Roomsbooked Ltd — Hotel in Cheltenham

I truly wish my friends had read Tripadvisor before wasting their money on this, what a rip off. Once a year, 4 of us travel to somewhere in the UK for a weekend so we can catch up. I live away and so we were excited about the trip.

We had booked a 3 bedroom apartment via this hotel and the company Roomsbooked LTD, avoid, avoid, avoid.

First of all we collected our keys and were told that we were getting a house which we thought was quite impressive. There was even a drive so we made our way to the place which was Townsend Street. This street is not mentioned or named on the website and I’m not surprised.

Walking in, the first smell that hit us was ‘shake ‘n vac’ carpet cleaner and air fresheners, it was overwhelming and made us wonder what was being hidden. There was no doubt that this house had seen better days and for the price we had paid for the weekend, an expensive £780, we were very disappointed.

The lounge carpet had burns on it, according to their policy they take payment for any damage you find, ‘When Booking the Booker agrees to take responsibility for all damages by his/her party, even if damage is caused by a 3rd party while in their room/apartment. You agree when booking that the hotel has the right to deduct any damages from the credit card provided to secure the booking.’ If this is the case, where is the money going and why wasn’t the carpet replaced? Secondly, there were rips in the wallpaper, an acrid smell as you go up the stairs as if someone had vomited and the locks on the windows were not secure at all. In addition, there were cigarette burns and again the policy states, ‘No Smoking in the Entire Property - A £60 charge will be made to any guest disregarding this rule.’ This is not being reinforced because if it was then effort would have been made to swap items with burns in them.

My friend rang head office where she was met with disdain. Head office did not have any idea about the properties and there was no sympathy with our situation. We were just told it was non-refundable and we would have to put up with it. The person who booked was heavily pregnant and the place just wasn’t suitable for her.

Eventually, my friends went to the office in Cheltenham where we picked the keys up. The manager there was so much better than head office and so he went to show my friends another apartment on St Paul’s North. It was a little better so we moved.

The apartment was on a road where opposite there was some sort of shelter which we hadn’t been told about so during the day and evening, we were treated to some delightful conversations which involved a lot of swearing, drunken people at all times of day and the police on a regular visit.

The apartment itself was an improvement, however the cleaning was minimal. In the kitchen, there was sick on the wallpaper just left there and the table had crumbs embedded in the cracks. The blind was broken in the bathroom and the cupboard with the boiler in was a disgrace. Please do see the pictures included with this review.

Basically, we did our best to have a good weekend but where we stayed overshadowed it. For the money, we should have stayed in a hotel because it would have been the same price.

My friends and I do feel we were entitled to some compensation. Do not get sucked in by the website, it didn't show either of the properties we stayed in and therefore is not a true reflection of the properties on offer. If the price we had paid was reduced, our expectations would have been lower but to charge what they did for such sub-standard properties was appalling.

We have been in touch since and no one has returned our calls, responded to an email or a letter. My next point of contact is trading standards because that's what a...

Terrible place, shockingly awful customer service, still awaiting a reply to the complaints and it’s been 6 weeks. Arrived to the property which had a terrible smell of fish. Went to put the fan on to help with smell and also as hot, plug only had 2 pins so could not be used (why it was in there still, no idea). Said free Wi-Fi, untrue Wi-Fi did not connect. Television did not work, we could get one channel on arrival by the morning none. Raised these concerns with reception on night of arrival was advised to send email with pics and given email address, did this no reply. Raised a complaint via ‘contact us’ form on website, got reply saying looking into it and since then radio silence despite my best attempts to secure some form of response. Absolutely shocking, to simply ignore people when they raise valid complaints is very bad...

The only good thing to say about this place is that it is in a good location. Had I just come home from a rave the strobe light in the bathroom which could not be turned off might have been fun. As it was, it kept us awake and irritated the hell out of us. The rest of the place was dank, dirty and definitely not covid safe. We found a long black hair under one of the pillows and the damp walls gave off a rank smell. No communal seating, in a state of disrepair and in desperate need of a lick of paint. Absolutely not worth the £280 we paid to stay for the night. If it weren't so late when we arrived we'd have gone elsewhere. As it was, we were stuck and couldn't wait to leave...