Premier Inn South Mimms/potters

Fair room in general, bed fairly comfy but bed base moved around a lot whilst I was on it. Paintwork peeling, no WiFi or mobile signal to dream of in room, no food available at 11am when I checked out. Power shower was anything but powerful.

The lady on reception seemed to be quite annoyed that I wanted to pay in cash for my stay. My steak that I had with my meal was cooked perfectly however another member of my party had the mozzarella starter which is meant to come as a portion of five, but they only received four, which is pretty tight considering the price. The room was clean, the bed was comfy, and I slept well in the room which was in the 200's.

This is a great place to stay if you like escape rooms because everything about it seems like a problem solving exercise. The first puzzle was finding it. It was midnight, pitch black and we couldn 't work out where on earth we were supposed to be going. We drove between junction 24 and 23 twice and went around the South Mimms roundabout at least 4 times before spotting the tiny signpost that just said 'hotel ' rather than Premier Inn. I couldn 't work out whether that was because they wanted me to feel better about my stay (by making it feel like the Savoy was just around the corner), or worse (by not naming the hotel chain in case I got embarrassed). The next puzzle was working out where I was supposed to leave the car. There seemed to be only about 11 spaces outside the hotel and then around a dodgy looking corner, a bigger car park with SHQ signs everywhere. There was absolutely no suggestion that this was in any way linked to the hotel that must not be named. It seemed like there was no other option so we just went for it and hoped for the best. We then hauled all our luggage through the dingy car park and around the full perimeter of the building to find the Reception. On entering, we found puzzle number 3... paying for parking. The machine was in the foyer and just said 'pay on arrival '. Pay for what? The room? Breakfast? When we tapped the screen, we discovered that parking is £10 a night outrageous when the location is at a service station on the M25 and you can ONLY get there by car. It seemed like a petty way of squeezing as much out of guests as possible. The game continued though when we were asked when we were leaving. We were offered not a date, but the very ambiguous 'tomorrow '. It was 4 mins past midnight. Did it mean tomorrow later today, tomorrow from the date of booking... we went for the former and the date of departure appeared as Monday rather than Sunday as we were expecting. We clicked the back arrow to start again and then ended up being charged twice. It 's a totally separate company, I can 't refund you, here 's a number to ring was the helpful response of the receptionist. Puzzle four was finding the room which was on floor 1. Yes, that 's right... minus one! It 's just down the corridor and left said helpful receptionist without a hint of irony. 10 mins later, after a trek with our bags through the Mines of Moria, we arrived at room 127. Normally the 1 indicates the floor number, but not here... it 's just part of the whole number of rooms you need to pass on your journey to bed. We got there in the end but it didn 't feel like a great start to our visit. I definitely felt like we had had to prove ourselves worthy of a stay in this motel. The rooms are very small when there 's 3 of you. No bath, just a stand up shower. It was fine. The extractor fan in the bathroom only seemed to come on if we also ran the air con, so what happened in the ensuite most definitely didn 't say in the enquire! It 's not the best Premier Inn I have ever been to and still better than any other motel option I have found... which is really saying something about the other options out there. Oh, one more thing. Is it possible that guests might want a cup of tea when they arrive AND one in the morning? Putting just one per adult guest is mean spirited. Come on Premier Inn. I am sure that you can find room in your profit margin for another couple of teabags, especially as you made us work so hard for the privilege.

For a budget hotel this was very good. Good clean, comfortable rooms with all the necessary facilities. Breakfast was good, plenty of seating and the buffet was restocked in a timely fashion. The only disappointment for us was that the bar seemed to close a little early on the Saturday evening. We will certainly come back if we need to stay in the area again.

I’ve been to Premier Inn before a few times so I am aware of the standard. This Premier Inn is not quite up to the usual standard but it is okay for one night. There was a long walk to the rooms. You had to park your car at the back then walk all the way to reception then all the way back to your room. The room was a bit smaller than the usual rooms. Other than that it was okay.