Holiday Inn Express Hemel Hempstead

I was at The Holiday Inn with work colleagues for a training seminar. The rooms we used were comfortable, the food and drinks supplied were very good, and everyone on staff we encountered was friendly and polite. We all had a very enjoyable day.

The shower pressure was so weak it was one of the worst hotel showers I've had, even though the temperature was fine. The bedroom was as small as it could be, and the sofa bed was poor quality. There was no TV remote in the room. There were USB-A ports by the bed, which is handy, but my cables are USB-C, so they weren't useful to me. There were no plugs by the bed either. On the plus side, it was good value and in an excellent location. I arrived late in the evening and parked without trouble. Breakfast was decent and we found a clean table easily. I drive an EV, and Sainsbury's has excellent ultra rapid chargers a five-minute walk from the hotel.

The location was lovely and quiet, which would have been perfect, but the room was tiny and badly maintained. There was mould and damp, flaking walls, and our children couldn't sleep well because the bed was broken. Service was abysmal. At check-in the woman didn't even look at us, just asked for the name and number plate. She didn't explain how to find our room or tell us breakfast time, which I found extremely rude. We only learned breakfast started at 7am from another guest. When we went down, no staff were around, so we sat and ate. The breakfast was terrible. The bacon was stone cold and blatantly microwaved, hash browns tasted sweaty, the scrambled egg was stone cold, the beans had thick skin on top, the bread was stale, and the sausages tasted cheap and spicy. They offer gluten-free bread, which is fantastic, but there was nowhere to toast it separately from the regular bread, a MASSIVE NO NO for anyone gluten-free. With no staff around to ask where it could be cooked, we had to leave it. The coffee was the only upside. The "pure" orange juice was watered down. Just a terrible experience.

Helen at reception made a great first impression. She was so welcoming and friendly, clearly good at her job, and likes a giggle. She's a credit to the place. We came up from London for two nights to visit our daughter and her boyfriend, who recently bought a Narrowboat and were moored near the Paper Mill pub. We're not used to being this far up north. This little Holiday Inn was ideal, in a lovely location just across from Apsley station, with easy travel and some nice pubs nearby. The Red Lion was the best. The room was fine as a base for our stay, and breakfast was included with plenty of choice.