I stayed at the Leonardo Hotel Sheffield during my time in the city, during my March 2023 trip, the…read morehotel recently changed its' name, while retaining ownership, previously under the Jurys Inn brand.
Starting with the positives, the hotel is in the city centre of Sheffield, within walking distance of many of the city's shops, restaurants, train station and the Cathedral, the latter also has Sheffield Supertram services stopping outside to the likes of Meadowhall and Rotherham.
I managed to get a good deal on an Executive Room here, at the time of booking it didn't cost too much more and was worth it for the early checkout alone, I find the standard checkout time here of 11 am to be far too early, the Executive Room is much more generous, offering a 2 pm checkout.
I'm not sure how they manage to offer both a guaranteed early check-in and late check-out as a perk of an Executive Room though, the standard check-in time is 3 pm, so if every guest checked out late, that would give them an hour to clean the rooms, without even considering the earlier check-in, I guess with some guests leaving early and arriving late, and rooms not selling every night, it makes it unlikely you'll get stuck.
My room was fine, the facilities were good and included a Nespresso machine, mini-fridge and desk, the bare minimum for an Executive Room, with the bonus of a couple of cans of Pepsi in the fridge ready. The room was a little small, but suitable for one night only.
The room was clean and I appreciated the free newspapers by the lifts in the morning, and the fact it was mostly quiet, compared to other hotels I've stayed in.
I'm struggling to think of many other positives for the hotel, unfortunately, the biggest negative for me was the bed, the mattress was awful and hard, combined with pillows which had nothing to them, they were worse than hospital pillows in the NHS, and after a nights sleep, I had the worst neck and back aches caused by this. I could have cried if I had to stay at the hotel for another night.
I was disturbed by housekeeping who attempted to enter my room after 1 pm, I am angry because I had a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, and they tried to intrude anyway, with no apology from the staff. Entering a room without permission is bad enough, let alone when a guest is due to check out and there is a sign stating "Do Not Disturb" on the door.
I wasn't a big fan of the bathroom, as it was a shower inside the bath and very dated compared to the rest of the room, and I prefer standalone units, but the toiletries were nice, as promised on the website.
Other minor faults include the TV being stuck to the wall with an unadjustable bracket, meaning I couldn't use my fire stick, and the size of the room, leaving very little room to pass between the desk and the bed, I had to squeeze past, which was inadequate.
The extra star is mainly for the friendly staff at reception, and the little things that add up which the hotel doing, from the free coffee at the bar to the free Pepsi and newspapers, while also considering the lack of noise and late check-out available as a non-status member, but I would not recommend the hotel, nor would I consider returning under normal circumstances. 2*