Returning to the Holiday Inn as last year was excellent. Simbers has paid a deposit for 11 so far.
Price is £49.50 – mulled wine , 5 course dinner, wine, live entertainment, DJ, and free bar 8-12:00. If I book before 30 April, we get some deals including 1 in 10 go free so could work at £45.
There is an old football adage that you should never return to a previous club, this applied to the Chaps and their partners second visit to the Birmingham Holiday Inn for the annual Chap Christmas party. Based on last years excellent experience we all were anticipating the same again for Christmas 2016, how sadly wrong this proved to be.
Birmingham Holiday Inn decided to perform some outrageous profiteering based on last year and add at least 20 extra tables to the room (with 10 per table approx) which completely spoiled the evening. Considering we must have been one of the early bookers (April) we ended up on a table that was shoved right out of the main areas almost as an afterthought. The position of the table was also right in the main through-fare to the cloak rooms and toilets, it would be interesting to see what an inspector from the HSE would have made of it.
There must have been an extra 250+ people compared to last year this led to congestion round the tables, 20 of which could not see the stage or dance floor and considerable queues and frustration at the bars.
Generally at mass hotel Christmas parties, the food quality is average to say the least. It was a pleasant surprise in 2015 at the Holiday Inn that the food was indeed very good, unfortunately due to the extra volume of people to cater for the standards were allowed to slip back to the more average offerings provided by these institutions.
The only redeeming feature as usual was the excellent company that has flourished amongst everyone over the years that we have, something's never let us down.
I suspect we won't be going for the 'hat-trick' next year at the Birmingham Holiday Inn. a real shame.