotel instead of Brewers. Nice to be close to the shops behind which is a good perk of the hotel.

A comfortable and clean room. The mattresses was great as was the bedding. It was great that there was a portable fan in the room as the weather was overly warm. The air flow was minimal so the fan was required to be on all night. Our only disappointment was the restaurant. We found it to be very unclean and needing some improvements to make it more inviting. We couldn't wait to leave the restaurant. Tired and uninviting. Hopefully, the new owners will make the necessary improvements when they take it over. The current establishment is closing on the 31 July. We opted for the meal deal but were left disappointment by the options available for the meal deal. Sadly, the menu on offer in the room and online did not reflect what was actually on offer in the restaurant. Out of 11 starters on the main menu, only 5 options were available on the meal deal menu. More or less for the mains. I'd suggest this is addressed for all customers having the meal deal option. We were disappointmented to be presented with a shortened menu on are arrival. Considering we had made our choice whilst still in our room, how disappointing not to find our choice was not on this meal deal menu. Despite the meal deal offer, we won't be taking this option again. Very misleading for what options you have. Staff in the restaurant did not advise/guide as to what you had to pay extra for. Ended up being hit with an additional bill for food. If its not in the meal deal then you should say so. The quality of food , more so the evening meal was not as expected. However, the breakfast menu was just fine. Overall, great accommodation only to be disappointment by the restaurant experience.

We've used this hotel 4 times over the last 3 years, whilst visiting our daughter at university or helping her move in and out of accommodation! The staff are always friendly and we have enjoyed the facilities, ease of parking and the fact it is so close to Durham centre. The rooms are clean, comfortable and have everything that you need. This year however, we experienced for the first time the bedroom during a warm summer and the room became very hot and there is no way to ventilate it as the single window barely opens. There is no air conditioning. So we started at 25 degrees which became almost 30 degrees after 4 nights. The staff were very understanding and gave us an extra desk fan, but it didn't really help in all honesty as there is no ventilation in the room. I even got up in the night and splashed myself with water to try and cool myself down. We do recommend this Premier Inn, so long as the weather isn't too warm - air conditioning or at the very least, enabling guests to ventilate the bedroom better must become a priority for the managers...