This isn’t a sponsored post.
BrumHour was invited to stay for the night by Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre and did not pay for any food or drink.

By Dave Massey twitter.com/BrumHour

Experience: Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre
featuring The Lobby on Hill Street

You may wonder why a Holiday Inn falls within BrumHour’s network, a global brand with Hotels throughout the world. What you may not know is that Hotel brands may be owned by smaller businesses on a local level. As such Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre networks with BrumHour using two of its other names. The Lobby on Hill Street and Birmingham Conference and Events Centre (BCEC) both of whom have enjoyed extensive refurbs in recent years.

Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre is listed as being on Smallbrook Queensway but in actual fact, its main entrance is via the Lobby on Hill Street. I’m booked in for a night with Dinner and Breakfast included.

Sunday 3.30pm

Checking in means filling in a paper form and then heading up to my room with minimum fuss. I’ve been given a Junior Suite on Floor R, this is part of the main block and from what I recall used to be a bar area (about three or four years ago. The roof area outside my window was the very spot where Clint Eastwood posed for BrumPic’s Twitter and Instagram on Throwback Thursday photos in 1967. (A proper future visionary!)

My room for the night is pretty large and the sort that someone requiring an accessible room would find easy to use. There’s plenty of floor space.

On arrival I discover a large Chocolate Covered Mousse Jaffa Cake treat with red berries and WELCOME written in chocolate icing.

The rest of the room/junior suite has a large double bed with a massive duvet cover, four pillows of different “firmness”, there is a modern wide two-seater L-shape corner sofa, the ceiling above the sofa is home to three hanging lights in different positions. The room also offers a hairdryer, large tv, writing lamp, kettle with tea, plus a coffee machine, an iron with ironing board, two dressing gowns, a safe and a mini-fridge.

The room is comfy and fairly masculine, the sort of space that someone coming to a conference in Birmingham would expect to find. There’s even a cushioned shelf to put a suitcase on.

Sunday 6.30pm

Having prepared my tweets for BrumHour I head downstairs to The Lobby on Hill Street in the hotel reception. This is a space I’m pretty used to. I co-host Birmingham Social Media Cafe here twice a year.

I sit down at a booth, the lights have already been dimmed, my server Sofia takes my order, there’s sandwiches and salads, grills and burgers and in the classics including Tandoori Chicken, Fish N Chips, Lentil and Chickpea Dhal, Bangers and Mash, Pan Fried Seabass, Lamb Noisette (?!?) and my choice Thai Green Chicken Curry.

When the Thai Green Chicken Curry appears it has a LOT of veg, along with the Rice and Chicken in a Thai Green Sauce. This confused Instagram… But it was lovely.

I’m after the Lemon Secret for pudding but it was sadly unavailable, so I “settle” for Oreo Cheesecake, which was a mini cheesecake with a scoop of ice cream! I feel like I inhaled it!

I head back to my room for #BrumHour. Very nice wifi in the room!

The spacious bathroom has a double-size walk in-rain shower with a second regular shower head. The controls are at a low height and very easy to use. There’s a large mirror and a flexible shaving mirror, to the right of the sink is a collection of bathroom items shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, body cream, shower cap, “vanity set” and a “shoe mitt”.

Sleep wise, I’d brought my earplugs, this was central Birmingham after all, but didn’t need them. The windows, however, were excellent and cut out nearly all of the noise of the street below. So much so that I slept through until 9am! The air conditioning in the room produced a satisfying murmur.

Monday 9.30am.

Breakfast is actually served from 6am-10am on weekdays so I feel a bit cheeky arriving at 9.30am especially as I’m recognised by the day staff team. I take photos of the vast breakfast buffet and they make me up a Sausage Bap!! It tastes dreamy!

And them I’m done. I drop my room card in the express checkout box and I’m off to my first meeting for 10.30am.

Location is great, less than 30 seconds walk from Birmingham New Street Station. Most people coming here will use it as a base for going around the city. Rooms are very good and my room would cost £50 more on average than a regular room. Food was pretty nice and my sleep quality was excellent considering it was a new space for me to sleep in.

I’d book here and I’d probably do it quite ahead of time to get the best price.

Find out more about Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre here: ihg.com/holidayinn/hotels/gb/en/birmingham/bhxwm/hoteldetail.

This isn’t a sponsored post.