We have stayed 3 times this year.
A fantastic hotel in a fantastic location central Stratford upon Avon.
We will not stay anywhere else

This hotel is decidedly average. Nice lobby, rooms not bad but long hideous corridors, a 1970s style bar lounge area, rather minimalist free toiletries. Rather odd room design - e.g. tea and coffee maker no where near a plug point.

£10 for breakfast, £5 for parking, £0.50p to call a taxi - yes the charges soon mount up.

Also the staff are very robotic and not always easy to communicate with.

I paid £85 for the privilege (Room Only).

Stayed here for one night with my wife and two sons, aged 14 and 11. As a Platinum Priority Club member, I had kindly requested an upgrade to an executive room, but a letter from the hotel manager in our rooms explained that none were available.
Check-in was efficient and the two interconnecting rooms that we took at £80 each without breakfast were comfortable, well-equipped and clean.
The hotel is very convenient for the town and the river. It's a large uninspiring building (typical of hotels in the Moat House range, which is how it started its life), with very long corridors that could do with brightening up. The public rooms are spacious and generally well presented, with plenty of comfortable seating areas and a pub with a pool table.
The leisure facilities were rather bland and dated, again uninspired. The lighting was poor in the small pool area and didn't encourage relaxation and a sense of well-being. Furthermore, rules and regulations abound with children not allowed access to the sauna and jacuzzi at all, and restricted from using any of the leisure facilities after 7pm.
The three course buffet carvery evening meal we took at £15 per head turned into the worst example of poor service that I've ever experienced in a hotel. We were declined the table that we wanted, despite it being empty for the rest of the evening, plates were cleared before people had finished eating and some of the food and drinks listed on the children's menu were declared unavailable. However, the standard of food was generally quite good and value for money.
Breakfast was also a service nightmare. We looked after ourselves, found our own cutlery and cleared our own table! Again, the food was good and at £15 for four people- should I be complaining?
This hotel needs a good kick up the backside. It seems to me that it is run with a skeleton staff, many of which struggle to communicate effectively with guests and do not provide a standard of service expected in a 4* hotel.
My complaints to the duty manager before we left were subject to a sincere apology and he asked reception to waive the charges for our evening meal.
the hotel was full to the brim the night we stayed, so it's either a case of the Holiday Inn packs them in and doesn't really care, or there are a lot of people out there willing to pay good money for poor quality, if its in the right location!
Shakespeare might well turn in his grave if he knew.

A higher priced place than we originally intended ($150 a night), but the B&Bs were booked up or pricey themselves. The Holiday Inn was able to accommodate my girlfriend and our daughter, something the B&Bs weren't as capable of doing. We stayed two nights. The hotel was in the perfect location, in the center of town, right on the Avon and a short walk across the city lawns to Shakespeare's monument/statue and the canal boats. Our room was alright though its view was a poor one of a roof below. A minor gripe: the staff didn't replace a light bulb as requested. We paid $20 extra each morning for the breakfast, but it was well worth it. A buffet with a wide variety of food and drink choices. We also took advantage of the small heated pool in the fitness center. The grounds were also very nice with benches on lawns leading down to the river. The staff was friendly as well. Normally, I prefer B&Bs, but we were happy with our stay here.