Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 mattress review: Hotel comfort at home

Have you ever returned home from one of 800+ Premier Inn hotels across the UK and Ireland and thought: “gosh, what a comfortable mattress that was, much more comfortable than my old haggard bed”? Well, I’ve got some great news for you: the Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 mattress is available to buy for your very own bedroom.

Well, almost. There is a slight difference between this mattress and the one you’ll find in the hotels themselves, which I’ll explain below. Regardless, I put the Premier Inn 2.0 to the test to find out if it offered comparable hotel-quality comfort.

In short, if you like a firm mattress, this may well be the right choice for you. And for a traditional pocket sprung mattress, it’s not too expensive either. Read on for my full review.

Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 Mattress review: What you need to know

The Premier Inn 2.0 is a pocket sprung pillow-top mattress. The core of the mattress forms the support base and this contains a layer of Silentnight’s Mirapocket springs, which are further reinforced “with extra edge support and inset frame wire”. Attached to this is a pillow top, which contains layers of polyester hollowfibre as well as a foam ‘Geltex’ layer. According to Silentnight, this “intelligent” material “actively responds to your body” in order to provide pressure relief while allowing you to move freely.

In Premier Inn’s hotels, this pillow top is zipped on and can be removed, while on the home mattresses it is permanently attached. I’m told this is the only difference and that, from a comfort perspective, the two mattresses are the same.

With a combination of springs, polyester hollowfibre and foam, it might be tempting to call the Premier Inn 2.0 a hybrid mattress. But unlike many of the bed-in-a-box hybrids we’ve reviewed, it isn’t delivered rolled up and vacuum-packed in a box.

Instead, like a traditional sprung mattress, the Premier Inn 2.0 arrives flat. This means there’s no waiting period needed to allow the mattress to fully expand on your bed frame or divan, nor is there the unpleasant off-gassing smell commonly associated with vacuum-sealed memory foam mattresses. For the first few days after taking it out of its plastic packaging, it actually had a new-car-like smell that wasn’t so offensive.

One other thing that struck me about the Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 mattress was its thickness – at 28.5cm, it’s deeper than the majority of bed-in-a-box mattresses and you’ll need to make sure you have an extra deep fitted sheet to cover it.

Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 Mattress review: Price and competition

The Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 starts at £609 in a single, rising to £749 for a double (the size I tested), £799 for a king and £959 for a super king. It’s not a budget option but nor is it a bank-breaker, especially where traditional pocket sprung mattresses are concerned. These commonly come with price tags well into four figures. For instance, the Dreams TheraPur ActiGel Glacier 3800 Combination Mattress, a mattress with a similar pillow top construction, will cost you £1,359 for a double.

Let’s look back to the bed-in-a-box market. Admittedly, prices often fluctuate, with near-constant discounts making it impossible to get a true idea of the “real price”. Nevertheless, it’s perhaps fair to say that the Premier Inn 2.0 sits towards the middle of the spectrum, price-wise. At the time of writing, the Emma Hybrid Premium (previously the Emma NextGen Premium mattress) will cost you £528 for a double, while the same size Simba Hybrid Pro costs a much heftier £1,149. The mid-range Panda Hybrid, on the other hand, is closer in price at £799 for the double.

A possible reason for the Premier Inn 2.0 having such a palatable price tag is its reliance on synthetic materials over natural materials. This is partly the reason why the Simba Earth Source (£1,199 for a double), and other more traditional sprung mattresses are more expensive. Of course, there’s a bit of a trade-off involved here: cheaper, synthetic materials might not be quite as breathable compared to natural fillings such as wool, which is a famously effective natural insulator.

Alternatives and where to buy them

Dreams TheraPur ActiGel Glacier 3800 Combination Mattress | Check price at Dreams
Emma Hybrid Premium | Check price at Emma
Simba Hybrid Pro | Check price at Simba
Panda Hybrid | Check price at Panda

Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 Mattress review: Comfort and performance

This brings us neatly to the question: what was the Premier Inn 2.0 like to sleep on? Premier Inn’s website describes the mattress as “medium/firm”, which, while I think it’s a fair assessment, I’d argue it leans more towards the “firm” side of things.

I sleep predominantly on my side and I must admit that, on the first few nights of testing, I experienced pins and needles down the arm I was lying on. I’d say this was largely reflective of my body adjusting to the new mattress; I’ve been sleeping on it now for a few weeks and I’m very comfortable.

If you’re a back sleeper, you’ll also likely have a good night’s sleep on the Premier Inn 2.0. I was very impressed with the support it offered: after carrying out some tests involving placing a series of 2.5kg weights on the surface of the mattress, I measured a sinkage of around 2cm under a 10kg total weight. That’s much less than the Simba Hybrid Pro, which dipped by 3.5cm with the same amount of weight applied.

Edge support is very impressive too. Even when my partner had positioned herself right in the middle of the mattress, I could still comfortably lie at the very edge without feeling like I was going to fall off.

I should add that, while I found the Premier Inn 2.0 both supportive and comfortable, it may not be the right choice for you if you prefer a softer mattress that you can sink into a bit more.

As far as temperature regulation is concerned, I never felt too hot or clammy while testing the Premier Inn 2.0. Admittedly, I tested it during February and March in a bedroom that gets very cold during the winter months, so this is totally unsurprising. The multiple layers of polyester filling concentrated in the pillowtop of the mattress wouldn’t normally fill me with confidence for the summer, but Premier Inn claims that the materials used are breathable and that the sleep surface is temperature regulating. In any case, I’ve not yet had the pleasure of sleeping on the mattress during a clammy London summer, so I’m not able to make a judgement either way just yet.

As I mentioned above, the Premier Inn 2.0 is a very deep mattress, deeper than similarly priced mattresses. As a result, it feels like a product deserving of that “hotel quality” label. However, since pillow-topped mattresses can’t be flipped in order to distribute weight and wear evenly across both sides, the top layer can wear down quicker and cut short the mattress’ overall lifespan.

Of course, while this is still something worth considering, it wouldn’t be fair to criticise the longevity of a mattress that I’ve not tested for longer than a month, especially when quality of materials also plays a big part in this. Besides, you can still rotate the mattress and there are handles to help you do so.

Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 Mattress review: Verdict

Minor suspicions about longevity aside, my experiences with the Premier Inn 2.0 mattress were overwhelmingly positive. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to someone who prefers a soft mattress, I found it very comfortable and supportive.

Its generous depth contributes to an overall sense of quality, while the price isn’t eye-wateringly expensive. Edge support is also excellent and I’ve never yet had a problem with overheating.