The Birmingham Great Barr Hotel

The Great Barr Hotel

I stayed for one night as a stopover to break a journey up, for that reason I’d stay again. The single room I stayed in was a bit small compared to a travelodge equivalent but had everything I needed and was clean and tidy. The buffet breakfast was good. The hotel suffers from a serious lack of signs up from reception to the rooms, it was really confusing and took a good ten minutes to figure out where my room was. The hotel bar needs a serious refurbishment and doesn’t match the modern reception area. The bar was also a bit smelly, put me off having food there so ordered a pizza instead. Overall I’d give it a 3 out of 5.

Okay for a night

We stayed at the Barr Hotel as my partner had a speaking engagement in Birmingham the following day. Everything near the city centre was booked up/too expensive, but the Great Barr still had rooms at a very reasonable price. Car parking was free and not crowded. The hotel was very clean, pleasant staff, nice pub/bar within. However, our bed was extremely hard--disappointing when everything looked so nice! It’s a slightly more old-fashioned hotel, with proper door keys rather than plastic cards, but the rooms were bigger than a lot of chain hotels. We had a few snacks delivered by room service which were lovely. Also, the front desk was extremely quick in bringing us an iron and ironing board in the morning when requested. The full English breakfast itself was served buffet style, very tasty and included in the price of the room---only problem was we were seated at a dirty table and the staff member made no effort to tidy it at all. I thought at first they were just busy, but as I looked around I saw other tables were available and clean. Even so, you’d expect they would at the very least replace the top tablecloth so it looked a little better (ours had stains/food all over from someone else’s breakfast). This was probably just a fluke and more about that particular staff person than the general hotel service. I wished I’d asked to be seated elsewhere! In summary, it’s an okay place to stay for a night, good value if you don’t mind an incredibly hard mattress.

Clean and comfortable place to stay

For a short break or weekend stay , this is a perfectly adequate place to stay.The room was clean ,comfortable and tastefully decorated. Its close to M5/M6 making it handy for an en route Midlands stopover.Helpful and friendly staff , though the Reception was unmanned late at night , which was a minus when some wedding guests were still revelling in their room at 5am - with no hotel staff on hand to request that they should quieten down.

Traveller's tip for business travellers

There is a pub only a couple of minutes away on the main road,serving carvery meals at a very reasonable price.