I was looking for a hotel to keep my family in for a week while we visited London and my daughter who was attending school at Pepperdine University's London campus. My two boys are 21 and 14, and the photos of this hotel looked appealing because of the loft layout. I figured there would be enough room for the boys up in the loft and lots of room for the wife and I down below in the main room. But buyer beware, the hotel's website hasn't been updated since 2011 and a lot of it is just wrong.
When we first arrived to check in, the desk attendant was nice but reserved, in an uncomfortable way. It was a bit unsettling, the feeling of a fake smile and awkward conversation. I was told that we weren't getting free breakfast though the website had mention of a free breakfast service. I found the fine print on the booking.com receipt and found that was indeed the case so I decided not to fight it. We were given the one and only key card to the room and sent to room 105.
The hotel has an odd feel to it, rooms are not all on the same level, staircases separating sections of the hotel like it was two buildings pasted together. If you get room 105, head straight back downstairs and ask for a different room (wish we had). The room, like the lobby, was incredibly hot, like 80 degrees hot. We turned down the thermostat but it didn't make a difference. So we went to the window, floor-to-ceiling, and opened the curtains. To our surprise, the room faces the inner courtyard, which was the worst thing about the room. Why? Because the dingy courtyard was filled with a huge scaffolding and pigeons (and pigeon crap, and pigeon feathers) everywhere. We wanted to open the windows to dissipate the heat but were worried about security, pigeons entering our room, and breathing in pigeon crap. To make matters worse, the employees would take their smoke breaks in the courtyard and the smoke would waft up to and into our room. Because the hotel was so hot we had to leave the windows open all night every night and suffer. The stale bread left out for the pigeons and the unwashed bird poo on the outside of the window was so unappealing that we kept the curtains closed even though the window was left open.
The bathroom was the best part of our room, the shower was difficult to figure out at first but it was reliable with hot water. The door to the shower was a bit difficult and it finally gave up and broke on me on the last day we were there. But worse than that was the awful sewer smell that wafted up from the floor drain. It was so bad at times that my wife couldn't enter the bathroom.
Another issue was the promise of free hotel wi-fi. I had read that the wi-fi didn't work in the rooms and was only available in the lobby. The small lobby with one couch, one sofa and one chair would often be crowded with hotel guests trying in vain to connect to the hotel wi-fi. Let me correct that. Most everyone could connect to the lobby wi-fi, but being able to load a web page or do anything constructive was impossible. Paint will dry faster than a page load on this connection. With all the awkward smiles from the front desk, you knew their hands were tied and that somewhere a shitty management company was neglecting their duties and hog-tying their employees.
Smaller issues like faulty light switches, cramped quarters, and carpets that may only be vacuumed between customers, not every day, were forgivable, considering what was worse. However, this hotel, in a nicer area of London, could be so much more with just a little bit of infrastructure improvements from management and a more caring approach from staff. read more