Feb 13, 2022, 6:57 am
Last edit by: BotB
This hotel has a monthly 'Hilton Honors Appreciation' Event, 2nd Wednesday evening of each month, between 7 and 8 PM in the bar (small side room area to the left as one enters the bar area). All HH members invited, not just gold/diamonds...Decent alcohol choices to self pour (champagne, red/white wine, a few (bottled) beer choices), soft drinks and small nibbles.
Only a few seats put out so arrive early if that is needed/important.
Hotel staff mingle to better get to know the HH guests but it was pleasant and staff are quite nice here. From memory about 5 staff and roughly 10 hotel guests so decent chance to talk to the staff and for them to hear your feedback!
Event was held in Nov. 21, and most recently 9th Feb.
Please do update the wiki if you have other useful info to share regarding the hotel. Thank you!
Only a few seats put out so arrive early if that is needed/important.
Hotel staff mingle to better get to know the HH guests but it was pleasant and staff are quite nice here. From memory about 5 staff and roughly 10 hotel guests so decent chance to talk to the staff and for them to hear your feedback!
Event was held in Nov. 21, and most recently 9th Feb.
Please do update the wiki if you have other useful info to share regarding the hotel. Thank you!
Hilton East Midlands Airport {GBR}
Jul 27, 2016, 2:54 pm
#31
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Bristol, UK
Programs: HH D, Rad VIP, Marriott G
Posts: 5,437
I asked during check-in about parking, was told it was free and asked for my ticket which they simply binned. The next morning the gate was simply open on the exit side but maybe this was an exception.
Jul 27, 2016, 3:12 pm
#32
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Cheshire
Programs: HH Diamond, IHG Diamond Am Elite, Best Western Gold, Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Radisson Rewards Gold
Posts: 1,727
I was charged £5 at weekend, I think.
Collect ticket on entry, ticket validated on exit and inserted in barrier on exit.
Not offered any free parking as a diamond, think I may have several years ago.
Got me thinking about airport parking, not sure how much they charge for long stay, but presumably if you had a stay booked at either end of a holiday you could probably get away with £5 by pretending it was just parked for the latter stay and "losing your ticket".....
Collect ticket on entry, ticket validated on exit and inserted in barrier on exit.
Not offered any free parking as a diamond, think I may have several years ago.
Got me thinking about airport parking, not sure how much they charge for long stay, but presumably if you had a stay booked at either end of a holiday you could probably get away with £5 by pretending it was just parked for the latter stay and "losing your ticket".....
Jul 27, 2016, 4:42 pm
#33
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NW London and NW Sydney
Programs: BA Diamond, Hilton Bronze, A3 Diamond, IHG *G
Posts: 6,443
Not if they employ parking scammers to "manage" their carpark... well I'm driving to Scotland anyway so and next cheapest Hilton along a motorway is £10 more, so a fiver is fine and free is even better
Jul 28, 2016, 4:16 am
#34
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Yorkshire & Bangsaen
Programs: HH Diamond, EY Gold, AY Silver, MR Plat
Posts: 530
For me its completely hit and miss if they charge the fiver or not. I dont think status has anything to do with it, as my first stay was a HOTELS.COM booking which gave me no status but I was given a ticket for the barrier free of charge.
The website does say £5. I guess it depends on the staff at the time.
The website does say £5. I guess it depends on the staff at the time.
Aug 18, 2016, 4:11 pm
#35
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NW London and NW Sydney
Programs: BA Diamond, Hilton Bronze, A3 Diamond, IHG *G
Posts: 6,443
Right so the night staff at check in binned the entry ticket and said the charge would be added in the morning to my bill. But at check out I was given a new ticket to use to exit the barrier and no mention of any charges were made (prepaid rate anyway) so my conclusion is that sometimes the night staff are on duty in the day and they charge you... which accounts for the occasional but rare reports of having to pay...
Jan 24, 2017, 11:41 am
#36
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: UK
Programs: HHonors Lifetime Diamond, Priority Club Plat, Accor Gold, Flying Blue, Exec Club.
Posts: 963
1 night stay. Later arrival. Very friendly welcome from reception staff, and pre-upgraded to queen deluxe room on 4th floor. The previous deluxe category are now double deluxe, and the previous deluxe plus category are queen and king deluxe.
