My husband, daughter and I stayed one night just before Easter. When we checked into our room, we noticed that we coud hear every word from the room next door, Management very quckly moved us to another room. We very much appreciated their prompt attention.

The room was smaller than we expected, but it had good amentiies and was c.lean and comfortable. If we had stayed longer, I would probably have booked a larger room.

We were in Brighton to see a gig and wanted somewhere within a reasonable budget but a decent standard and thought the Holiday Inn pretty much met those requirements. Booking was straightforward via the Holiday Inn Priority Club website and we got a reasonable rate (especially as alot of places in Brighton have a minimum 2 night stay on weekends and we only wanted the Saturday night). Check-in was fast and straighforward and we got a seaview room (225).

Room was a great size, clean and comfortable, a bit 70's retro but quite nice. No flatscreen but perfectly good phillips tv with remote that worked. Huge, firm but comfortable bed. Clean and goodsize bathroom. There was a very good size balcony with table and chairs that would be lovely if the weather was good (it was bucketing down for us) and a view of whats left of the old pier. There are no extra's like toiletries (just soap dispenser attached to wall) and the mini bar was empty (apparently they don't stock them on the 2nd floor?!) but that was probably a bonus, we popped up the road to M&S and stocked up on loads of goodies for probably half of what a mini-bar would have cost. It was really bucketing down in the evening so we enjoyed the space and comfort of the room before we left for the gig. And popped down to reception and got an access code for their wifi which other half was impressed with.

Couple of minor gripes:

Reception seemed seriously under-staffed during the evening (one rather stressed out lady).

Taxi's - we asked the lady on reception to book a taxi (in my name) which she did, and we took a seat in reception and waited... and waited. It turned out the taxi had been an gone with a group of lads out front (so driver not taking much notice of names then, I'm female). We could have sat there all night and been none the wiser. The receptionist didn't mention that the taxi just pulls up outside and its first come first served. She called the taxi firm again to send another car but by then we were really late so ended up going on to the main road in the rain and flagged one down that was passing. There must be reliable taxi firms in town with drivers that come to reception. If the Hotel du Vin & other hotels can do it, surely they can sort something out at the Holiday Inn?

Hotel Bar - pretty basic with 3 wines by the glass and a couple of bottled beers, sealed little pots of peanuts and a vending machine for other snacks. Could maybe improve selection?

Breakfast - bit of a backlog built up on the Sunday morning and about 4 couples including us were asked to go and wait in the bar and come back. The family in front of us were not impressed (think they had a number of complaints) and really demanded the lady organising the seating sort them out straight away. There seemed to be alot of staff running about but not doing anything so it was left to this lady to clear and pull some tables together, as well as keep the peace and keep track of us waiting to be seated.

Think she could have done with some help and more on the ball staff to assist. (We only waited about 5 minutes and she seated us by the window with great view of the sea and brought tea and coffee straight away so we're not complaining). Buffet style cooked option plus fruit, yogurt, pastries, toast & meats etc.

Check-out was fast and efficient again in the morning. All in all I was fairly satisfied although my other half would probably need some persuading to return and would probably opt to pay more for better services and facilities.

