My friend and I recently had a weekend in London and had a fantastic experience with the flight, the train and the attractions visited, unfortunately we did not have a fantastic experience at the hotel we had booked.
We booked the Majestic Hotel in South Kensington through laterooms.com. We booked it for its central location. Hotels wishing to fill their empty rooms use this company by considerably reducing their room rates. We thought we’d bagged a bargain as we reserved a twin room for two people staying one night for £50. We now know you get what you pay for.
Even when I book a 2* hotel, I still expect a certain standard, like clean, comfortable rooms and friendly, helpful staff (as advertised on the website). Maybe I expected too much from this hotel.
It’s easy enough to find, five minutes from Gloucester Road tube station along Cromwell Road. As we approached it, we noticed it had a general air of dilapidation about it enhanced by the many supermarket trolleys in its front garden area. We entered the front doors into a dark dismal reception area where we met a young woman who I assume was the receptionist.
As we had arrived earlier than check-in time we enquired if we could leave our bags while we explored. We had to ask
a few times as there appeared to be a language barrier, I know Geordies can be a bit incomprehensible but we can usually be understood. I have no idea what nationality this woman was but I do believe that you should be able to communicate effectively in the language of whichever country you are working in. She asked for our booking reference and then told us that we had booked two twin rooms for one night. We realised that Laterooms had sent the booking through twice. She insisted that both rooms were to be paid for, but upon our insistence went to check with the reservations manager (who seemingly couldn’t be bothered to talk to us himself). Eventually she returned and said that he’d said both rooms would have to be paid for. Unfortunately they had my friends credit card number as she had to give it to Laterooms to secure our booking so we felt like we had no choice but to agree to pay for both rooms, but only use one and try to claim back through the booking service.
We left our bags and went out for the rest of the day determined not to let this minor hiccup spoil our stay. Upon returning to the hotel there was a different member of staff behind reception, we assumed he worked there but on reflection he may have just escaped from somewhere and have been pretending to be in the customer service industry. We asked for our baggage and to check-in. He said “So”, and “Why?” Again we encountered the language problem, he did not understand us, and we certainly did not understand him. His attitude stunk. Eventually he threw a registration form across the desk at us, which we assumed we had to fill in. By this time we were tired and hungry we’d been up since four that morning and all we wanted to do was have a bit of a lie down in our room to recharge our batteries before going out on the razzle. Our slightly raised voices attracted the attention of another clerk who took over. Luckily his English was reasonable and he could understand us. We explained the situation saying we were here to check-in and collect our bags, we also explained again about the mix-op of the double booking. We asked if we could pay by credit card for the room we didn’t want and by cash for the one we were going to stay in so that we had documentary evidence with which to claim against Laterooms. This was no problem he said but could not issue us with a receipt for the cash transaction until the morning. He couldn’t explain why. We took his name and also the name of the reservations manager. We gave up and went upstairs to see our room.
We wished we hadn’t. The room we were allocated was directly opposite the very noisy lift and as we entered we were hit by a musty, unaired smell. The very compact room contained two beds, a table and a stool along with a portable TV and an ancient telephone. According to the Laterooms website (which had pictures) the rooms are clean and comfortable, ideal for the budget conscious traveller. I have never yet been to a hotel that does not have basic tea/coffee making facilities. The photo on the website shows a bright airy looking room with flowers on the table, I would like to know where that was cos it certainly wasn’t in our hotel. I stripped the bed to check the mattresses but luckily it wasn’t stained (I had to check) and the bedding was freshly laundered. We did find an ancient chocolate button underneath the table, which I thought was a nice touch and what looked like slug trails on the carpet, ugh! Even in the most basic rooms I have stayed in there are usually leaflets about the hotel, its facilities and surrounding areas. I found only the fire regulation notice. We felt that no effort had been made at all for the comfort of guests.
Worse still, we found that the balcony door did not close properly and had two tiny bolts to keep out intruders and the balcony ran the full length of the front of the hotel. The bathroom contained a bath and shower but looked grotty, the hairdryer in there, was one of those ancient hose type contraptions which frazzled my friends hair and gave her very attractive split ends. The tumblers in the bathroom were stuck fast to the basin unit; we decided not to use them.
By this time hysteria had set in and we decided to make the best of it, after all it was only for one night. We went out for dinner and thought we’d have a drink in the hotel bar before retiring for the night. It was shut, in fact I’d never seen it open while we were there, so we popped across the road to the Marriot and treated ourselves to swanky cocktails (eight quid each!!).
On the way back we popped into Sainsburys and bought air fresheners for our room, as we couldn’t leave the balcony doors open. At least it now smelled better. We slept with the flimsy stool against the door and our bags up against the balcony doors to feel a bit more secure.
Breakfast the next morning was ok, if you like watered down orange juice, dirty knives and surly staff. When I enquire about things like if we were to just help ourselves or whatever I don’t expect to be met with a shrug and a sneer. We had our breakfast as early as possible so that we could escape. We were packed and ready to go by 9am (very early for us).
As we got to reception we noticed the guests in front were complaining about their rooms and were being met with shakes of the head and shrugs of the shoulders by the receptionist. No guests looked happy in the entire hotel. We told the receptionist that we wished to check-out and wanted out receipt for the cash transaction. He tried to charge us again. We were fully expecting this and told him in no uncertain terms that not only had we already paid but we paid twice and no way were we paying a third time. He eventually gave us our receipt. We were glad to leave.
Upon arrival home, my friend contacted Laterooms who are giving her a full refund and as a result of our complaint (amongst others) against the hotel are deleting it of their website. They were fully apologetic and said that the hotel should have checked the reservations and queried the double entry.
I felt that a little part of my weekend was spoilt by my experiences at the Majestic, I know and accept that you get what you pay for facility wise, but in the hotel industry customer service should be paramount, it costs nothing for common courtesy and good manners, both of which were sadly lacking at the Majestic.
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Situations like this really really annoy me. Hotel staff whether budget or not are there to provide a welcoming service.I agree 100% about the language barrier too. I wouldnt have agreed to pay for the second room as it was not your mistake and they couldnt take the payment without a signature. Susy
tekin21 31.05.2005 18:01
Sounds wonderful, must book myself into this hotel straight away.......NOT!! At least you had a good weekend despite the cack hotel. Jane x
DebzJ 06.04.2004 21:56
Urgh sounds disgusting. We stayed in a grotty BnB once that had hairs in the soap, a filthy carpet and the "cooked" breakfast was just warm. we described it as grim. great op anyway pity your stay wasn't so good. debz x
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