Cambridge City Rooms — Hotel in Cambridge

I have never felt the need to leave a review for anything before. No matter how great or horrible the experience. Until now.

There was a problem with the security deposit. When I clicked on the link sent to me, I was brought to a blank page. I emailed the company, & the worker I was in touch with contacted the financial team directly. I then got an email from the financial team themselves saying that the security deposit would automatically be registered to my cc & no action on my part needed to be taken. Everything seemed to be handled. It is important to note that I have this email on file. I have physical evidence from the financial team themselves saying I did NOT need to take any part in the security deposit.

Before confirming my booking, I was told to put in my time of arrival. On the website, it said the normal check in time is 3 pm. Then there was a section that offered an early check in of 11 am for an extra £30. I chose that option when securing my booking. Later that day, I received an email saying my booking was confirmed & that they were expecting me at 11. I have record of the company expecting me at 11.

Thinking everything was set, I arrived at the Cambridge City Rooms at 11 am on my check in day. When I arrived, the door was locked & no one was around. I had not received any emails from the company with check in instructions. I called the company.

The man who answered was beyond a doubt one of the rudest people I have ever had to talk to. He was snotty, aggressive, petty, & treated me like an idiot. I was kind & calm the entire time. I asked him how I was supposed to check in, as I hadn’t received any instructions. He claimed that because I hadn't secured a deposit, that I didn’t receive check in instructions. I told him that the financial team said I didn’t have to do anything for the security deposit, & that it was already taken care of. He was NOT understanding. He blamed me for the situation & treated me like a child. He said that, well, of course I didn’t get check in instructions, because I didn’t fill out the forms I was sent. But I had filled out Every. Single. One. And the deposit was secured. He would NOT listen to me when I said that. Eventually, I gave up on trying to explain my situation to him, & he said he would send me a link so I could make the deposit. So I hung up, & filled out the form.

30 minutes passed, & I didn’t get another email with check in instructions. I called the company again. This time a woman answered. If I thought the man before was immature & mean, well, this lady just lifted the bar even higher. Throughout our entire conversation, she talked to me like I was an imbecile. She was mean, harsh, & haughty. I can’t even begin to describe how awful she was. She claimed that nowhere on the website was there an option to check in at 11. Normally I would be ok with a misunderstanding, but she was unbelievably mean. Even when I calmly explained that I had an email confirming my 11 am check in time. Still, she yelled at me for trying to check in before 3. I was so upset with her that I had to hang up the phone. I didn’t come back to the apartments until 3:30.

I felt like s**t after talking to both her & the man, & by the end of the conversation, I was sobbing.

I am 19 years old, & no one has ever treated me this way before. They both were so horrible to me, when I was so nice to them. They blamed me for everything that was wrong, when I have physical evidence that I was right on both accounts. I have no idea what caused these misunderstandings, or why the customer service was so nasty.

An hour later, I received an email with check in instructions, & I was able to get into my room by 4. My stay there was good after the check in fiasco. The rooms are amazing for this price & location. But I definitely would not recommend ever trying to get help from this company. You will just hate yourself & your time in Cambridge after talking to these people....

