Brighton, it’s a beautiful city full of love and atmosphere, but when it comes to finding somewhere to stay in Brighton that even has wheelchair access into the hotel it can be a bit of a nightmare - especially around pride! Luckily, one option, if you're looking for a beautiful seafront view, is Holiday Inn Brighton Seafront, a 4* hotel which is perfectly placed for those who want to stay on the seafront whilst also being in the centre of Brighton. The hotel is conveniently located almost opposite the i360, whilst being a 5-minute walk from both Brighton Pier and the shopping centre.
For this review, I stayed in one of the Executive rooms. The room was incredibly spacious with lots of room to move around despite the room not being an accessible room. The king-sized bed was extremely comfortable and there was also a sofa bed in the room, however, the executive rooms do come with interconnecting rooms and I'd recommend this option for groups instead of the sofa bed due to the lack of privacy if the sofa bed is used. The executive room we stayed in also had a large balcony with seating area which looked out over the seafront, and whilst it had a step up into the room, I was able to navigate this myself by step/kerb hopping.
The one big thing I'm pleased with about this room was the introduction of Nespresso Coffee Machines. Before now, I'd never seen a coffee machine in an executive room at any Holiday Inn location, so this was a welcomed surprise. There was also a minibar with 2 free bottles of water (1 still and 1 sparkling) as well as 2 small KitKats. The room also had plenty of storage throughout including an ottoman at end of the bed, large wardrobe area, and a large writing desk area with more storage.
Onto the bathroom, and it was spacious with a 4 piece design including a walk-in shower (step into, unfortunately) as well as a bath with an over-bath shower option. The sink area also had storage around it, and there were plenty of toiletries including full-sized bottles of shower gel in both the walk-in shower and the bath area. The door into the bathroom, however, was quite tight to get my wheelchair through, but with the room not being tagged as accessible I wasn't that surprised at it.
Our room rate included breakfast. The breakfast options in the restaurant were substantial and even had several varieties of sausages, something I've normally only seen in 5* hotels! As well as the buffet options, there was a menu which you could order other breakfast items from, and Prosecco was also offered to us at breakfast. As well as having breakfast in the restaurant, we also ordered room service for both dinner on our last night at the hotel and breakfast on our last morning. The room service menus were out of date in our room which meant that the options we wanted were no longer available, this was dealt with by staff in a reasonable manner, however, I was surprised that they hadn't updated the room service menu to match the new one. The food, however, was of good quality, and even breakfast seemed to be freshly cooked instead of being off the buffet cold which has happened to me in other hotels. The one bugbear I did have with breakfast however, was that we had to share our breakfast out whilst trying to remember who ordered what.
Overall, I'd recommend this hotel to those who want to be on the seafront and don't mind about not having a health suite/spa. The room was very spacious and despite the problems with the room service menu being out of date and having to remember who ordered what for breakfast, the food served at the hotel was of good quality. I especially like the fact that Holiday Inn now seem to be installing Nespresso coffee machines in their executive rooms.