Premier Inn Inverness East

Dinner and breakfast at the adjacent Brewers Fayre were very good, and the stay was good value. Check-in was quick, efficient and helpful. We had a spacious, well-laid-out room in the annex beside the car park, though there were a few small cleanliness issues. There wasn’t much toilet paper in the dispenser, and only one bath towel for two people. We didn’t use the Wi-Fi, so I can’t comment on it. The hotel is on the outskirts, but the town centre is easy to reach. There’s plenty of free guest parking, just remember to register your vehicle at the reception terminal. I’d definitely come back. With a little more attention to detail, this would easily be worth five stars.

I was in a ground-floor annex room, and people smoking outside my window sent horrible fumes into the room, presumably through the bathroom extractor vent. The extractor wasn’t working. There was no bath and nowhere to put clothes or anything else. The hanging space was right beside the kettle and tea and coffee area, which seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I wouldn’t stay here again.

The location is great, but this was the worst Premier Inn I’ve stayed in. I was very disappointed by our two-night stay. The room looked as if it hadn’t been properly cleaned for weeks. Dust was everywhere: along the skirting boards, under the desk, on the electric switch, on the only chair, and even on the cards advertising the beds and meals. I could draw a finger across the chair’s woodwork. The floor hadn’t been vacuumed well either, and I found a sweet wrapper. The shower curtain was disgusting, the floor edges and pedal-bin lid were caked with dust, and the soap dispenser rim was rusty and horrible. The bedroom lamp was missing its switch. As in a previous review, the window was wide open when we arrived, even in February, and the room smelled after we closed it. At checkout there was a sign asking for feedback, but the container for the cards was empty.

The staff were friendly, the restaurant food was good, and the room was comfortable and warm. The location also made my trip easy to manage: it was convenient and simple to find, and getting onto the A9 north in the morning was so direct that I thought I must have made a mistake. But the bathroom had black mould throughout, and water running from the sink brought up a definite faecal smell. The shower area and room corners were mouldy too, and the room needed a deep clean before anyone else stayed in it. I overheard that cleaners were short-staffed, and it showed. Rooms were still being prepared after I’d checked in, and I wouldn’t call that cleaning.