I booked the hotel through booking.com, and selected it after reading reviews in Tripadvisor (the hotel is ranked #18 out of 256 speciality lodging in London). We stayed (my girlfriend, my mother and me) for 4 nights in a Triple Executive Apartment around 15th January. We had to stay for 2 more nights, and we were asked to change the room. Thus, we had the opportunity to try a better room.
Before starting telling my story, I would simply advise to avoid this hotel, because the few BAD things about it outweigh the good ones. But if you consider to take the risk, I will give you some tips to avoid my bad experience.
Concerning our first room - G17, like G for ground floor.
The FIRST REALLY bad impression the rooms made us is the level of cleanliness. There were snivels on the tiles in the shower-bath, stains on the bed’s cover, as well as on the upholstered furniture, including the sofa-bed. The moquette was a bit obsolete, and seemed dirty as well. To sum up, this is the dirtiest “hotel” I have ever slept in! To make it clearer I will quote my mother’s words: “This place makes me sick!”.
The SECOND REALLY bad impression was the enormous door not in use in the room with the sofa-bed, where my mother was supposed to sleep! The sound isolation was nearly zero. You could literally hear the pedestrians’ steps when they were passing by, not to mention when they were talking or when cars and buses were passing.
The other bad impressions were:
- payment upon arrival
- overbooking of the hotel -> we actually tried to change the room, but we couldn’t because everything was booked. Actually, the receptionist told us that the hotel is overbooked and showed us the magic number of minus 26 on his screen, which probably meant overbooked reservations or rooms. And since payment is made upon arrival, it was around 6pm, we have traveled for more than 7 hours and we were tired, we kind of had no choice but to stay.
- the smell of cooked meal when entering every single time in the room (we didn’t cook)
- dark rooms, especially the main room which was quiet, spacious but deprived of any view
- the ground floor location of the room
- for four nights or 5 days of stay, the maid cleaned once and changed the towels twice. She even missed to enter in the room one day.
- the obsolete shower-bath: the water was splashing everywhere, it was difficult not to wet your hair when taking a shower. Furthermore, it was impossible to concentrate the water stream coming from the shower on yourself.
- the water on the floor in the bathroom, after taking a shower
- the fifty centimeter LAN cable for the internet
- the unstable and shaky table, on which I put my laptop to connect it to the internet
- the spoilt coffee milk for that was on disposal on arrival
- twin beds in the main room, I expected double bed, and wasn’t asked about that upon arrival
The good impressions:
- the perfect location, in a nice district, next to a street with shops and restaurants, and a shopping centre called Whiteleys.
- max 6 minutes to central line and Hyde Park and 5 minutes to circle and district lines (fast walking)
- free internet with good speed
- seemed to be well furnished: 2 TVs, dvd, hi-fi, hair-drier, iron with ironing-board, safe, a reading lamp, kettle, toaster (I haven’t tried everything, but I definitely liked the hair-drier)
- 4 nescafe and 4 tea bags , with some sugar and milk (be aware, will not be restocked during your stay)
- the furniture seemed new and were looking nice (not the upholstered furniture though)
- comfortable beds, including the sofa-bed
- spacious apartment
My verdict for this room is 1 star out of 5, because cleanliness and quietness combined with comfort are the most important for my pleasant stay!
Concerning our second room – 316, like 3 for 3rd floor.
After understanding that we need to stay for 2 more nights, I called the receptionist in the afternoon to tell him that on the next day we were supposed to leave, but that we wanted to extend our stay. He explained that doing this by phone will take time, and it will be better to do it later when we arrive in the hotel. I didn’t like the idea, since the hotel was overbooked few days ago… But I didn’t have a choice. When we arrived later, the guy at the reception told us he can’t extend our stay (obviously, he was more a security guy than a receptionist), and that we needed to wait for the “real” receptionist till next morning. On that morning we spoke with the receptionist and asked to stay in the same room. We were so displeased by the first room that we didn’t want to change it. Sounds strange, but we really didn’t want to see other people’s snivels… The idea of going in another room in Grand Plaza that might not be cleaned properly was just terrifying. Unfortunately, the receptionist told us that we need to leave this ground-floor room, because it is already booked. This sounded strange, because we were already in that room, and there were 2 other free rooms of that type on the 2nd and 3rd floors, but it wasn’t that tough decision to take, since there were civilian works about to begin on the road just outside the “not in use” door in the second room of the apartment. We were advised to take room 316 and so we did.
The bad impressions were:
- TOO small double bed. I wouldn’t even call it a double bed! One of its sides was next to the wall, and I actually flesh-wounded my elbow the 2nd night!
- The rooms were much smaller
The good impressions:
- Cleaner
- Quieter, the room was looking towards the court, and not the streets
- Newer, the apartment was preserved compared the G17 one.
- the table in the sofa-bed room was more stable, than the one in G17.
- Brighter, much more light coming from the windows
- The shower was from the same type, but in much better shape
- And I think the maid cleaned more often…
To sum it up, my verdict is 3.5 out of 5 start. I take 1.5 stars for the small bed that deprived me of few hours of sleep during the first night, and for my elbow injury!
Final verdict will be 2 or 2.5 stars at best. This place doesn’t merit the average.
I will give you some tips for choosing a better room:
- Require a NON GROUND FLOOR room at all costs! There were 30+ rooms on the ground-floor, from which more than half were looking toward the street, and there were at least 3, 4 rooms with “door not in use” on the street side.
- Require a room with an EVEN number. Rooms with odd numbers are looking toward the street, and on the ground floor this is equal to sleepless nights.
- Do you remember when I wrote that the receptionist told us that room G17 is booked and we cannot extend our stay and stay there. Although there were 2 other and free rooms of the same type, the receptionist requested us to leave G17. I doubt someone has reserved that room on purpose. I think Grand Plaza reserves the worst of their rooms for people who have made reservations through low cost websites, or websites as a whole. Maybe this is a common practice… just keep in mind that possibility when booking through booking.com.
- You want a double bed for you and your girlfriend? Check the size of the bed carefully!
- Cancel the reservation if they don’t tell you the number of the room before going there, or aren’t enough convincing with the double bed’s size.