The suites have been recently refurbished (there are 2). If you are in a double deluxe at the weekend the rooms to the left of the lift on 3 are quite nice, smaller windows but bigger rooms. My personal favourites are the 4th floor roof rooms though (queen and king deluxe).
Check in quick, in room very quickly. Room had amenity of gowns and 2 large bottles of water- in effect the same as if you had booked the room, which seems fair and I was pleased with.
Very quiet, great sleep. Asked for extra milk which was delivered in minutes. Full breakfast included, good but not as good as it sometimes is- plum tomatoes have gone and I love plum tomatoes!!
Check out quick, parking waived. A neat little stay.
The suites have been recently refurbished (there are 2). If you are in a double deluxe at the weekend the rooms to the left of the lift on 3 are quite nice, smaller windows but bigger rooms. My personal favourites are the 4th floor roof rooms though (queen and king deluxe).
Check in quick, in room very quickly. Room had amenity of gowns and 2 large bottles of water- in effect the same as if you had booked the room, which seems fair and I was pleased with.
Very quiet, great sleep. Asked for extra milk which was delivered in minutes. Full breakfast included, good but not as good as it sometimes is- plum tomatoes have gone and I love plum tomatoes!!
Check out quick, parking waived. A neat little stay.
May 4, 2018, 12:16 pm
#37
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 33
I stayed here for the first time last weekend for two nights with my partner.
The hotel is very well located for Donington Park race circuit (15 mins), East Midlands Airport (10 mins) and I presume Alton Towers which is brown sign posted in the area but I can't vouch for that. It is sandwiched on a patch of land between the M1 and A50 so there is nothing in walking distance in terms of local amenities. The hotel was easy to find by car, it is well sign posted and has a fairly large car park. Be aware that there are currently extensive road works in the area including weekend closures of the M1, check the Hilton site and the highways agency for info.
No waiting at check in which was quick and easy and very pleasant, we received a friendly welcome and recognition of HHonours status and all of the info that we would require as first time guests.
We booked king deluxe which was on the 4th floor. Nice spacious room, modern, good quality and clean. The ceiling has a sloping effect like a loft room with two velux style skylight windows. I'm only 5ft 7 but anyone north of 6ft might find one edge of the room a little unusable. There is no fridge in the room and you can't see the TV from the sofa but other than that very good. HH Wifi averaged about 7mbps which was plenty to run an amazon fire stick through the Samsung TV. We didn't see or hear any other guests on the 4th floor or in the lifts during our entire stay, the road noise is not particularly intrusive despite proximity to the M1 so we had a nice peaceful stay and a decent sleep.
My partner used the Living Well pool facilities and enjoyed it, although found it a little difficult to swim lengths due to there being no separate section for children to play.
Breakfast in the Pavilion Restaurant is the usual Hilton affair, very good.
We ate at the Whisk and Ladle Bar both evenings. They are currently offering 500 HH points for a £25 spend if you fill in a card at the end of your meal. The first evening was very quiet and service was a little on the slow side but very pleasant and the and the food was good. We were quite happy and with no obvious local alternatives we chose to return the following evening. Unfortunately the service on the second night was extremely slow. We were warned about 10 minutes after ordering that the food would take another 20 minutes which we said was fine. After about half an hour passed a large group arrived which seemed like a planned booking but totally overwhelmed the (three?) staff on duty who were trying to serve an already packed restaurant. In total it took us nearly three hours to eat two courses. I felt a great deal of sympathy for the waiting staff who were literally running from table to table to apologise, it really wasn't their fault but this was a poor customer experience. To their credit the same waiting staff were back at breakfast with their smiles intact.
After dinner I went to the front desk to test their "Make it Right" promise. They apologised and waived the charge for the meal which was worth about £45. When checking out I received a second apology and was offered additional compensation of 3,000 HH points, waived 2 nights parking (£10) and late check out (which I declined as we needed to leave) as well as an upgrade if booking directly with the hotel for my next stay. So I felt that the service recovery was decent.
I would not hesitate to visit again, in fact I will do so, I just hope that I caught them on a bad night in the restaurant.
