We spent New Year’s Eve and New Year in Birmingham. There was a circus show we were interested in watching on New Year’s Day, so we headed off to Birmingham on the 31st. It was a fun 2 hours drive. The kids love road trips, so they were excited about heading off to another city for the holiday. We spent 2 nights at Hilton Hotel Metropole Birmingham.

It was our first time at this particular Hilton Hotel, and we were immediately overwhelmed as soon as we step into the hotel lobby. It was jam-packed with so many people. There were all sorts of events going on at the hotel on New Year’s Eve, so people were everywhere.

 

 

 

What went well

We finally made it to the check in counter and we got our room. There were some initial hiccups. The beds for the kids were not laid and we were short on bathroom supplies. But all that was sorted within the first hour of us checking in.

The room was a decent size for a family room. I liked the fact that the bathroom had a tub and a shower room. It meant we could dress up quicker with the extra space. The heating also worked great, which was a blessing, when I remember the hotel we stayed prior to this one. Overall, the room was generally ok.

 

 

 

What went wrong

Apart from the chaotic check in, the beds for the twins not being made, and the lack of bathroom supplies, the WIFI was also very bad all though our stay. I couldn’t do anything with the hotel’s WIFI. It wa so frustrating as I had some work to finish up for a client on the 31st. I had to log on to my personal hotspot to get anything done. This was very annoying and expensive. The Phillips TV in our room was also quite old with no high-definition. The quality of the TV was really poor if I am being completely honest. I was shocked to find it in a Hilton Hotel. There were only a few channels available and none of them was for kids. The TV didn’t even have a Cbeebies channel. We were very disappointed with that.

Another issue we had was with the Executive Lounge. On our first night at the hotel, we were told kids were not allowed into the Executive Lounge until 8pm. We were trying to go in for around 7pm. I found it weird that they had such a rule but didn’t worry too much about it. But then I found it very annoying when I found other kids in the lounge the next day around the same time. I think the lady at the Executive Lounge just came up with an excuse to not have us bring the kids in because it was very busy on the New Year Eve night.

There was also no fridge in our room, and there was no ice machine around as well. We found that pretty frustrating.

 

 

What we loved

We had the opportunity to watch the fireworks on New Year’s Day from the comfort of our room. The fireworks display was right behind our room, so we got to see the entire display from our windows. It was so beautiful. That was definitely the highlight of our stay at the hotel.

Overall our stay was just ok. I won’t recommend the hotel to anyone and I won’t go out of my way to stay there again, especially with the kids. I don’t believe it is child friendly enough, and the attention to detail is very minimal.

 

 

 

What do you look out for when booking a hotel?