When I went to London last summer with my English class, our teacher chose the Shakespeare hotel for our stay. As there wasn't enough room for all, some of our group stayed at the Dolphin hotel next door, but I was one of those who were fortunate (?) enough to stay at the Shakespeare hotel.
Hotel in general
The Shakespeare hotel is located very central at Norfolksquare, north of the Hyde Park and 2 minutes away from the Paddington station. There are plenty of restaurants, bars and supermarkets nearby, but we didn't try any of them except for the coffee shop where we used to get our breakfast. It is located in a very quiet tree lined street and there is a small park directly outside the hotel which makes it look even more peaceful.
From outside the hotel looks really beautiful and exclusive and when I first saw it I was stunned and could hardly believe that we would be staying here for the next few days. From inside however, you soon notice that it is really old and that it hasn't been renovated for quite some time. But still I really liked the way the house was built, because it created a cosy atmosphere.
In the basement there was a luggage room, where we had to deposit our suitcases as unfortunately our rooms weren't ready for occupancy until the late afternoon.
To date I don't know how we managed to get our suitcases up to our room, as the stairs were
very steep, narrow and sometimes the wood steps were even slippery, because the carpet was worn - definitely not handicapped accessible! Furthermore, the staircases and corridors were very confusing and it took us some time until we finally found the way to our room at first go.
On the ground floor there are two lounges for the residents of the Shakespeare hotel. The first one is a beautiful room in Victorian style where you can sit on comfortable leather couches in front of a fireplace. The only thing that slightly disturbs the peace here is the fact that the reception is in the same room so people come and go all the time. The other lounge is just on the other side of the corridor and more modern - here you will find vending machines and access to the internet (with costs, though I don't know how much as we didn't use it). On the website it says that it is a smoker's lounge, but when we stayed there nobody was allowed to smoke anywhere in the hotel.
The personnel was really friendly and nice, but sometimes I had the feeling that they had problems understanding our English (and I'm sure it wasn't that bad! ;-) ). When we came home late and were too noisy the receptionist came outside and told us to either be quiet or go to the park over the street (where we officially weren't allowed to be after 23.00 either, but I guess she preferred us being outside instead of in our rooms and waking the other hotel residents).
Reception
The staff at the reception was quite friendly, even at a late hour. The reception is manned 24 hours a day, which was really convenient for us, as we never arrived at the hotel before midnight. When leaving the hotel you had to go to the reception and exchange your key with a card (actually, it was a piece of laminate cardboard with the hotel's logo on it) and you had to pay a fine in case of its loss - I don't remember exactly, but I think it was something around £15. One thing that really bothered us was the fact that you only got one card for each room. As we were a large group and of course you didn't always stick to your room mates, it could be really annoying if you weren't the one that was in possession of the card: going to the reception and asking whether the key is there or not (as of course you didn't want to run up the stairs, see if there is someone in your room just to find the door locked, run downstairs again and try to persuade the person at the reception to get the key) - and even if it isn't, who says that your room mates didn't decide to drop by for a visit to someone else's room?! It was only on the last day that we found out that you could get the key in return for your identity card - if only they had told us earlier, we would have saved ourselves the effort of running up- and downstairs endless times.
Breakfast
We stayed at the hotel for three nights and we only went to breakfast on the first day and substituted it for a coffee to go and a croissant from a coffee shop nearby the other two days. Although we had suspected beforehand that the breakfast wouldn't be anything great, we nevertheless were disappointed. There was a small table (which supposedly was the "buffet") with tea, coffee (you couldn't tell which was which by just looking at it, so we didn't even try it), orange juice that tasted like water and cocoa. The range of food was also disappointing: there were cornflakes and milk, toast & dry white bread and some orange marmalade and butter. No cheese or anything like that. I know that it isn't a luxury hotel, but as breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day and mostly city travellers stayed here, who would be on their feet for the rest of the day and for who a decent breakfast would have meant a better start in the day, we expected a bit more. What particularly irritated us was the fact that the breakfast in the room next door seemed a lot better, they even had scrambled and fried eggs there. I don't know which guests were allowed to eat there (probably the residents of the single and double rooms and not the youth groups) - we weren't.
Rooms
There are different kinds of rooms in the Shakespeare hotel: from single rooms (with shared bathroom or ensuite) to 5 bedded rooms with bathroom inside. We stayed in a 5 bedded room and payed around £ 25 per night and person, which really isn't much, but to be honest - I'm glad I didn't have to stay in there for more than one hour a day. The room was about 12 square metres and it was crammed with two bunk beds and one single bed. Between the beds there was hardly enough room to stand, let alone move or turn around and we had to place our suitcases under the beds because there was nowhere else to put them - not very convenient, especially because the wardrobe was not big enough for all of our stuff, so some of them had to keep their clothes in their suitcases. On the wall opposite the door there was a fireside with a mantelpiece above it - apart from a small-sized table the only place where we could deposit our things.
The bedclothes were clean, but the beds were a bit uncomfortable and some sagged in the middle, which might not be a problem for young people but is definitely not recommendable for elderly people or someone with back troubles. I don't know, of course, how the beds are in the other room types - I'm only writing about the 5 bedded rooms here, where probably mostly student groups are accommodated!
The bathroom was inside the room and reminded me of a bathroom I once had within my cabin when I was travelling to Greece by ferry. It wasn't flagged but had PVC flooring and was very narrow, but clean. It was difficult to control the temperature in the shower and after two or three of us had had a shower, the water wouldn't go back to normal, it either stayed boiling hot or ice cold - we had to wait for about 20 minutes before the next one could take a shower without either burning herself or freezing to death. Although we only stayed for three nights, we got fresh towels every day.
Above the mantelpiece there was a big mirror, which certainly was a good idea, but unfortunately there was very little space in front of it so that once again you could hardly turn around. And now imagine five girls who are making themselves ready for a night out - we were constantly stepping on each other's toes.
Unfortunately we could not open the window completely so that airing the room was nearly impossible. With normal British weather ( ;-) ) that may not be a problem, but as it was very hot during our stay and the room heated up during the day it was quite annoying and unpleasant.
Conclusion
Overall I would recommend the Shakespeare hotel either to city travellers who come to London for sightseeing (the connection to the public transport really is great) and who are looking for a cheap accommodation where they can sleep and not for a room where they can spend their time relaxing or to families and smaller groups, as the single and double bed rooms looked quite nice (judging from what we saw through a open door when they were being cleaned).
Pictures of Shakespeare Hotel, London
Hotel front
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
It looks very nice ~ too bad about the stairs ~ l wonder what the difference in price would be for the customers 'allowed the cooked breakfast' next door
. . . . . . ♥ . jesi . ♥
newbee123 25.09.2008 15:04
Nice stuff, I really enjoyed!
shanediablo 22.09.2008 14:38
Sounds really cheap but not great quality. Exceptional review x
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exceptional by (23%):
very helpful by (78%):