We decided to stay here over the Easter break and having read reviews for both the Holiday Inn and Ramada Jarvis , we settled for Holiday Inn.
Check in was a slow process and am not sure if they have a staff shortage as was only one person behind the counter and we saw no attempts by her to try and call for someone else to help out.
We were given a first floor standard room (we had booked a standard room) and when we entered the room , we got this funny whistling noise as already described by someone in an earlier review. I noticed that the main double glazing window was left open and so the noise was as a result of the wind trapped in the secondary glazing and main external window. The external window was so old and jammed and I nearly cut myself trying to close it - seems the windows have not been repaired for a while let alone replaced.
The room was clean and bathroom looked like it had not been renovated but was clean. We noticed the bathroom really steamed up after a shower and as such no extractor fans while there is a note to keep the bathroom door close to avoid the fire alarm to go off - so had to wait for the bathroom on 'un steam' before I could shave!!
The soaps dispensers in the bathroom were empty and not filled - luckily we brought our own soaps - I know the manager will say contact reception but we just were not in the mood to get disrupted - little did we know what we were in for....
After we settled into our room my better half went for a shower while I took a nap, after her shower the bathroom door handle came off completely basically locking her in the bathroom. She had to really bang the door to wake me up - this was not a good start especially when she was 8 moths pregnant!
we also noticed that the air-conditioning did not work properly. You had to insert you room key card to activate the temperature control and as it was warm I turned the room temperature to 16 degree and after 5 mins the whole unit turned off. Turned it back on again it turned off after 5 minutes. I tried raising the temperature control to 25 degrees and again after 5 minutes it would turn off - as it it was controlled centrally and not by room. In the end we had to open the windows.
We later complained at the reception when we popped down and again had to wait a while before someone could see us. Initially the lady behind the reception said she would get maintenance to sort the problems out in the room as she had a look of surprise when I explained about the aircon. No sooner had she said this and I turned round, she changed her mind and asked me if we would be happy to move rooms instead and I did say maybe we would as opposed to have workmen in our room I what was supposed to be a short break in Brighton!
The new room allocated to us was 5 doors away in the same floor and , the layout of this room was similar with suttle changes like it had just one chair while the other room had 2 chair sofas which were more comfortable. The lightening in the bathroom was very dim and some mould could be seen too. The aircon again was not working, it kept turning off every 5 mins irrespective of the temperature set and we resorted to opening the window as calling the reception and then having some person knock on our door was not what we had in mind for a peaceful stay.
We had dinner at main restaurant behind the main reception at the ground floor and dinner was buffet style and we were thoroughly disappointed that despite calling the restaurant earlier and being assured there was a vegetarian choice there was hardly potatoes and salad for us vegetarians. To make matters worse none of the food was labelled and my wife took a salad which had pork before she suspected and asked a waiter who confirmed - this was rather disappointing especially in a place where they charge £5 for a bottle of drinking water!
Breakfast was modest and selection was not amazing but what you would expect. That evening i.e on our second day, we had barely unpacked in our new room less than 24 hours ago previous day and approx 5:30 PM, we began to hear loud music coming from somewhere. Initially we turned the TV down but noise kept coming and became louder and we could feel the vibrations from the floor of the room.
Upon contacting the reception and asking to speak to guest relations , the lady apologised and told us the reason we were given the first floor was because my wife was pregnant and I argued what difference that made as we used the lift anyway irrespective of which floor we would have been - duh?
When we came down to the reception to make a formal complaint - again a long wait before someone could see to us and when complaining that this stay of ours was turning out to be some joke , we were Yes - yet again we offered to change rooms to a different floor and yes for the 3rd time in 2 days - we packed again! This was getting tiring and more like a camp as opposed to a break!
The new room we were given as an executive room - we were struggling to notice what was so executive about it and as clearly pointed out by an earlier review - it included bath robes (£30 if you wished to keep them) , 1 kitkat and a small orange drink!
I guess this is what the hotel felt was adequate to 'compensate' us for changing rooms 3 times and my wife being heavily pregnant! . Funny enough in the executive room the aircon worked fine and never kept turning off but the main external windown would not close and so we kept hearing the whistling sound throughout the night - so Mr manager, when reading this review please note that its not only seafront rooms but 3 of the rooms we used had wondows which could hardly shut - this surely is a security issue as well?
The car park as mentioned by many is so small with boxes for each car that would make it impossible to open the door with a car next t it - not sure why the hotel is not addressing this and re-drawing the allocated spaces as just not practical. all the large spaces in the car park are reserved for residents who stay above the hotel so there you go!

Booked a two night stay for my partners 30th birthday,we love brighton and normally stay at best western in hove as had never had a bad stay there and parking is free which is a big bonus...but as we came by train this time I took a chance and booked here and very glad I did.
Check-in was a breeze and a nice bonus was when we found out we was upgraded to a sea view room at no extra cost
The room had a nice king size bed was very clean and had a nice balcony overlooking the seafront
We found the staff friendly and polite from hello from the cleaners to polite service in the bar
Breakfast was fantastic nice range of food and it set you up for most of the day
overall decor was very good as had recently been refurbished
To us we felt very relaxed there and helped in making my partner's birthday down in Brighton even more enjoyable.
It's a great location for town center concert hall and pier . would we stay again ... in one word


YES

MARTIN AND VICKY