Premier Inn Barnsley Central M1 J37

The hotel would benefit from a full make over. They were short staffed and unable to cater for the group we were with for dinner as they only had one cheff. This also affected the breakfast service which was slow and not well organised. We were forced to eat elsewhere. I would most definitely have to think long and hard before booking this hotel again. The car parking situation is far from ideal either.

We had arranged for an early check in so arrived around 11:30am, there was no staff in Reception and the automated machines weren't allowing check in. We pressed the buzzer and waited to no success and then repeated the process, still no member of staff came to see us. After about 10 minutes a lady came from the bar area wearing all black and asked if we had been seen to, we advised we hadnt so she said to give her 2 minutes. This lady then went outside to 5 members of staff who were all having a cigarette break together, 1 lady then left this group and came in to see to us. We then got checked in and paid the extra £15 for early check in as advised. We left the hotel room approximately an hour later, however as we left the card for our room stopped working, showing an orange light as opposed to the green light to gain access. We came down to Reception, again nobody around, and a different lady dressed in black said she would take the card and when we came back later on just to ask for a new one. At around 6pm I returned to the hotel to swap my partners shoes over for her. I came to reception and advised my card had stopped working and that I needed a new one. I said I was room 205, the male member of staff simply gave me a new card without even asking for my name which I found very alarming as I could have been anyone. After he gave me the card I said by the way my name is Ashley Thew just incase you require this for security to which he said ok thanks and let me go on my way. From around midnight until 3am there was people running and shouting up and down the corridors above us which as you can imagine left us with very little sleep before our journey back on the Sunday. Our experience was topped off as we left the hotel on Sunday morning when we walked through reception passed 4 members of staff and not one of them even thanked us for our stay or even said goodbye. In my eyes common customer service which should be a given. We have stopped in a number of Premier Inn hotels across the country over the years but I hate to say it, this has been by far the worst.

We wanted a place to enjoy an evening meal after our wedding. We chose here as we had already booked the hotel to stay for the evening. The service was a little slow however they worked really well to serve us, it was handled superbly by the lady overseeing our evening.