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Review: the new Holiday Inn Manchester Airport hotel – surprisingly accomplished

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This is our review of the new Holiday Inn Manchester Airport hotel.

There is a lot of activity in the Manchester Airport hotel scene at the moment. Accor’s little-known Tribe brand is gearing up to open (website here) and will be closest hotel to the railway station. The Crowne Plaza is undergoing a refurbishment. A brand new ibis Budget opened last year opposite Terminal 2.

And, the subject of this article and sitting directly next to ibis Budget, a brand new Holiday Inn also opened opposite Terminal 2 last year.

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport hotel

Up in Manchester to visit aether, the private terminal (article here) I thought I’d give the new Holiday Inn a try.

The hotel website is here.

Getting to Holiday Inn Manchester Airport

The Holiday Inn and ibis Budget sit about 50 feet apart opposite Terminal 2 and are the nearest hotels to the terminal.

That said, the Crowne Plaza, Radisson and Clayton are also walkable so this shouldn’t necessarily define your choice.

If you arrive into Terminal 2 it is a very short stroll across the road to the two hotels. If you come via the railway station, as I did, it’s messier.

Signage is almost non-existent. There is one easily missed poster saying that you should follow the signs to T2 and it will take 10-15 minutes. What this ACTUALLY means is ‘take the covered skywalk to T2’. It would have been handy to mention the skywalk ….

Opposite the poster is a sign on an outside wall pointing to T2 so I followed it. You immediately see the hotel to your left. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that this seems to be a road sign for cars. You are literally risking your life walking down the (no pavement) airport road. Just as you reach the hotel there is a blind corner where cars shoot around and would be unable to stop before they hit you. To get into the hotel grounds you jump through a hole in the fence and run down a well-worn slope. If none of this is an issue, you can walk it in four minutes as I did, which is 11 minutes less than the advertised time via the skywalk. Leave Granny, the baby buggy and your wheeled luggage at home though.

(If you do take the skywalk, as you should, the hotel is well signed once you enter Terminal 2. You take the lifts opposite the Virgin Atlantic check-in desks to arrivals and head to the exit. It is a very short walk.)

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport hotel

Inside Holiday Inn Manchester Airport

As soon as you walk in, you can tell that this is a new-style Holiday Inn with the ‘open lobby’ concept.

The idea is that you have a large well-decorated lobby with a variety of areas for eating, drinking, working and relaxing. It’s similar to what Moxy does but less industrial! See the image above and:

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport hotel

I should mention Firin, the ‘modern Turkish cuisine’ restaurant in the hotel. Whilst I didn’t eat there, I was discussing it with the aether private terminal staff in the evening and they said that it had good feedback.

If meze and pide are not your thing, the ‘all day dining’ restaurant sells the sort of comfort food you’d expect at a Holiday Inn.

A Premium Room at Holiday Inn Manchester Airport

I had booked a standard room and was upgraded, via my IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite status, to a Premium Room. This tends to sell for a £25-£30 premium.

I haven’t seen a standard room, but a Premium room comes with a free mini bar amongst other perks.

If you were planning to hit the bar then you can justify your £25 extra here. We’ll come to the contents in a minute.

You also get a coffee machine (standard rooms just have a kettle) and a corner sofa. I’m not sure if the toiletries are upgraded are not.

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport hotel

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so easily pleased at being given a couple of free Kit-Kat Chunky’s, but after an unbelievably wet and cold day in Manchester (plus the joys of a ‘no wi-fi’, ‘no working plug sockets’, ‘signal failure delays’ Avanti train from Euston) it made me happy.

One tiny whinge: when I checked in, I was offered a free drinks voucher or 600 points as my Platinum welcome amenity. I took the drinks, and was pleased to see I was given two vouchers despite being on my own. I then got to the room to find that I’d been given a free minibar of wine and beer anyway. If you’re upgraded or book a Premium Room direct, take the points.

Inside my room

The designers have done the best they can with a 27 sq m shoebox space. As you can see above, there is a good sized desk with an anglepoise lamp and multiple sockets, a big TV, and smart artwork.

This shot from the other angle shows the sofa:

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport

The bathroom isn’t huge but is certainly smart:

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport hotel bathroom

…. with this attractively tiled shower:

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport bathroom

Toiletries are from Urban Skincare Co in wall-mounted bottles.

