Crowne Plaza Hotel Manchester Airport

Overall, a pleasant (if not a tad expensive) stay at an incredibly convenient location. Check-​in and bar staff were very nice. Shuttle to the airport in the morning was quick. Hotel itself is a bit dated, but rooms were clean and bed was soft, so that’s a-​ok by this traveller.

Rooms are clean and staff is friendly. Typical airport hotel in the sticks that has nothing around it within walking distance sadly.
A couple positives however are the Asian restaurant in the lobby, and the shuttle bus driver, Paul.
The restaurant has a spread of curries, fried rice, and other mixed asian fare. I tried the duck curry and was not disappointed by the large chunks of meat and generous helping of sauce and veggies. Sadly, you have to order a side of rice as it doesn’t come with any. I asked why not, they said that not everyone eats curry with rice. If it weren’t good curry, I’d have been more pissed about this.
Another positive is their shuttle bus driver Paul, who gave us a ride to a local pub in the hotel shuttle. Very friendly and willing to help out some stranded travelers find a hot meal outside of the hotel. He even picked us up at a predesignated time! Go Paul! Make sure to tip well, this guy deserves it.
Huge downside was the morning shuttle ride to the airport. A shuttle driver in a hurry said he would take us to the terminal for United Airlines. Instead drops us off at the wrong terminal and we end up walking 15 minutes to the correct one with luggage. I’m not sure what his problem was, but I can’t imagine him not knowing what the correct terminal was, especially since the airlines are listed on a placard at curbside. A sign we only read closely after he sped off post dumping our luggage out of the rear of the van. I guess there are always a few bad apples in the bunch.

Bar staff are jerks. Rooms smell of stale wee. Don’t have BBC4. And it’s 10 minutes walk from the Airport.
Won’t be staying here again. EVER.

We needed to make an early flight out of Manchester to Barcelona, so we booked a room at the Crowne Plaza. Room was a bit small but really adequate for our needs (and we arrived around 6pm and checked out at 6am, so really we were there to just sleep). As the reviewer below noted, the Asian restaurant was actually pretty good. I had some trepidation about eating Asian food at a hotel in the UK (I’m Chinese American from the US and grew up in CA) but it was decent and honestly a nice break from all the meat pies we had been eating for the last 2 weeks. We actually ordered the Chinese greens and got real chinese greens (bok choy) – and the noodles were flavorful — not overly sweet and sickly, which is what often happens with Asian noodles served to a clientele that is not Asian.
Overall I’d recommend the restaurant and if we were ever staying at the Crowne Plaza at the Manchester airport, I’d eat there again.
Also, the free shuttle service is nice – they both picked us up from the airport (we arrived via train from York) and dropped us off at the Monarch terminal in the morning.

The Crowne Plaza is reasonably priced for its age and included amenities.
My compact first floor room smelled a touch like an old basement and it was quite chilly for my early December stay. The carpet in the bedroom area wasn’t exactly clean — kind of like not vacuuming the house for a week. The bathtub and shower were clean and okay, with nice water pressure and hot temperatures. I couldn’t find a wash cloth though. There were 4 bottles of water, which appeared complimentary, but I forgot to drink them. There was also a coffee maker, accompanied by a cookie.
Outside the room, there was a roomy fitness center with nice Life Fitness cardio equipment, 3 different weight machines (legs, chest, lats), and a padded area for stretching, sit-​ups, etc. I didn’t check out the sauna, but the attached locker room and shower facilities seems clean and put together.
The bed was clean and comfortable to sleep on. It wasn’t high end, but functional for my stay.
The lobby bar had friendly staff with reasonably priced coffee drinks. I didn’t try the restaurants.
The hotel shuttles are spacious, but one of them only held 8 people with the rest of the space reserved for luggage, so form a line if you want to ensure a seat to the airport. The shuttle is free and runs constantly. It comes and goes about every 15 minutes. If you need a ride from the airport, just inside of the building from the shuttle curbside there is a phone with a list of 4-​digit numbers along side it. The Crowne is a member of the list.
That’s my take.

Excellent staff who all made you feel welcome especially the kids and took the time to chat the customers. The food was Average hotel type food costing roughly £60 for two adults and two kids to have a main and dessert. Breakfast was much the same very nice standard hotel cooked breakfast
The rooms are very clean with your standard tv, kettle, hair dryer and bath/​shower room.
They provide a free transfer service from the airport terminals and train station with phones near the main exits.
Overall coming to bed time we were very happy with our choice of hotel and suddenly wishing we had booked the same hotel for our return leg however that was when disaster struck this wonderful hotel with excellent staff dropped the biggest clanger any hotel can drop the bed was the worst thing Ive ever slept on, just to clarify at this point we were in a family room and the main normal bed was fine, the issue was the second bed a sofa bed that seemed to use nails as padding. Originally the kids were in this bed but they simply did not settle tossing and turning constantly waking up saying it was just too uncomfortable so into the breach dad went with the kids in the main bed, at this point they settled into a very deep sleep and not a peep was heard from them. However on the otherside of the room I was eyeing up the floor as a more comfortable option, Ive had better nights sleep in a tent.