ibis Rotherham East - (M18 - M1) 2 gwiazdki

Joe in reception is an asset to Accor. Rang him few occasions. He is consistently helpful, sincere, patient, understanding and professional. I request this review to be passed to Kareena Manager so he receives recognition. Thank you for your help Joe

Can I just say before I start, I really don't enjoy doing this as I used to work in the local Hotels and know what an unforgiving job it can be... 10yrs as a Night Duty manager and maintenance manager at Mercure hotels. I prefer to pass issues directly to the staff. We have grown up children at home, we don't really do going out so 2-3 times a month we like to stay in one of our local hotels. As we are Accor members we generally like to stay in the local Accor hotels the Ibis at Rotherham, Barnsley and Barlborough.. We do have a tendency to turn a blind eye to the state of the rooms. If needed I will mention it to reception upon check out as I know that is usually preferred. Examples of room issues have been , a broken bed, tiles cracked, grout not cleaned off the tiles properly, lack of water pressure, no hot water, showers pointing in wrong direction, mattress toppers on top of the mattress, king size duvet cover with a double duvet, loose wires under the desks, loose TV brackets, bulbs not working, broken windows, closers not closing the windows right so there is a lovely cold draft in the winter, TV remotes not working. The list goes on. We usually do receive an apology and the usual receptionist (middle aged, long dark hair) is always friendly and chatty. Enough is enough now though as in recent months the customer service in the hotel has gone from OK to terrible and that is polite. In recent months they seemed to have changed a lot of the TV remotes. Unfortunately the new Universal remotes they seemed to have purchased only allow you to change the channel through the numbers and adjust the volume. I don't know about anyone else but I look through the TV guide and select what to watch, I don't want to flick through channel by channel to find something to watch. Previously we have just asked and the staff gave us an old remote. Our last stay there was an old remote that had failed in the room. My wife went down stairs and asked for new batteries, the youngish male staff member behind the bar just gave her a universal remote with the statement explaining they only operate the volume and channel up/down. The next morning on check out I went to reception to mention the remote. No staff around. I could hear and see someone sat in the back office behind reception. The young woman, blonde hair could be heard telling someone about a witness statement. I shouted hello and on the fourth time finally she answered and said she'll be there in a minute and carried on reading the statement out (something to do with financial stuff.) After a few more minutes she came to reception. I gave her the 2 drinks vouchers from the previous evening and mentioned the issue with the remote. This normally polite young woman snapped "Its a Universal remote, and that's how they work", she said. I replied, "I'm sure the TV guide is meant to work and you not meant to have to search through all the channels every time." "If you're not happy you are welcome to try and program it yourself" Was the response. I said "I'm just saying not everyone knows the channel number off the top of their heads and they like to use the channel guides." Once again I was told to go up stairs and program it myself. I smiled and said perhaps you should purchase the correct universal remote for Philips hotel TVs and left the hotel. On another occasion , my wife ordered 2 portions of chips from the same blonde lady, to take up to the room. 45 -50 minutes later (sitting in the reception) one portion appeared. When my wife pointed out the error another lady (hair dyed blue) took them away and 5 mins later appeared with what was clearly the same "one portion", split between 2 plates. My wife was so hungry by this point and had been downstairs nearly an hour so just left it. I am a gold member and with that comes certain benefits (room upgrades, free early check in, late check out and most importantly a free welcome drink per guest) Over recent months the available drinks has got less and less and I don't mean Accor has made the list smaller but the bar seems to be constantly out of stock. I can't remember the last time we was able to order anything on draft from the bar. Back in September we had a friends party to attend and basically checked in then went straight out to the event, no time for a welcome drink. The party was in Derby so neither me or my wife were drinking. On our return about 2330 hrs the front doors were open, so we assumed the bar was open as well and thought we would grab our welcome drink as a night cap. There was no sign of any staff members so I shouted out "hello" from the back office we heard "Oh for F*** sake" and a dark haired middle aged women appeared. "Can I have our welcome drinks" I asked to which I told "the bars closed" I said "OK can I have a soft drink with them then", she replied " I said the bars closed" . We left and went to bed and had tap water. This has happen more than once. A few other points that are worth mentioning are that the local McDonalds drive through system is so loud you can hear it all night in the rooms on the front. May be worth seeing if they can turn it down a bit. Also recently the car park is overtaken with large aggregate trucks parked sideways across several bays so its hard to find a space later on. Finally we been told in recent month that Accor have stopped them giving out 2 key cards. This is rather annoying for 2 people when its necessary to use one in the lights. Even when we asked for a second one we were told that they are not allowed. This has not been the case in other Accor hotels.

Got to the hotel at 21.30 waited and waited for someone to come out when they did it was someone called Jo. I have never been treated in such away. First she came out listening to something on her phone and said the changeover wasn’t here yet. She reluctantly checked us in. Then questioned me about I.d for my 9 year child. When I said I never had none she insisted on seeing family photos. Has this employee been vetted my daughter was upset.

The response for complaints of this hotel is utterly shocking. Before starting my stay, I had asked for the room to be properly cleaned. They said they always clean and promised that the room would be clean before the check-in. Upon checking in we realised that not only they didn't clean like they said, but their cleaning was so bad that we found a c*nd*m wrapper on the floor. Thank god we were not accompanied by kids. We complained about it only to be told that the hotel was fully booked and they couldn't give another room. They asked to write a formal complaint email and promised a refund. It has been 2 months since my FIRST complaint and 4 emails following up later, I still haven't heard A WORD FROM THEM. I have sent an email through their "accor group" contact us section, but shockingly, I still haven't heard anything. As a customer who chose them over any other hotel when traveling for the last 10 years, this has made me change my mind.

It’s a budget hotel that is STILL. In dire need of refurbishment for the rooms,the only plus points about this hotel are: it’s close to the M1, staff are friendly & helpful, & the breakfast is good,the beds are also clean & comfortable but cleanliness of the bathrooms in both the rooms, I say both, as we complained about pubic hair on the bathroom floor & got moved to a different room, which was better, but still not up to scratch, they’ve reneged on their word about refurbishing the rooms, the first floor corridor carpet is scruffy, but doesn’t pong like last time (8 months ago) but the showers still need attention, as the silicone sealant is still dirty & has black mould, the last room some of the tiles on the bathroom floor were cracked, remote controls for tvs are obviously not checked, it appears the battery had died because the remote didn’t work, the toilet had to be flushed 3 times to flush it properly, the shower sealant was better in this room, is this hotel a franchise? only using the ibis name ? The breakfast area/ bar are the only decent areas, this hotel is a dump & needs money spending on it & is a disgrace to the ibis brand