There’s a safe and hairdryer in the wardrobe, along with a shelf for your suitcase and two coat hooks above. It’s all very smartly done.

The only downside was the view, straight into the ibis Budget opposite. The rooms on the other side have a clear view so you may want to ask for one of those.

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport view

The free mini-bar contained two cans of Camden Hells lager, three mini-bottles of wine (white, rose, red), two Kit-Kat Chunky’s, two bags of Pipers crisps and two bottle of water.

Breakfast

Breakfast is served from 5am, which is necessary given that the main bank of flights from Manchester is in the early morning.

It costs £17.50 per person if you pay in the restaurant, so compare this with the ‘breakfast inclusive’ rates on the website. Diamond Elite members of IHG One Rewards receive breakfast for free. It was very quiet when I went down at 6.30am so, given how busy the hotel was the night before, I suspect many people chose to eat in the terminal.

I was pleasantly surprised by the wide range of items available – it is definitely well above average for a hotel of this standard. There are no ‘cooked to order’ items but the buffet contains a broad range of hot food. You have to get your own coffee from a machine but there are three of them to avoid queues.

Holiday Inn Manchester Airport breakfast

Conclusion

Whatever your image of the Holiday Inn brand, you can’t argue that the new builds aren’t impressive.

There is a lot to like in the Holiday Inn Manchester Airport – decent desks, good lighting, smart bathrooms, loads of sockets and – in Premium rooms – a decent free mini bar and a large corner sofa. Having a well regarded Turkish restaurant on top of the expected ‘all day dining’ is an extra bonus.

If you want to be in a new hotel and as near to Terminal 2 as possible, you can choose between this and the ibis Budget. You need to see what the price difference is and where your preferences are. The bar and restaurants of the Holiday Inn are only a 5-second walk from the ibis (website here) if you do end up there, but the Holiday Inn is worth the extra.

The Holiday Inn Manchester Airport website is here.

Looking for a hotel in Manchester?

We’ve reviewed a number of hotels in the city, including (click to read):

At the airport we have reviewed:

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IHG One Rewards news

IHG One Rewards update – March 2025:

Get bonus points: IHG is offering double base points on cash stays until 31st March 2025. This kicks in from your second cash stay during the offer period. Read more in our article here and click here to register.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

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Comments (59)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Fran says:
    2 Jun2 June 10:19

    Just to clarify, you can eat from both menus at the same table, so younger / pickier eaters can accompany fans of Turkish food.

  • David S says:
    2 Jun2 June 10:49

    Stayed at the Radisson in January. When they say 15 minute walk, it certainly is from T3 and none of the walkways were working. It wasn’t good with two cases each as although the new walkways are warmer and dryer you also need to get to them first which involves crossing roads (with the safety cobbles either side) and then there are lifts to get to the right floor. Why don’t they actually turn the walkways on !!

    • NorthernLass says:
      2 Jun2 June 11:56

      There was a deliberate decision during the pandemic not to continue maintaining them for cost reasons, though I’ve read recently that they will be fixed as part of current renovations.

    • Scott says:
      2 Jun2 June 12:26

      The first walkway from the Radisson to the station is now fully operational. They’re working on the one near the Virgin desks in T2 now.
      No sign of the middle one being touched, as of yet.

      As for the 15 min walk, depends on how fast you are and how much luggage (plus how slow the hand cranked lifts are)
      Sometimes it maybe cheaper and faster to stay in say Altrincham or Heald Green and get a cab / Uber for £10-£15 that drops you off at the entrance to T3.

  • Bagoly says:
    2 Jun2 June 11:38

    As you weren’t flying out, you could have taken the minibar bottles home, and enjoyed the drinks from the vouchers at the bar.
    600 points * your rule-of-thumb 0.4p is £2.40, which wouldn’t go very far.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      2 Jun2 June 11:45

      I mean you could take them with you if you had checked luggage … or even when the new scanners are in

      I always take the drinks voucher

      • Scott says:
        2 Jun2 June 12:35

        The room service menu at the CP the other day had a pint at around £6.50. Not sure if the same at the bar, but £5.25 for a bottle of cider last time I bought one at the HGI Hatton Cross.
        (Sometimes pop over to M&S or the Spar in T1 arrivals for cheaper cold drinks, unless I’ve been to Tesco / Sainsbury and bought something there as 3 for £6 etc.)

        600 points is 600 points. Got those and the breakfast the last couple of times at the CP. Didn’t have to leave until 6:30am, so enough time to enjoy a 5am / 5:30am hot breakfast.

