"Very disappointing stay – unacceptable conditions and lack of transparency
Our stay at this hotel was extremely disappointing and ultimately ruined our trip.
On arrival, we were not provided with a map or any useful orientation information (despite noticing a few days later other guest on arrival receiving this). More importantly, we were given no warning whatsoever that major building works were taking place during our stay. We arrived on Sunday 29th March, and at that time there was no visible work happening, so we had no indication of what was to come.
The issues began immediately. The bar was not open or ready when we arrived at 12:00, despite signage stating it should open at 10:00, and it did not appear to be fully operational. After checking into our room at 14:00, we attempted to rest after a long day of travelling, but were repeatedly woken by the in-room telephone loudly activating and playing a tune on its own (we had no idea at the time of the cause of this).
The room itself was freezing cold, with heating that only blew cold air.
That evening, upon returning to the hotel, we found the lifts were not working and had to walk multiple flights of stairs—this was particularly difficult due to my disabilities. Overnight, the situation worsened significantly. There were repeated power cuts throughout the night, each time triggering the phone to turn on and blast the loud tune (same one from earlier in the day), waking us repeatedly. The corridors were left in complete darkness during these outages, which felt unsafe. I also rely on a CPAP sleep apnea machine for sleeping, and the power cuts caused me to wake up choking several times.
After an already sleepless night, we were woken again around 7:00am by builders setting up, followed by loud drilling and banging directly above our room from 7:30am onwards—it sounded as though they were coming through the ceiling.
We reported all of this to reception, including the heating failure, noise, power cuts, lift issues, and my medical needs. The staff appeared surprised about the building works and even asked if we had been informed, which we had not—neither by the hotel nor the booking provider, BA.
Despite being told the manager would follow up, we heard nothing. The next morning, the same early noise disruption occurred. When we spoke to staff again, the manager eventually attended, again appearing surprised about the location of the works. He offered a heater but provided no real explanation about the power cuts, simply stating “it’s sorted.”
The heater provided was a very small electric fan heater, completely inadequate for the size and temperature of the room. Later, we were given a cheap bottle of wine as an apology, which was inappropriate as we do not drink wine and did nothing to compensate for the ongoing issues.
We later discovered that the entire floor above us—and rooms adjacent to ours—were undergoing renovation. This meant we were surrounded by building works. Meanwhile, newer renovated floors in the hotel were clearly available and looked significantly better, yet we were placed in an outdated room despite paying the same rate. We have since seen reviews from other guests stating they received welcome hampers due to the building work, which we were not informed about the building works and nor were we offered hampers for any building works.
To add to this, a newly completed bar area only became visible on our final evening, having previously been hidden behind curtains concealing the ongoing work near reception.
Overall, the lack of transparency, poor room conditions, constant disruptions, and inadequate response from staff made it impossible to relax or enjoy our stay. As someone with disabilities, access (lifts), rest, and basic comfort are essential, and all of these were compromised.
This experience left us more exhausted than when we arrived and completely impacted our enjoyment of our trip. This is not an acceptable standard for any hotel, and certainly not for one charging full rates during major refurbishment works."
