Premier Inn Southend On Sea (Eastern Esplanade)

The hotel was situated to where our friends were, and provided a guest car park that's convenient for reaching out to friends as well as other city amenities, shopping and dinning venues. The room's cleanness was mediocre at best, and cleaning was on a per request basis. Lighting setups could be annoying as the overhead lights above the desk/work bench were tied to the main ones, and they should have been replaced with less heat-emitting LEDs. The bathroom ventilation would need enhancement. While we stayed in a room with car park aspect, the sea view rooms offered much better views as seen from the lobby window overlooking the sea, coming with a 10% surcharge.

Great location and price for visiting the seafront and Southend. The parking is £7 a day which is incredible! It should be free for guests. (Look for free street parking elsewhere). The free WiFi is very poor, but you can pay to upgrade per day. Apart from that the staff were welcoming, the rooms were fully working and clean, the beds were very comfortable and there were no issues at all.

First time staying in a premier inn and will probably be our last. Check in fine, all staff we encountered were friendly. There was a problem with the heating in our room, it was stifling hot in there, and with no windows to open, it was unbearable. They supplied us with a fan after a sleepless first night, and said they would put the air con on. This did nothing, and we weren't prepared to have another sleepless night. A lovely lady on reception managed to get us moved to a much cooler room which was good, however a right pain having to pack everything up again for one night. I don't understand how the issue wasn't picked up by housekeeping. That room should never have been let in the first place with how hot and uncomfortable it was. Breakfast was a big let down. The first morning we were told there's no eggs yet. We were only wanting hot food, so had to sit there like lemons for nearly 25 minutes waiting for eggs! The next day was no better. They had completely ran out of bacon. I work in catering myself, and I understand these things do happen, but if whoever is in charge of ordering new the hotel was fully booked for the weekend, how did this even happen? Not once, but twice! Really not good enough. We also booked to have dinner the second night. We had to change our plans however, as came back to the hotel half hour before we were due to have dinner, to be met with a sign saying the restaurant/bar was closed for the evening due to staff illness. If this was a one off, totally understandable, however I've seen numerous reviews on here of the restaurant being shut quite regularly for one excuse or another. Overall a very disappointing stay and we definitely won't be returning.