        Got a few bottles of red wine from the HI in a cupboard.
        If I park in say the T3 multi-storey, easy enough to put them in the boot in the morning.

      • Tariq says:
        2 Jun2 June 14:33

        Plus if you choose the voucher then you often get the points too.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          2 Jun2 June 14:46

          That too 🙂

          • Rob says:
            2 Jun2 June 15:42

            I must admit, I did expect to get my points as well and was a little surprised when I didn’t!

    • Rob says:
      2 Jun2 June 12:49

      I actually went from Manchester to Edinburgh to the JetBlue launch party. I did take the bottle of rose and the 2nd Kit-Kat for the train!

      Obviously my train from Manchester Airport to Edinburgh was cancelled (with 10 minutes notice, impressively) forcing me to go to York and connect to an LNER. Thankfully last minute train pricing isn’t bad compared to last minute airline pricing.

      • NorthernLass says:
        2 Jun2 June 21:30

        ? They normally just let you get on whichever alternative service will get you to your destination. They’d never cope with the customer fury and complaints otherwise!

        • The Savage Squirrel says:
          2 Jun2 June 21:56

          This. Train staff never quibble either.

        • Rob says:
          2 Jun2 June 23:20

          Didn’t fancy my chances of explaining to an LNER guard in York why I was on his train, when I could have waited 2 hours for the next train from Manchester direct (if it had run, which looked unlikely due to the weather).

  • Throwawayname says:
    2 Jun2 June 11:40

    If this is £150 or whatever and you are going to MAN by train anyway, you may well be better off staying near Piccadilly station and just jumping on a train the morning of your departure- only takes 15 mins and trains are very frequent indeed (and, even if it all goes horribly wrong and the line gets closed unexpectedly, you would still have realistic alternatives as the tram doesn’t take forever and a minicab/app equivalent won’t cost an arm and a leg).

  • Mile Fish says:
    2 Jun2 June 19:27

    The CP is being refurbished, the common areas look okay and the lounge is, finally, open. However the rooms look old and tired and that’s after a refurb (I checked with the staff after my stays and was told they were refurb rooms). The refurbishment is continuing. I’ve stayed half a dozen times the year with multiple days each time. The WiFi is very broken, phasing in and out, I’ve had to tether my Firestick to my phone. What I hope won’t turn into a big issue is the “hot” water; in different rooms, on different floors, on different stays, the hot water was luke warm. I could have a rather tepid bath by just running the hot tap only. At some point that becomes a health and safety issue. You need the boiler to heat the water to a reasonable temperature and they aren’t reaching a suitable temperature. I should not be able to run a hot tap only and then jump in a bath and find it at a temperature that means I have to be quick as it’s too cool for me.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      2 Jun2 June 20:56

      Sounds very much like Birmingham then. Public areas fully gutted but rooms are basically paint, carpets, headboard/bed and tv surrounds.

  • AL says:
    2 Jun2 June 21:41

    Did the moving walkways work!?

  • mike anthony says:
    3 Jun3 June 09:07

    Stayed here a while ago – must have been soon after it opened.
    All in all a very pleasant stay and all I could ask from a quick night before the flight stay. I also got the upgrade, but I took the free breakfast I think so didn’t have a dilemma over the drinks.
    Agree that the HI new builds are looking good shame about so much of the older portfolio

    • Scott says:
      3 Jun3 June 13:20

      At the end of the day, new builds over older properties have their fans and haters.
      I prefer newer properties to be honest, but some older ones have a certain quirkiness to them. Probably like new build houses Vs. something built decades ago.

      I prefer the IC Howard St. in San Francisco over the older one.
      Looked at the IC in Vienna the other day, but I really don’t like the 18th/19th Century style furnishings even if there are USB-C etc. sockets in the room. Chose the Indigo instead.

      Favour the CP at SFO airport over other neaby options even though that might be an older property

      • Rob says:
        3 Jun3 June 13:58

        Isn’t the InterCon in Vienna a big concrete monstrosity built in the 1970s?

        • Scott says:
          3 Jun3 June 14:31

          Perhaps, but don’t like the style.

          Some of these East European / ex-Soviet buildings have a certain distinct “look” to them that differentiates them from newer builds.

          May take a look at the Kimpton in Manchester that’s also an older building, but seems nicer inside.

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