Premier Inn Durham North

I booked 2 nights at Durham North to move my teen into her 2nd year house. T transpired that it was also open weekend for the university as well as a folk music weekend in the city, so the hotels were all very busy even though I had booked well in advance. I've stayed at Walkergate and Newcastle Washington before and the staff at both locations were really delightful, so I was a bit surprised that the desk staff at Durham North were very surly and unwelcoming. On the first day and second morning, we encountered 3 different desk staff and all were very curt. Our room was fine, however in the evening of our first night, when we tried to use the shower, it was not properly fitted and poured out one side of the head so the floor of the bathroom was flooded. We spoke to staff who said it would be looked at the next day. We were told the next afternoon that it had been looked at but upon checking the fault remained. My partner went to explain and finally we had a lovely member of staff willing to take time to properly provide customer service. We were swiftly moved into a new room across the hall and the shower here was working properly. This was much much better customer service. We also enjoyed a breakfast in the hotel on our first morning and the food was great, and the staff in the dining room and kitchen were all lovely and very welcoming and friendly.

Excellent location for Beamish Museum and Durham. Pleasant staff, clean hotel - hopefully they will serve dinner soon

The problem is the room temperature. The hotel doesn't have aircon which wouldn't normally be a problem. There was no heatwave and the daytime max was 20, the night time max was 16 but the room temperature kept increasing throughout the stay until at 23:00 when it got to 29 degrees we checked out. The windows only opens about 3 inches and you can't get air into the room. There is a standalone fan which is useless. The hotel offered another room but that was also too hot to sleep in. Avoid this hotel until they sort out the major issues with their heating issues.