100 Queen's Gate Hotel London Kensington, Curio Collection by Hilton — Hotel in London

We booked this hotel for a two night stay during the week as we were visiting London for a break; our stay was littered with problems throughout.

We booked the afternoon tea on the day of our arrival. We received a very poor service during this sitting. The waitress dropped some of the food selection whilst carrying it over to us. Many items were unavailable including half the teas and all the cocktails. When we had placed our tea order (drinks) it took around half an hour for the tea to be bought out to us and this was after we had to go and prompt the staff. It was only when the service was taken over by another member staff that we started to receive decent service but by this point our sitting was almost over. No one came over to us to issue our bill we tried to flag down a member of staff on various occasions. We presumed the bill would be charged to our room as we had given our room details at the start and left. At approximately 11pm that evening we were called by the hotel whilst in a local bar to confirm we had afternoon tea and that we would be charged. I've yet to see the breakdown of this bill, it was slightly higher then I expected; no doubt it included a 'discretionary' 12.5% service charge that I definitely did not wish to incur . The tea cost over £100 pounds and for the amount I was charged I do not feel satisfied by the service we received albeit the actual food was delicious.

The heating didn't work in room we were given. We reported this twice but nothing was done.

The shower fitting fell off the wall (whilst I was having a shower!) And was there was heavy leaking outside the cubicle.

We were given one small soap for two days by the cleaning staff. Although we had taken all our own toiletries , we didn’t expect to have to take our own hand washing products to a 5* hotel.

And to top it all off, there was a constant whirring noise (maybe a water tank or faulty Aircon!?) that we reported on many occasions which was never fixed and resulted in us having two sleepless nights.

We had prepaid for breakfast for our stay. On each morning we were expected to queue in a narrow hall for 30 minutes. Everyone was very close to each other in this queue as there was not much space , other guests were walking down this hallway, I don’t think this is safe COVID practice. It was clear that there was space available in the room adjacement to the dining area. Many guests were asking why people can’t be seated in there the staff just kept saying that is for afternoon tea only. Considering there were around 30-40 people queuing for breakfast I think the staff should of used their initiative and seated guests in this area. The breakfast was nice there was a good selection however many stations were empty and guests were having to wait for items to be refilled the staff clearly couldnt keep up with the demand. I think this was poor especially when you have been standing around waiting to be seated for that long.

I'm not sure of the strict definition of 5* but I know...

I really wanted to like this hotel. I was very excited about our visit. I spent a lot of time studying the property and customers reviews online. But there were a handful of things that really made me question this hotel's 5-star status and made me cancel reservations I had made to stay at this hotel again. First and foremost, their Deluxe Double Room was a gigantic disappointment. I paid about $1500 for a few nights stay in this room. The room, as its name implies is supposed to be deluxe, a step above the standard room. But it was anything but. My biggest complaint is the bathroom was so tiny, I could barely turn around in it. And I'm only 5' 2'' and 110 lbs. I'm not a big person. But this bathroom is so small, that when you open the bathroom door, it is nearly touching the toilet seat. There is just no room to move at all. But worse still, is the shower, which does not have a shower curtain or shower doors. Instead it has just a small 1/4 portion of glass. I've traveled around Europe a lot for work and am used to this type of shower. But because this bathroom is SO small, the lack of shower curtain or shower doors is a nightmare. Water gets all over the bathroom floor during showers, no matter how careful you are about trying to be neat. Unless of course you cover the floor with towels, that get soaking wet. I nearly broke my neck on the bathroom floor getting out of the shower the first time. And when I called down to reception to ask for a different room with a larger bathroom, I was told that all bathrooms in the Deluxe category are equally as small. So I'm not sure why these rooms are called Deluxe. But worse still, the hotel was not willing to move me to a different room category unless I paid for the upgrade myself. I already felt ripped off by the $1500 for the so-called Deluxe room, which was not at all Deluxe, and then the hotel wanted to penalize me further by making me pay even more money to get out of this sub-standard room. Not acceptable.

Other reasons why I don't think this hotel really deserves five stars. The staff rarely answers the phone at the front desk when you call down for assistance. It became a running joke with my travel companion and I. I would sit at the desk in our room and let the front desk number ring and ring and they just didn't answer many of the times. I would hang up and call back again and then again. This happened throughout the stay. Not a huge problem I suppose in the grand scheme of things. But for a 5 star hotel it seems this would not be the case.

Breakfast buffet is okay, but not exceptional. Also, there is no business center to print out documents or do anything of that nature, should you need to do so.

On the upside, the staff throughout the hotel, when interacting with them in person, are quite lovely. And happy to help. But I would not...

An absolute disappointment and would not recommend.

I booked a room here for my daughter and I using my Platinum Amex option. It it worth noting that I am also a Hilton Gold member and regularly stay at their properties. In the past when I have paid this amount for a room and booked through Amex, I have always had AMAZING hotel rooms and experiences.

Thirty minutes into my stay here, I was on the phone with the Amex travel people trying to get my room refunded. They attempted to contact the hotel and no one answered.

To start: Upon checking in we were notified that there was a system issue with the computers at the property. Okay fine, I get that. We were exhausted from a full day of travel from LA and just wanted to get to our room and unpack. Upon entering the room, which was in the CORNER of the basement level these are the things I immediately noticed.

The room was hot and humid. I mean like really hot. The connecting door to the next room resulted in us hearing EVERYTHING in the room next door. The bed was ROCK HARD and like loud. We were giving an "accessible" room which meant that our bathroom was basically just a marble cube with a shower and toilet.

We immediately went up and tried to ask for another room. Veronica is who I spoke to. She provided ZERO help. I was told that the sounds were normal and every room would result in the same. I was told that I could not move to another room. I went back and forth with her asking "so you are saying there are no other options?" I was told that the system issue was resulting in them not being able to know what room was clean etc. and (best part) was that people had unknowingly been walking into others rooms when they had tried to move them. Hello security issue.

She was snooty and delivered zero warmth and/or compassion.

So we just did the "grin and bear it" mode.

Other notes:

One of our TWO bathroom towels had a dark make up stain on it.

The accessible bathroom results in everything in the bathroom being covered in water if you are taking a shower. I mean EVERYTHING. We had to put all our cosmetics and towels in the room.

There was a weird dripping noise that came out of our air conditioner vent. It went on all night.

For over $300 a night this was a huge let down.

On our way out I witnessed another guest complaining, much more aggressively than I had, regarding their stay. Apparently after reading these reviews, I can see why. I am sure I will receive the standards "so sorry, we will talk to our team, etc.," reply to...