Hotel Review – Ramada Jarvis, Manchester Piccadilly Gardens

On my recent trip to Manchester for Bon Jovi, my friends and I stayed in the Ramada Jarvis in Piccadilly Gardens. The hotel had an onsite car park that is only £12 for 24 hours. 

We were about an hour early as check wasn't until 2pm, but we thought we see if our rooms were ready anyway.  The lady on reception was friendly and helpful and was able to check us in to one of our rooms so we headed up to the room to drop our bags off.  

The room was not as I would expect of a Ramada, given both the price we paid and the photos on the website. It was small, muggy (health & safety prevents the windows being openable) and had a distinct musty and damp smell. 

We headed back down to reception to try and change the room. The man on reception was superbly helpful. He went what I feel was above and beyond what most hotel staff/reception staff would do. He looked at all the options available, showed us a number of different rooms all with a chirpy tone in his voice and a smile on his face. It's a shame the duty manager was not of the same ilk. It seems the only decent rooms in this hotel are on the 5th floor as this is the only floor has been refurbished recently.  

So after the duty manager had vehemently denied any of the rooms had mould or damp (although upon further investigation in the room we had found this to be the source of the smell) the only option left available to us was to have one standard room on the 5th floor and pay for an upgrade to an executive room also on the 5th floor. This fee was unable to be waived because the hotel was so busy and they could have easily sold the room at full price. So this is clearly a hotel of quantity rather than quality.

The hotel was conveniently located at Piccadilly Gardens, right next to the tram and bus stop with lots of shops, bars and restaurants nearby.

Apart from being rudely awaken by housekeeping walking into the room at 9am or the very loud voiced neighbours, we had a fairly decent nights sleep (the tiredness and beers probably helped with this too). Breakfast was thankfully really good. There was a good selection of the much needed cooked items as well as fruit, cereal and pastries and juice.