Mitre Hotel Manchester City Centre

The family room on the top floor was clean, though it didn’t have many electric sockets, which is understandable in a listed building. The stairs are steep, as another review mentioned, and gave us a laugh when we came back after our night out. All the staff were friendly and accommodating. Special thanks to Liam for helping us surprise the birthday girl.

It’s a cute, historic building with plenty of character and wonky bits, and it’s convenient too. Watch your luggage on the stairs. The reception and hotel staff were patient and kind, the rooms are great, the views are amazing, and it’s good value in a great location. I’d stay again, since it was an amazing stay overall. But the bar staff were slow and the cocktails were disgusting. The bar toilet was gross and the hotel bathroom a little dirty. There was a lot of staining on the pillows under the cases. The TV is small, there’s only one chair for a room of three, and the kettle was so high on a shelf that making tea or coffee took care. On Sundays, church bells ring for a while in the morning and evening.

The major problem was the machines connected to the toilets. I was in bed at 11pm, and perhaps someone in a nearby room had left a tap running, because the machine kept going off every 30 seconds until 12:45am. I was watching a film, so it didn’t bother me much, and it stopped when I wanted to sleep. At 4am the machine in the room directly next door woke me with a start. At first I thought they were just using the toilet, but it kept happening. They were getting dressed and leaving. They were clearly trying to be quiet, but using water set the machine off and moving around made the floorboards sound as if they were in my room. That went on for 30 minutes. I was so awake I couldn’t sleep again until 7am. I usually sleep well, but couldn’t deal with it. There’s no reason for the machines to be this bad, and plumbing them into the sink and shower seems needless. It’s crazy. The noisy floorboards are understandable in an old building, and the tiny bathroom, where I could hardly fit on the toilet, was also something I could overlook for the price and location. From the booking.com photos, I expected an old building with modern facilities; the room was otherwise okay.

The breakfast was good, and the location is a real plus. But the rooms were in a catastrophic state. There were stains on the bed linen, the toilets weren’t clean, and in a place for seven people, having a bathtub with no showerhead is unacceptable. It just doesn’t make sense.