"On the plus side, the Bedford is well-located: 2 nearby tube stations and lots of buses, close to the British Museum and lovely squares (Russell, Bloomsbury), a reasonable walk to West End theaters, plenty of restaurants, coffee shops and stores.
On the minus side: no air conditioning except in the lobby. (London is still in denial despite decades with heat waves in summer; hotels with A/C are still a small minority.) The rooms are small. We don't know how small the majority of the rooms are but we were given Room 212. Do _NOT_ allow them to give you this room. From the outside, you'll see that most rooms have a pair of angled double windows: 4 bay-style casements behind flat windows, The little rooms at the ends of the halls, like 212, only have a pair of flat casements behind one flat window with a stationary side and a slider side. When you arrive, the casements are tethered so they only open a few inches. If you ask at the desk, they send someone up - not right away but eventually, after you ask a second time - with the key to unlock the tether. There is also an anemic small fan on the desk but that location is too far from the window to help air circulation. You can move the fan on its short cord to the single outlet for the flat panel TV. It's by the window. We preferred to get some air and could live without the TV. Somehow, though, even with the fan on high and rotating, the air is stagnant and the cool-off in the evenings does not bring the room's temperature down or alleviate the stuffiness.
For light sleepers, another reason to avoid Room 212 is that - unlike any other room in the hotel - there's a lamppost right outside the window whose light shines into the room all night. Yes, the room has blackout curtains but if you close them then you get no air. We opted for air and the lamppost light.
Size of room: the queen bed is about 13 inches from the opposite wall, less at the floor because of the molding. You learn to sidle slowly past to get to the fridge, window and cupboard. The bathtub is high: short people may find it a healthy stretch to get in and out. There's a nice handheld for the shower but when we arrived it was pointed at the ceiling. Fixable but ... why?
There is a good cupboard, one side for closet and one with cubbies. The closet has those 20th-century anti-theft hangers: they don't ride on a rail like normal hangers, they have a sort of nail instead that fits into a little catch on a loop that rides on the rail. Room 212 has a good number of loops but 4 less hangers than loops. The good news is that when we asked for more hangers we got regular hangers. (Well, good for tops and dresses but not all have a cross-piece for pants.) Exactly one hanger, an anti-theft one, had spring clips for skirts/pants.
The people at the desk are pleasant and generally competent. They were unable, however, to change our room. We asked after two nights - got a No - and again the next day. Then we were told that the hotel was full but would 'open up' in two days and to come back then. When we did, however, there was nothing, although they siad there'd been one room the day before. (Apparently it was impossible to call us to offer the option of that room?) We understand that our stay was for 10 days, and nobody asked if we'd mind having to move more than once. We wouldn't have minded, just to have a room that was big enough for two people and had adequate ventilation, like the vast majority of rooms.
I am posting this with 5 more nights here. Maybe we will get lucky and be able to leave Room 212 before our last night."
