The location suited me very well - just a couple of hundred yards from Paddington Station. And at the price paid (£80 for a single for one night in London), I anticipated quite a small room and dated decor. But what I found wasn't "quite" small - it was very small indeed; the web site I booked on described the single room as 112 square feet, but it was actually just 60 (ten foot by six foot - small I measured it) and the shower room/toilet so small there wasn't space for a toilet roll holder; loo rolls kept on top of cistern, with a mirror located at such an angle that only a gymnast could use it.
Checkin was at the hotel 2 doors up the road where the gentleman on the front desk was juggling with phone calls on two phones (one of which he picked up in the middle of talking to me) and a discussion with his friend / colleague who was standing in the room too. He promised to leave cereal and milk our for me as I had to leave before they started to serve breakfast, but I suspect he overlooked this promise - or perhaps they did leave that breakfast out, but neglected to tell me that the breakfast room is chained and padlocked shut overnight, so I wouldn't actually be able to reach it ...
Some safety aspects worried me too -...The location suited me very well - just a couple of hundred yards from Paddington Station. And at the price paid (£80 for a single for one night in London), I anticipated quite a small room and dated decor. But what I found wasn't "quite" small - it was very small indeed; the web site I booked on described the single room as 112 square feet, but it was actually just 60 (ten foot by six foot - small I measured it) and the shower room/toilet so small there wasn't space for a toilet roll holder; loo rolls kept on top of cistern, with a mirror located at such an angle that only a gymnast could use it.
Checkin was at the hotel 2 doors up the road where the gentleman on the front desk was juggling with phone calls on two phones (one of which he picked up in the middle of talking to me) and a discussion with his friend / colleague who was standing in the room too. He promised to leave cereal and milk our for me as I had to leave before they started to serve breakfast, but I suspect he overlooked this promise - or perhaps they did leave that breakfast out, but neglected to tell me that the breakfast room is chained and padlocked shut overnight, so I wouldn't actually be able to reach it ...
Some safety aspects worried me too - the pushchair left on the route to the main door that would be the primary escape in the even of a fire, and what looked like a fire door propped open all night with a fire extinguisher. A lack of lighting in the corridor to my room (which I eventually found in the basement) and the carpeted step up to that corridor which I tripped over twice.
If something's not right, really it should be raised at the time. But I wasn't tempted to walk up the road in the evening to talk with the reception guy who clearly put his customers in fourth place after his friends and colleagues, and in the morning there was no-one to be seen - not that I had the time. No "please tell us what you think" sheet in the room to provide feedback either.
I have to admit it, though. I found the experience interesting. I stay in dozens of hotels each year, and usually go home with a list of a dozen things I like and a handful that I wouldn't do. The Admiral was quite the reverse ... but I slept well after the children in the corridors stopped running up and down and shouting excitedly at about midnight, and I came out safe and well with another view of life's rich tapestry in Paddington.More
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