4/5
The hotel is very well located for Donington Park race circuit (15 mins), East Midlands Airport (10 mins) and I presume Alton Towers which is brown sign posted in the area but I can't vouch for that. It is sandwiched on a patch of land between the M1 and A50 so there is nothing in walking distance in terms of local amenities. The hotel was easy to find by car, it is well sign posted and has a fairly large car park. Be aware that there are currently extensive road works in the area including weekend closures of the M1, check the Hilton site and the highways agency for info.
No waiting at check in which was quick and easy and very pleasant, we received a friendly welcome and recognition of HHonours status and all of the info that we would require as first time guests.
We booked king deluxe which was on the 4th floor. Nice spacious room, modern, good quality and clean. The ceiling has a sloping effect like a loft room with two velux style skylight windows. I'm only 5ft 7 but anyone north of 6ft might find one edge of the room a little unusable. There is no fridge in the room and you can't see the TV from the sofa but other than that very good. HH Wifi averaged about 7mbps which was plenty to run an amazon fire stick through the Samsung TV. We didn't see or hear any other guests on the 4th floor or in the lifts during our entire stay, the road noise is not particularly intrusive despite proximity to the M1 so we had a nice peaceful stay and a decent sleep.
My partner used the Living Well pool facilities and enjoyed it, although found it a little difficult to swim lengths due to there being no separate section for children to play.
Breakfast in the Pavilion Restaurant is the usual Hilton affair, very good.
We ate at the Whisk and Ladle Bar both evenings. They are currently offering 500 HH points for a £25 spend if you fill in a card at the end of your meal. The first evening was very quiet and service was a little on the slow side but very pleasant and the and the food was good. We were quite happy and with no obvious local alternatives we chose to return the following evening. Unfortunately the service on the second night was extremely slow. We were warned about 10 minutes after ordering that the food would take another 20 minutes which we said was fine. After about half an hour passed a large group arrived which seemed like a planned booking but totally overwhelmed the (three?) staff on duty who were trying to serve an already packed restaurant. In total it took us nearly three hours to eat two courses. I felt a great deal of sympathy for the waiting staff who were literally running from table to table to apologise, it really wasn't their fault but this was a poor customer experience. To their credit the same waiting staff were back at breakfast with their smiles intact.
After dinner I went to the front desk to test their "Make it Right" promise. They apologised and waived the charge for the meal which was worth about £45. When checking out I received a second apology and was offered additional compensation of 3,000 HH points, waived 2 nights parking (£10) and late check out (which I declined as we needed to leave) as well as an upgrade if booking directly with the hotel for my next stay. So I felt that the service recovery was decent.
I would not hesitate to visit again, in fact I will do so, I just hope that I caught them on a bad night in the restaurant.
4/5
Last edited by TheVengefulTraveller; May 4, 2018 at 12:21 pm
Feb 19, 2020, 2:48 am
#39
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: norwich, uk
Programs: hhonors diamond
Posts: 5,474
Ok, well obviously not.......I’m here tomorrow night, probably won’t have time to do a live reporting as I will be arriving very late and away quite early ( on tour ) however I will take notes and write a review when I get to Hilton York ( for the next gig ) ......will report back!
Feb 19, 2020, 2:37 pm
#40
Join Date: May 2006
Programs: BA GGL CCR
Posts: 87
It’s fine - the rooms are pretty tired ( try and get one on the 4th Floor if you can - they are a better product than the rest ), reception staff are very good and go some way to making up for the fact that the hard product is pretty old. The restaurant / bar has recently been remodelled - food ok ish - you wouldn’t come from outside to eat here but if you are in house it’s fine and reasonably good value. Staff here can be a bit hit and miss - some are really good and proactive some less so - it depends who is on duty!
one problem with the restaurant is there is a large tv at one end - if you have a group in, a football match on - it can get a bit rowdy.
one problem with the restaurant is there is a large tv at one end - if you have a group in, a football match on - it can get a bit rowdy.
Feb 20, 2020, 5:12 am
#41
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: norwich, uk
Programs: hhonors diamond
Posts: 5,474
It’s fine - the rooms are pretty tired ( try and get one on the 4th Floor if you can - they are a better product than the rest ), reception staff are very good and go some way to making up for the fact that the hard product is pretty old. The restaurant / bar has recently been remodelled - food ok ish - you wouldn’t come from outside to eat here but if you are in house it’s fine and reasonably good value. Staff here can be a bit hit and miss - some are really good and proactive some less so - it depends who is on duty!
one problem with the restaurant is there is a large tv at one end - if you have a group in, a football match on - it can get a bit rowdy.
one problem with the restaurant is there is a large tv at one end - if you have a group in, a football match on - it can get a bit rowdy.