I have never been more unsatisfied with an accommodation in all my life. I am not accustomed to leaving bad reviews – I am easy to please and I have only ever posted one negative review of a hotel or guesthouse before but I have to make an exception in this case. The way they treat guests here is disgraceful. ||||I paid in advance in full the agreed price for a one-night stay but when I arrived I found I was unable to gain entry without the key which is accessible only by entering a code. However they refuse to inform you of this code unless you phone them (at a number they don't inform you of in advance - I had to obtain this number off a fellow guest who had the same issues when checking in that I had). Worse still, when you phone them, they refuse to tell you the code unless you consent to pay an ADDITIONAL £100 (that I had not been informed about in advance) as some sort of "insurance fee". They then request you to send them your name by SMS and at this point despite my assurances that I was not informed in advance about this £100 extra charge (which they say is refundable) they refused to believe that I had not been told about it in advance, implying that I was not telling the truth, which I resented as I knew that on the contrary I was telling the truth and furthermore I had encountered another guest who had had an identical experience to me the night before, and he also had been told nothing in advance about the room key and code being withheld unless you pay this extra £100. They DID NOT email me or notify me in any other way, and as you will see from many other reviews left online by disgruntled guests, I am far from being the only one.||||Also, as other guests who have left reviews have pointed out, there is NO representative on the premises to ask or deal with. This is a dereliction of duty, clearly motived by the same cost-cutting, financially-motived measures as their other decisions, at the expense of their guests safety and wellbeing.||||I was exhausted after travelling for 24 hours straight, and by now it was midnight, so I agreed to their demand for more money in order to be allowed to finally go to my room - the room I had paid for in advance remember. I asked if I could pay the additional £100 fee in the morning, and they refused, they insisted it be paid in full before I went to bed. It ended up taking me until 2am in the morning to arrange the payment, with a very complicated system which involved having to exchange SMS messages back and forth with a member of staff and requesting all manner of codes which was a huge hassle in the state I was in. However, I paid their additional fee and thought that was the end of it and that I might be allowed to finally have some peace for the few hours I would be staying there. Which made it all the more annoying that the following morning, a member of staff came to my room and banged on the door at 11.00am on the dot - checkout time was 11am but I thought they might have waited even 2 minutes before resorting to such a measure. ||||Also, there were teabags, coffee sachets and sugar in my room - but no milk, no spoon and no mug or cup. From the other reviews I have read, this has been also highlighted by other guests.||||To summarise, I did not feel in any way that I was welcome there, they made me feel like I was completely unwelcome and that I was only there to be exploited. I will never stay here again, and would urge anyone considering to stay there to think again, as you'll regret it. My experience here was not even the worse - I was one of the lucky ones, as others (such as the other reviewer here) did not even get to stay in the room they had booked at all.||||I was left so disgusted at my experience here that I have taken the unprecedented step of leaving a 1-star review, which is 1 star more than I want to leave, so unhappy was I at my overall stay, but this site won't allow me to leave a...

Where to even start? Firstly, I was not sent any booking confirmation upon paying for the room on their website. I had to chase them firstly for a receipt, and then twice for check in info. I was told they don't send it until you've paid the deposit, which I'd tried to pay when I first booked the room but apparently it didn't go through because they don't take it or give you any information until the day you're due to stay. They didn't even give me the address until after I'd chased them for it, the night before.

I received the check in info as late as possible on the day I arrived, in almost unreadably tiny font in an email. The info provided neglected to mention where in the building the studio actually was, so I wasted time looking around the inside of the main building trying to find it. When I tried to phone the customer service number given in the check in info, the line hung up on me before I got through to someone. All of this was stressful and wasted my time, which made me late for my dinner. The check out info was similarly only provided on the morning we were leaving, even though this really should have come the night before or at the start of your stay with the check in info. An altogether needlessly poor and confusing process.

And this isn't even mentioning the state of the room yet. The room smelt because of the kitchenette sink, which was unclean. The heating didn't work because the remote control was broken, so it wouldn't turn on. The sink in the bathroom didn't drain properly and there was no hot water in the shower. The sink was also too small and too close to the toilet, making the bathroom incredibly poky and cramped. No hand soap was provided. The blinds were hard to work and let a lot of light through. There was only one bedside table even though there was easily enough space for two. The mattress was super uncomfortable - it sank in the middle, so had no back support and was incredibly lumpy and full of springs, so we both spent the entire weekend feeling very sore and unrested. All in all, the room was so grim, we put off going back to it at the end of the day and genuinely considered trying to find somewhere else to stay for the second night.

The location was literally the only decent thing about it, along with the fact that the main house had a shared kitchen and living room area where we were able to chill for an hour to put off having to go back to the room. I genuinely considered sleeping on the sofa.

I'm giving it 1 star purely for the location (& also because Google won't let me give it 0 stars). Ultimately we felt ripped off and regretted choosing to stay there. Avoid at all costs and pay more for...