Overview

This is a modern hotel, which shares a building with student halls of residence, different entrance though. It is only a leisurely ten minute walk from the railway station, with not many obstacles for a wheelchair user apart from one or two footpaths that didn't have conveniently placed drop kerbs. The elevators were of a new design, when you use them for the first time you scan your room key-card on the outside and one of the three elevators takes you to the correct floor, without the need for selecting the floor. Well, in theory anyway! As it happens, we were on the seventh floor; when I asked for an additional key-card for the room lights, Danni gave me one that was already on the desk, and it must have been programmed for a ninth floor room as that is the floor it selected. Fun and games ensued as I stepped out of the elevator to scan the correct key-card and up it went, with my wife and the luggage but not me. And so, with no key-card and no way to select a floor from within the elevator, she had to rely on other guests to use their key-card to get her back to the ground floor. Oh, how she laughed .....NOT! After the missus had brayed me, we made our way to our room, which was close to the elevators; there was plenty of room in the corridor to approach the room. Now, of all the accessible rooms we have stayed in at Premier Inn, some have been big and some not so. This one though was MASSIVE! At its widest and longest points it was 28ft by 13ft. There was plenty of room for my wife to manoeuvre her wheelchair; in fact, there was enough room to invite other wheelchair users and host a disco. We were located on one corner of the building and, although we were near to the elevators we could not hear them. The adjoining wall between us and our only neighbour was about twenty feet from our bed; consequently, we did not suffer with noise disturbance. The room had two large floor-to-ceiling windows with privacy glass, allowing daylight to flood into the room during the day. At night the heavy blackout curtains plunged the room into total darkness. The A/C was very quiet and very good; much needed as in Bournemouth those few days it was mafting (that's hot, if you're not from Hull). The king size bed was made up of two single zip and lock beds, which are always uncomfortable in the middle. As such, I always call ahead to ask that a duvet is placed under the bed sheet as a mattress topper; that wasn’t in place when we checked in so I had to ask for one to be brought to our room, along with extra pillows; they arrived promptly. The height of the bed, at 50cm, was at an appropriate height for my wife to transfer from her wheelchair. The pillows at Premier Inn are sometimes like biscuits; in this hotel though they were really plump and very comfortable. The mattress, with makeshift topper applied was really comfortable. There were plenty of electrical sockets in the room including at least one with a USB charger. Under the TV was a HDMI input, which is common in the new and refurbished rooms. Note to self: remember the cable next time. There was also plenty of lighting in the room. The basic Wi-Fi was good enough for us, but if we wanted to cast to the smart TV we would have needed to shell out for the paid service, I reckon. All in all, this was a great hotel with a fantastic accessible room; if we were to stay in Bournemouth again we wouldn't hesitate to use this hotel again.

Transport & Parking

I cannot comment on the disabled parking as we arrived by train; it is only a leisurely ten minute walk from the railway station, with not many obstacles for a wheelchair user apart from one or two footpaths that didn't have conveniently placed drop kerbs. The nearest road, fifty feet away is served by a number of wheelchair accessible buses. The hotel has a secure underground car park, which is short walk to the rear of the building (no direct access from the hotel, as far as I could make out) and is shared with the building's other occupants. We didn't use it so I don't know if they charged for blue badge holders.

Access

Good level access from street to room, with three elevators. We didn't eat in the hotel but the dining room did look light and airy, with appropriate tables for a wheelchair user.

Toilets

Good sized accessible bathroom with roll-in shower and plenty of grab bars; see photos. We didn’t’ use the accessible toilet near the reception.

Staff

All staff members we encountered were very friendly and eager to please. Pedro being one, but I want to give a big shout out to Danny whom we encountered a few times during our stay, he was always happy and very customer orientated.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

One big negative with the new and refurbished rooms is the height of the vanity mirror, the bevel being at eye level and obscuring my wife’s view she sat in her wheelchair. The shelf part of it is at the correct height but the actually mirror needs to be lower. That said at least there was plenty of floor space in front of it for my wife to position her wheelchair square on; in many of the other accessible rooms we have stayed in it is placed in a location that makes it difficult to position a wheelchair directly in front.

Photos