Hotel Hyde Park Premier London Paddington - London

Disgusting, filthy bathroom, wallpaper coming off walls, small room, unwelcoming staff, safe didn't work. Avoid.

I have stayed in many hotels in europe and understand that room sizes there are usually smaller than in the U.S. That said, I was dismayed at the fact that the furniture did not even fit into the room I was given. The chair and desk were jammed against the bed so that you could not pull out the chair to sit. The night stand blocked the closet door so that you could not use one side unless you actually moved the night stand into the bathroom. There was a heat wave and I was given a portable a/c that I had to manuever into my room (as I was told it was left at the door when I inquired about it) It weighed 70 lbs at least. I had to hang an outlet tube w/a diameter of about 5 inches out of the window and it was very loud. The a/c was too large to sit on the floor space between the bed and window so I had to put it on top of the desk. No easy task! I am extremely easy to please but this was too much especially since I could not close the window and there was construction across the street. Also, I picked this hotel because it offered high speed internet and a fitness center. The internet was not working and the fitness center did not exist. The last insult was standing in line to check in only to hear the walk in couple ahead of me being offered a rate half of what I paid. Especially as I had talked my husband into paying a bit more than we usally do as it was a nice hotel with (I thought) many amenities. I should say that the room was very clean and modern and there was a lovely flat screen tv, it was just impractical to actually have to stay in. I shortened my stay there to 2 days from the original 5 I had planned.

We were angry. When we arrived there was a disagreement about the cost of breakfast that was described by Venere........the breakfast deal that we tried to claim upon arrival did not exist it seemed. When my husband objected and showed the concierge the Venere booking sheet, it caused a flurry of phone calls and call backs to actually get the breakfast price we were expecting...but the breakfast itself had limited choice and was poorly cooked. The hotel looks fine from the outside - inside it was dirty and cramped, as was our room. The hallways were so narrow (only wide enough for one person really) that I found myself wondering about my safety in the event of fire. Fire seemed a good possibility - in our room there was a small refrigerator that was not plugged in when we arrived...since we needed it, we plugged it in and the fridge started to throw off heat like a radiator.......It occured to me that the place should be inspected for code violations. In addition, the electric heated towel rack was wired into the wall so it could not be turned off, resulting in burns for the unwary...but the bathroom was so small and the towel rack so poorly placed that it was impossible to do anything at the sink without coming into contact with the towel rack. The lift was very small, but worse, it didn't seem to be very safe....it shuddered and shook, making one wonder if it was going to plunge to the bottom of the shaft. There was no remote control for the television in our room....although after complaining one was conjured up from somewhere...but was taken away the next day. The lock-box for our valuables did not lock, so our passports had to be left at the front desk.The hotel attempted to charge five times more for a phone call than was described in the price sheet that was in the room. When we complained,they offered to cut the price in half! Half of five is still two and a half - so we had to argue further to get the price that was actually quoted on the charge sheet

I was told upon arrival that the air conditioning wasn't working due to "permits" that they were waiting to obtain. They offered me a fan but there was one already in the room. The rooms need to be at least a foot wider around the bed becauase I wasn't able to get to the fan or the desk without either climbing on the bed or lifting my leg up over the corner of the bed to access the fan. I would probably stay here again providing their air conditioning was in working order.

The hotel is clean, and appears recently renovated. If a small room is fine, then this hotel has excellent location (a short walk from Paddington Station and Hyde Park), good restaurants nearby. The value was good for London.

The hotel room that we got was worlds apart from the photographs on the website. It was drab, dark and the carpet was filthy. The only reason that we did not complain at the time was because I had just completed the London Marathon and hadn't got the energy. I am sorry now that I did not take some photo's to send to Venere.

This is a hotel with a lot of potential and terrible execution. To begin, the price was very fair at 52 Pounds. HOWEVER, the pictures on the VENERE site ARE NOT of this hotel. Just look at the outside when you get there; it's a different building. We checked in fine, but the lift was broken and we had to walk to our 5th floor room with heavy bags. It gets worse.... When we got to our room we found a beautifully appointed space with a nice bed and flat panel TV, HOWEVER, the door hit the bed when you walked in because the room was as small as a SHOE BOX! There was no space to put bags and when you put them on the floor, there was no space to walk, NONE. Things got worse when the air conditioning wouldn't work. I called for assistence and none came. Then I went downstairs and was told that they couldn't fix the A/C, but they would give me a portable one. I said okay, we'll be out for a while, can you please provide the A/C unit? I was told that they would. When I arrived back at 23:00, I found a large floor standing unit outside my door. I then had to lift this HUGE thing up and into the room. Then I had to set up the hoses that fed exhaust out the window and finally it worked. That's far more work than I expect to do at what they call a 4 Star hotel! Otherwise, the stay was fine becaue the location is excellent and the price was fair. All in all, they have the potential to have a good hotel, but it's run VERY poorly at this point. It's a very rough operation that needs some real smoothing out and perhaps a little cleaning of the common areas.