Feb 20, 2020, 4:29 pm
#42
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: norwich, uk
Programs: hhonors diamond
Posts: 5,474
Arrived just now ( 11-15pm ), swift check in and off to my king deluxe room on top (. 4th floor ), no upgrade but I’m told these are the best rooms in the hotel and bigger than the suites.
ROOM - it’s huge!, ceiling slopes somewhat and two roof windows, clean and tidy , a tad old but certainly pleasant.
It’s also very quiet up here, I can faintly hear the M1 in the distance....bed is uk super king size and comfy.
BATHROOM- it’s a fair size, shower over bath , plenty of towels and two robes.
Now gonna bath and retire, long drive , great gig and tired.......in the morning will visit spa briefly before breakfast.....will report back!
ROOM - it’s huge!, ceiling slopes somewhat and two roof windows, clean and tidy , a tad old but certainly pleasant.
It’s also very quiet up here, I can faintly hear the M1 in the distance....bed is uk super king size and comfy.
BATHROOM- it’s a fair size, shower over bath , plenty of towels and two robes.
Now gonna bath and retire, long drive , great gig and tired.......in the morning will visit spa briefly before breakfast.....will report back!
Feb 21, 2020, 9:40 am
#44
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: norwich, uk
Programs: hhonors diamond
Posts: 5,474
Well here at this hotel they have a very hot one!.....so rare and incredibly novel.
Gym here is in two parts , cardio one side and resistance the other side of pool.....didn’t get time to indulge this stay.
BREAKFAST - very nice in a pleasant breakfast room, food was the typical Hilton affair, I did have an omelette and this was very nice.....good cappuccino too ( no extra shot required ).
CHECK OUT - done swiftly at 10am , parking is £5 give ref to FD.
CONCLUSION- very good stay, great room and no issues at all, will definitely recommend and return.
ROOM NO - 408
NEXT PLANNED STAY - Hilton York ( I’m here now )
Dec 28, 2020, 5:30 am
#45
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Bristol, UK
Programs: HH D, Rad VIP, Marriott G
Posts: 5,437
Staying here on the 4th Jan. (hoping no lockdowns/tier 4 increases will happen between now and then!) for work reasons...
Not seen any UK stays reported in tier 3 areas yet (maybe I missed them) so curious to see how a few things are different to 'normal'...
Any amenities for diamonds (hoping that if I do OLCI and just go to the room any water or amenity will be in the room, however, tempted to check in at the desk to see if / how this is done, if at all, I have memories of this being where the reception staff handed over a bag with said water and amenities but my last stay here was 2016 so maybe I am wrong.
Breakfast: the only info I see is a 'reduced service' and that the restaurant is closed which is understandable...but not sure if I'll get something delivered to the room (and one needs to order the night before or if I have to go down and order and then get it served on a tray that I then take back to the room...or some other system.
Evening Meal: wondering if they serve any meals, and if so, is that delivered to the room without tray charge or how is that handled.
Will certainly post how the above are handled once I know but if anyone has stayed at a Hilton in tier 3 lately would love to hear your experience and how these points are handled.
Cheers, stay safe everyone.
Not seen any UK stays reported in tier 3 areas yet (maybe I missed them) so curious to see how a few things are different to 'normal'...
Any amenities for diamonds (hoping that if I do OLCI and just go to the room any water or amenity will be in the room, however, tempted to check in at the desk to see if / how this is done, if at all, I have memories of this being where the reception staff handed over a bag with said water and amenities but my last stay here was 2016 so maybe I am wrong.
Breakfast: the only info I see is a 'reduced service' and that the restaurant is closed which is understandable...but not sure if I'll get something delivered to the room (and one needs to order the night before or if I have to go down and order and then get it served on a tray that I then take back to the room...or some other system.
Evening Meal: wondering if they serve any meals, and if so, is that delivered to the room without tray charge or how is that handled.
Will certainly post how the above are handled once I know but if anyone has stayed at a Hilton in tier 3 lately would love to hear your experience and how these points are handled.
Cheers, stay safe everyone.