Skimanant

Another excellent stay at the Birmingham Metropole. Guest relations manager made a point of saying hello. Lounge seemed to have a good variety of food- very pleased cheese and biscuit selection available.

Continues in my opinion to be one of the best in the UK.

RAPC

Just another data point on the single rooms. My wife and I need to be in the area at the weekend and the Metropole is one of a few options in the area.

For the night I was looking at, a single room was half the price of a standard double. I gave the hotel in-house reservations team a quick call to see what their policy was with regards to spouse stays free. They confirmed it as not being guaranteed, but when they had availability they would happily upgrade and accomodate two guests at the single room price. They checked the night I was looking at and asked me to book it as normal and then let them know.

Booked the room and spoke to reservations yesterday and it was upgraded to 2 adults in an Executive Room without any fuss. All very good service, so ^ to them.

stifle

Good to hear. Enjoy your stay and the excellent executive lounge.

hugolover

Let's hope you get a suite, they have quite a few!

RAPC

It did look like they have quite a lot of suites, but no problem should we not get one as they have looked after us well enough already. Only there for a place to sleep for the night in between helping a relative move house over the weekend, so no loss if it is just the allocated Exec room. I will report back either way though.

Has the lounge improved a bit since my last stay? It was pretty poor compared with many Hilton lounges last time I stayed, but that may just have been an isolated experience. Back again as well in a month when we will have a bit more time to try the lounge it if we don't get chance this time around.

cjd

If you're at this hotel when there's large events/exhibitions at the NEC, the Exec lounge is worse than a zoo! It's full to capacity with people standing everywhere and they just seem to let anybody in the lounge without any checks at all. When it gets to 8:30pm, there's huge queues to get glasses topped up with alcoholic drinks before they clear everything away.

ab007

Booked a one night stay here for tonight knowing it would be fairly quiet on a Sunday (and reflected in rate).

Quite happy, booked a standard double, upgraded to an executive room. Had dinner out but had dessert in the lounge and it was really good, lounge was quiet but there was excellent spread of food.

Breakfast can be a bit crazy here in my experience but I've only ever eaten in the restaurant (not the lounge). So we'll see how tomorrow morning goes but just to back up what has been said above - great property if it's not too busy!

stifle

Lounge breakfast has broadly the same things as the restaurant, just a slightly smaller selection. No cooked to order stuff, of course.

fmkgb

Any specific info on the best way to use mass transit (not taxi) into town to sightsee?

wilp888

If I remember correctly, the train station is attached to the NEC. Just walk through the lobby of the NEC from the hotel. Very quick and efficient way of going into the center of Birmingham.

russ1h

Train service very good normally takes around 15 min and costs around £4 return per adult off peak

stifle

You can get it down to about £3 by agreeing to use only Virgin trains, which are every 20 minutes. To get to the station you should leave from the back entrance of the hotel (walk down the corridor between the concierge desk and reception and then follow signs for NEC). When you get out, go over the road and follow the pathway, turning left when you see the car park. You then take a right at the lake and head into the NEC, walk straight up and turn left when you see the signs for station/airport. Altogether it's perhaps 10 minutes from the hotel, depending on your walking speed. There is a courtesy shuttle as well, but I've never used it.

ab007

I used the courtesy shuttle last time I stayed here, it was fairly regular and takes no time at all to get to the station/ airport. As said above it's then a pretty quick and cheap train ride into Birmingham new street station in the centre.

Having not walked to the station from the hotel I can't comment on which is easiest/ quickest but shuttle was certainly convenient.

Paddeng

Take the courtesy shuttle to the airport and then jump on a train from there. Its a long walk thats described above in an area that is pretty isolated

jimthehorsegod

It isn't honestly really all that long a walk, assuming you're without baggage,and unless you're doing it at 3am as a single female, I'd say walk + train.