Hotel Ibis Central, Cardiff

Ibis Cardiff Central
Churchill Way
Cardiff
CF10 2HA
WALES

Tel: (+44)29/20649250
Fax: (+44)1462/650528

The Ibis hotel is situated on Churchill Way, a short walk from Cardiff Central railway station, and opposite the Motorpoint Arena venue. It is part of the Accor group of hotels. It is probably best to plan your route to the hotel beforehand as locals don’t seem to know where it is, on a very wet Friday evening I was directed here there and everywhere before finally finding it!

There is level access in to the reception and check in went smoothly, as with all Accor hotels you can check in online a couple of days before arriving so they already have your details. They also filled in a form detailing what assistance I would need in the event of an emergency evacuation and told where to wait for this assistance to arrive. I was then shown up to my room. The accessible room was very plain and basic with the door at the foot of the bed and not a lot of room to get around it, also this meant you could not get behind the door to help you open it, you had to open it from the side.

The room had a comfortable double bed with space below if you need to bring a hoist, but there was not much room to access one side of it, though plenty on the other side. Also in the room was a flat screen tv, a desk and chair, and tea and coffee making facilities. One noticeable exception being there was no wastebasket so I had to go in the bathroom to dispose of the used teabags. Also the window was behind the desk which made it difficult to close the curtains.

The bathroom was a wet room with a shower chair provided, along with a stack of fluffy towels which came in very handy as I got drenched making my way to the hotel from the railway station. There were handrails on the walls and the shower controls appeared to be easy to reach, but I didn’t actually try it out.

Facing the shower was the toilet and wash basin. You could transfer to the toilet to your right side and there was a handrail on the other side. The wet room was a sort of plastic small room inside the bedroom and whilst the handrails were very firmly fixed to the walls they were not ‘real’ walls and I was able to quite easily make these flex by putting my weight on the rail!

The next morning a good buffet breakfast was served, both cooked breakfast and continental style, though sadly in the Capital of Wales only a full English was available not a full Welsh (which includes laverbread – which is pureed seaweed – and/or cockles), though there is a café a short walk away in the Central Market that serves a full Welsh. My view of the Ibis Central, Cardiff, is that it is not up to the standards I was hoping for, I expected something along the lines of a Travelodge or Premier Inn but my room was of a lower standard than those. I have seen online photos of their standard rooms and they seem more like I was expecting, not the ‘box’ I got. If I am in Cardiff again for a rugby international and it is the only option I would return here, but this would not be a first choice hotel for me (next rugby international I am booked in to the Mercure Cardiff Holland House Hotel & Spa.)

(I would like to thank Mikey, my monkey puppet, for his assistance with this blog.)