Copthorne Tara Hotel London Kensington — Hotel in London

HORRIBLE HOTEL IN EVERY ASPECT. I had a 4-day stay, traveling with a tour group, so the hotel choice was out of my hands.

First, our room looked dirty and neglected. Before going to sleep, I discovered what it appeared to be bedbugs in the bathroom door frame. I immediately went down to report it to reception. They didn't seem the least bit surprised and simply changed my room. To my surprise, the new room also looked very old/neglected. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort to go down to reception again, and just checked it thoroughly for bedbugs again.

Second, the BAD attitude of the reception staff. Upon arrival, they made us wait until 4:00 PM (a wait of more than 3 hours) to check-in. Then when I reported the room for bedbugs, it was 11:00 PM, so we packed everything quickly because we were already tired from the flight and waiting hours for check-in. The next day, I realized I'd forgotten some clothes in my old room. I reported this to the front desk four different times. The four different people on reception pretend to make a call somewhere, just telling me they would check the room and confirm if they found my clothes. The last time I reported it—clearly, I was already upset—the front desk staff finally did something. A "security" person took my report, asking me pointless questions. Finally, this person took me to my old room so I could retrieve my clothes, without first practically scolding me for not knowing the names of the front desk staff who hadn't properly taken my report, as if it was my job to know their internal procedures for such cases. Not to mention that the staff has no empathy for guests whose first language isn't English. I did my best to make myself understood in a language that’s not my own, but the staff seemed unwilling to do their part, and it was frustrating to keep repeating myself with the same situation without receiving a proper response.

And finally, on the last day, I received a call at 4:00 AM as part of the "wake-up call" service, which I NEVER requested. And after 5:00 AM, multiple housekeeping staff kept knocking on my door to find out my check-out time (which was at 11 AM). The hotel seems to have a bad communication between employees, because there was 5 different people who knocked on my door, frantically not waiting for me to open the door, they simply entered my room. A little while later, I received a call asking me the exact same thing about my check-out. This was annoying because the staff, who insisted so much on cleaning, didn't seem to be doing their job properly, just by looking the general condition of the rooms.

I hope this helps people who were planning on staying here, I’m sure there’s way better options...

I booked this hotel to take both my children to see Sabrina Carpenter through booking.com.. £504 for two nights. After booking I was emailed by the hotel to ask if I wanted to upgrade, and I chose to upgrade to an early check in from 7am, which worked perfectly for me as we were due to arrive by 12 and I wanted to get the kids settled before the concert, I was asked to provide bank details, and gladly accepted the £40 upgrade charge. I arrived at the hotel at 12 and was told check in was at 3pm, and I replied by stating that I had paid for the early check in time. The receptionist said that plied with ‘your room is not ready and we cannot guarantee early check in’ I provided my email from the hotel showing that the hotel had accepted my request for an early check in, and was told it wasn’t ready and would be in 10mins. The receptionist then told me that early check ins aren’t guaranteed, even after the hotel has confirmed that it was via email, and had my bank details. After 20mins of waiting I approached reception again, only to be told (lied) that they said they were expecting a call from hotel services in that time and that I had miss heard them. (I hadn’t). I told them I refuse to be charged for early check in as this was a service they had failed to provide. There was also another lone mum there with her two small children who was experiencing the same issue. A lovely receptionist then helped me, apparently they were only waiting for the room to be inspected, and the lady sent her manager to inspect the room. We had been waiting 1.5hrs by this point, and by hour 2 we were shown to our room. Priyanka is a credit to the hotel. And I can’t thank her enough for her assistance when the other reception staff were very abrupt and rude. The rooms themselves are very dated, however they are immaculately clean. And the location of the hotel is perfect. We were due to check out of the hotel by 12 on our last day, when at 10am the hotel housekeeper failed to knock the door and entered the room while I was half naked. She apologised, and knocked, and opened the door again to ask when we would be leaving. Very unprofessional, and made me feel vulnerable in my room while I was undressed. In summary my stay was not what I expected it to be, and I’m disappointed as we had paid a lot of money...

My stay at this hotel near South Kensington was extremely frustrating and unacceptable due to several serious issues: Right when we arrived, we were shocked to discover that the bedsheets were clearly not fresh—they had obviously been used by the previous guest. Initially, we saw some hairs on the sheets but mistakenly assumed they might just have been left by housekeeping staff. It wasn’t until after the sheets were eventually replaced that we realized how truly disgusting the original sheets were. Even the supposedly “clean” replacement sheets were dirty enough to cause allergic reactions, including noticeable skin redness and irritation. Despite numerous requests and repeatedly placing the “change sheets” sign on our door, housekeeping continually failed to properly replace both bedsheets. They would frequently service only one bed, or worse, not change the sheets at all, forcing us to constantly remind the front desk—a huge inconvenience. On one occasion, despite explicitly requesting a sheet change both with a door sign and directly at reception, housekeeping shockingly tried to deceive us by simply flipping over the dirty sheets instead of actually changing them. This was incredibly disrespectful and deceptive. For several days, our explicit demands for basic room cleaning and trash removal were blatantly ignored. Throughout our entire seven-day stay, housekeeping only removed our trash once, even though we specifically asked for this at least five times. They couldn’t even manage to perform basic housekeeping tasks consistently. The toilet seat in our bathroom was severely misaligned, making it incredibly uncomfortable and inconvenient to use. To add to this discomfort, the bathroom had an overwhelming and unpleasant chemical smell from cleaning products, making it almost unbearable to stay inside. On our final day, the hotel inexplicably failed to replenish essential toiletries such as body wash and shampoo, leaving us forced to use basic soap instead. This lack of basic amenities was completely unacceptable.

Overall, the nvcomplete disregard for basic cleanliness, the severe incompetence in housekeeping, and the appalling maintenance made this stay a genuinely terrible experience. I strongly discourage anyone from...