10 Manchester Street, London

...In this review of the 10 Manchester Street Hotel therefore the quality of the facilities is important but even more so is the way in which this hotel is marketed. If you position yourself in the market at a certain level, you have to offer the facilities AND service which go with your position.

The hotel is conveniently located on a quietish side-street off Marylebone High Street, an area of London which I am growing ever more fond ...
...major access points into London although the nearest tube station is probably Bond Street - a ten-minute walk away. Other places of interest in the area include the Wallace Collection (one of London's best and yet most underrated art galleries) at Manchester Square and the bohemian café and shopping culture concentrated around St. Christopher's Place. It is very convenient for Oxford Street, Hyde Park and tourists going to Madame Tussaud's on Baker ... more

There is nothing more important in how you enjoy (or otherwise) a stay in a hotel than how the product meets your expectations. There is so much marketing and advertising that there is no excuse for turning up at a pumpkin which poses as a carriage...unless the carriage has cleverly pretended to be a carriage all along.

In this review of the 10 Manchester Street Hotel therefore the quality of the facilities is important but even more so is the way in which this hotel is marketed. If you position yourself in the market at a certain level, you have to offer the facilities AND service which go with your position.

The hotel is conveniently located on a quietish side-street off Marylebone High Street, an area of London which I am growing ever more fond of. It is a short taxi-ride away from all the major access points into London although the nearest tube station is probably Bond Street - a ten-minute walk away. Other places of interest in the area include the Wallace Collection (one of London's best and yet most underrated art galleries) at Manchester Square and the bohemian café and shopping culture concentrated around St. Christopher's Place. It is very convenient for Oxford Street, Hyde Park and tourists going to Madame Tussaud's on Baker Street.

Upon arriving at the hotel it is clear the exterior of the building, although built in an elegant Edwardian style, is not quite in the pristine condition that the photographs in the hotel's own advertising brochure might induce you to believe.

You have to lug your luggage up several steps, might be tricky for older or feebler persons than myself, and of course you cannot expect any bellboy or concierge in this type of outfit. First minus point after that is check-in time. Here, it is 15.00, with check-out time at 11.00. You can leave luggage in their baggage room but be warned, you do not receive any tag to identify your piece of luggage so anyone could take it by mistake if not wilfully.
The receptionist is located within a discrete room and faces you from a window - a bit like a hospital or one of those old Hollywood crime-ridden precinct police stations - and is very impersonal indeed. Once given your key you can go up to your floor in a rather rickety old lift - one of those in which the lift does not respond unless you press it after all the doors have closed laboriously. The decor is old-fashioned, somewhere between a guest house and a hotel, the carpet in the corridors is newish and there are rather interesting prints on all the walls on the stairs and corridors.

And so, after struggling with fire-doors and wheel-resistant carpets…. to the room. Abandon hope all ye who enter within. Yes, I'm afraid so. The room is small and finds it difficult to fit in all the ragged furniture within. The double bed is small, and space does not permit two bedside tables or lamps. An ancient wooden wardrobe (cupboard?) dreams of better days and a small television offers you a choice of the five terrestrial channels - the satellite television offered in the hotel's advertising has mysteriously disappeared. There are tea and coffee-making facilities, always welcome and a telephone which can be used if you leave credit card details. The ubiquitous and never-used trouser press is of course standing on the wall opposite your bed ready to give you a knock when you least expect it. Also one of these old sideboards, where the kettle and tv are resting, with drawers no-one ever uses. The mini-bar fridge tempts you with an unrestricted selection of stale air.

Although the room did not strike me as particularly dirty the curtains and the windows were pretty filthy. Yes, I know London traffic generates a lot of grime but that is no excuse not to clean it! Whilst the bathroom was of a more acceptable size some of its furnishings were badly in need of replacement.

The hi-fi player in every room advertised in the hotel's brochure and on lastminute.com is nowhere to be seen in this room. The air-conditioning consisted of an antiquated fan. It was late September and I kept the window open through the day, in summer the temperature is probably uncomfortable to unbearable. There was no "Do Not Disturb" sign in the room and my impression was that few (if any) of the staff had a good command of English. Beware, late-sleepers.

The killer though was the mattress. Oh should I say the random collection of covered springs which eagerly await to make your slumber a misery. No hotel should be allowed to have a mattress such as this, there should be legislation against it. For me this is a golden rule and my reasoning is simple; without a good night's sleep you cannot enjoy anything to the full, without a good mattress you cannot enjoy a good night's sleep and you have paid the hotel for, and should be entitled to, adequate sleeping facilities. I don't care if it is a budget hotel or the Ritz, they can trim costs on other facilities but bad sleep leads to ill health and no hotelier is entitled to have an adverse effect on your health.

Amongst the other facilities which the hotel claims to have are a lounge for residents with free tea and coffee, newspapers and internet access. Unfortunately the receptionist never informed me about these so I did not use them.

The most bewildering thing is how many stars has this hotel actually got? On Ciao it has 2 stars, on lastminute.com, which I used, the hotel has 3 stars… the guide to Best Loved Hotels (I kid you not!) in which this hotel mysteriously finds itself in gives it 4!!!

I ended up with the feeling that this was a hotel which had seen better days. Frankly it would not require much investment to make this into a decent 3 or 4 star hotel - but I get the feeling the hotel is heading in the opposite direction. Internet prices are such that you stay normally stay in a good 4 star hotel for what I paid here

I paid £79 for this and can tell you would not go back. Had I paid the full published rate of £175 I would have caused a scene the likes of which Shakespeare would have been proud of. It is a scandal anyone should expect to pay these prices for this product. Avoid like the plague. 

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