Days Inn London Westminster, London > Reviews > Better Out, Than Inn

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Average
Quality of Rooms	Average
Standard of Service	Average
Quality of Food & Drink	Average
Cleanliness	Terrible

Advantages:	Very trying staff
Disadvantages:	Awkward location and difficult to navigate building .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Please Note: This review is on the facilities of the Hotel as a conference venue and not as a place to stay, of course you can stay there but I never.

The Days Inn, Westminster consists of what originally used to be three hotels. Days Inn Hotels usually consist of large purpose built accommodation, however here was not the case and the chain appear to have settled for what they could get rather than what was needed. As a result The Days Inn, Westminster seems rather cheap, badly functioning and incredibly dingy.

The Days Inn, Westminster is located approximately 10 minutes away from Victoria Train Station. The first criticism of this hotel is the information which they pass on to the client. In respect of how to reach the hotel they inform you that you leave the Tube station and emerge on Vauxhall Bridge Road, this is not the case you actually emerge from the main line train station onto this road. But if you leave the tube station you actually arrive on Buckingham Palace Road, or Belgrave Road. My advice on locating the hotel on foot would be to head in the direction of the Victoria shopping centre then turn right from the main entrance onto Belgrave road. After a 10 minute walk you'll find The Days Inn on the opposite side of the road. Of the 20 people attending the same course as myself 19 used the hotels directions and got lost, the 20th member was actually aware of the location of the hotel and stated that had they used the hotels directions they too would be lost.

As I arrived at the hotel lobby, I was immediately thrown into a sketch from the BBC series Fawlty Towers; I could not for the life of me get the lady behind the counter to understand the following "Hello I'm here to attend a meeting held by 3", instead she not once but on four occasions tried to book me into the hotel. As I later discovered there is not one member of staff at The Days Inn that speaks English as a first language.

The reception area was very small in fact the size of an average living room. In this room were a total of 6 different types of vending machine. And internet ready computer which you can use the cost of which was £1 for 5 minutes, an ice machine, and of course the reception desk.

When I was ushered down to the conference facility I was immediately horrified. We were put in a room of around 30 feet in length and a width of 16 feet approximately. If the cramped conditions were not bad enough the roof of the conference room was a glass pyramid. It was the first of four very hot days in London and had the roof been flat glass things would have been bad enough, but the pyramid effect increased the temperature to an unimaginable heat. There was an air conditioning unit, but this failed to generate a desired temperature in the room. I made a joke that you're not allowed to keep a dog in a hot car, but it was ok to leave us in this room. On the positive side we were kept refreshed as bottle after bottle of squash and water were delivered to us, as was a large collection of ice buckets.

Each time a break for a drink was introduced this was met with both pleasure and dread. Although it was nice to get out of the heat the fact that the hotel used to be three hotels caused some concern. The reason for the concern is that during the day at different points areas of the hotel become closed to the public; as a result you are never quite sure which way you have to go (not good should a fire break out). On top of this you are also faced by often uncomfortably formed flights of stairs, steps in inappropriate places, bad lighting due to lack of natural light and bad placement of doors (on some occasions doors would crash into each other).

The Days Inn provides lunch for conferences which consists of a buffet. The buffet however possibly due to the diversity of the hotel staffs background everybody found it difficult to identify the contents of the food. For example a sausage roll turned out to contain lamb, and the curries contained a meat I'd not even want to hazard a guess at. Even the deserts seemed to have pitfalls, as often the chilled food would be not carefully defrosted. Having a couple of food allergies I simply opted in the end not to eat the buffet rather than asking all the other guests what's in each tray. When I asked a member of staff what was in a curry I was greeted with the reply "meat".

Another pretty disgusting thing in my opinion was the fact that the dining area (located next to the "conference room") was not cleaned at any point during the day. In the mornings the room was used as a breakfast room for guests, some of the people attending the conference found bits of food on their chairs. One of the attendees decided to set a test and threw a cocktail sausage into the corner of the room; on day four the sausage was still there.

From a location point of view the location is badly situated, you need to get a tube or a train to get to any useful part of the City. Unless of course you like walking, if you do Hyde Park and the Museums are about 30 minutes away. Don't get me wrong the area itself is quite nice, but from a tourists point of view there is nothing to see in the immediate vicinity.

One final criticism I have of the hotel is that when I requested a taxi I in fact received one of those illegal London taxis that are not recognised by London's council and as a result you would not be insured should you be involved in an accident while in the cab. When I asked for a receipt I received a receipt that was actually an order sheet from a local takeaway.

As a whole my review of The Days Inn conference facility is pretty damning I admit, however I must state that the staff do try to build a rapport with the guests; but for most the language barrier is just to big and you can see the look of rejection in the eyes of the staff when they either cannot get their point across or cannot be properly understood.

If you're considering holding a conference at this venue I would seriously reconsider, I do however hear that the rooms are maintained to a very high standard.
 

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Exterior shot