Some had checked in for a quick romantic getaway at the heart of Britain's vibrant second city.

For others it was a break meticulously planned for months, for a birthday or a wedding.

Whatever brought them there, what none of them expected was a night spent wandering the city in search of refuge, many without money and some clad in no more than a bathrobe.

If disruption was the aim, whoever issued the coded threat to West Midlands Police certainly achieved it as far as visitors to the city were concerned.

But despite their singular and at times scary night in Birmingham, no-one that The Birmingham Post spoke to said their experience would put them off a return trip.

Guests at the plush Hyatt hotel - where prices start at #180 per night - said the first indication of the weary night ahead was a fire alarm at about 7pm, just as preparations were being made for a warm summer evening?s revelry.

Jean-Paul Russek, a 39-year-old project manager from Peterborough and Fiona Macrae, aged 36, had chosen Birmingham for a romantic weekend away.

?I was in the shower when it went off and I threw my clothes on and we got out,? he said.

?We hung around outside and went back in about an hour later. Then after ten minutes it went off again. There wasn?t really a sense of panic, but we didn?t see any fire engines, only police, so we thought it must be a security alert. We had a restaurant booking at Shimla?s, so we headed off towards there.

?Then we saw a police car reversing and a loudspeaker blaring ?There is a credible threat to your lives - leave the area now?. It was pretty direct and we started to run. That was the time we thought, this might really be something serious.?

Herded towards the city centre, they first pitched up in the Newt and Cucumber pub.

?That was fine, then they started shutting down,? said Jean-Paul.

?Then we went to Apres for a drink and thought, this is fine, but half an hour later there was a helicopter directly above us with a searchlight shining down and police telling us to ?leave now?. That was about 10.45pm. We had an idea what was going on, everywhere we went there were police stopping cars going anywhere. We had seen on Sky News that there was a bomb scare. People who knew we were in Birmingham were ringing to see if we were okay.

?At about 12.30am, we went to the Copthorne, which was keeping the bar open. There were a whole lot of Hyatt guests in there and they let us have a room for about half price. At about 9am we managed to get back in the Hyatt.?

Nick Baskerville, aged 22, from Bromsgrove is about to join the Army. He was just drying off from a dip in the Hyatt?s swimming pool when the evacuation notice came.

?Some people were just in towels. The second time we had started getting ready to go out. My girlfriend was just in a bath robe.

?There wasn?t much of a police presence but we kept getting moved further and further away and we did feel a bit abandoned.?

Nick?s girlfriend, Julia Green, a 22-year-old estate agent, added: ?I?m from London and my father and brother work in the city, so bomb scares came to mind right away.

?We can?t really complain because some people had it worse than us. There was a bridal reception here and the bride was wandering around outside in tears.?

At about the same time, a bar worker at O?Neills pub was being told by police to clear the building of customers because of a bomb threat. ?It?s the first time I?ve had to do anything like that,? she said. ?It was well scary after what happened in London.

?But everyone was really cool about it. They just left their drinks and got out, everyone understood.?

Meanwhile, next door at the Travel Lodge guests were also being told to leave.

Little did they know a package reportedly bearing wires and a starter button would be found and exploded at their very hotel the next morning.

Phil Oakley, a 26-year-old plumber from Manchester, was with a group of four friends who had come to celebrate a 23rd birthday. ?We heard a lot of commotion from O?Neills which was just across from our room.

?We didn?t stop for any of our belongings.

?We got marched along Bridge Street then we were told it wasn?t safe there. There was a moment when it was scary, when everyone started running, 50 or so of us. We ended up at the Thistle on the Hagley Road in Edgbaston. There were two hen parties staying at our hotel, one from Leicester, who said, ?get us a minibus and we will go back to Leicester?, and off they went. Another woman had left her pills in her room and a police officer had to go back and get them.?

Hyatt general manager Clifford Gravers was called in at about 7pm to reports of the threat.

?We practice evacuations regularly,? he said. ?Some of the guests were bussed to other hotels along the Hagley Road and others were directed to a centre set up at Aston University. Police went, he said, at 6am. Bills for the night were waived.

Yesterday hotel and bar staff faced a double shift, clearing up all the debris left in situ after the hurried exit of the night before.

But as one resigned hotel worker put it: ?Better that we had the evacuations and all this mess than the tragedy of London.?