Hotel Indigo London - Paddington by IHG — Hotel in London

We stayed here for one night in a Premium King Room.||We were pondered on the cost before actually making a reservation. The cost advertised on the IHG website was £212.00 with breakfast for up to 2 adults or £178.00 without breakfast. We concluded £34.00 between both of us is reasonable so we booked B&B rate.||Upon check-in, the Premium room we had chosen was much smaller than we had expected, that said we were grateful we never chose the standard room as they would have been even more smaller than the premium category rooms.||Despite the issue with the size of the room we both concluded we actually loved the hotel overall, it was a boutique hotel, very quirky in the trendy Paddington area. At this point we were content on giving it 5 star review as we couldn't find fault.||Sheer professionalism of the staff working here, not overtly friendly but professional nevertheless.||The king bed in the room was extremely comfortable. The room and communal areas throughout the hotel were scrupulously clean. Housekeeping really do a fantastic job at this establishment.||Two small bottles of Prosecco and two Ferrero Rocher chocolates were awaiting us in the room, together with still water and soft drinks in the fridge, again theg were a lovely gestures.||I personally was a little disappointed at breakfast considering it was me whom was pondering over the breakfast costs days before.||I was initially wondering whether to book the breakfast inclusive rate or just accommodation only rate.||I had chosen the inclusive rate which was only a differance of £34.00 per room for upto 2 adults.|| I thought £34.00 for upto 2 adults was a good deal.||How wrong was I !||At breakfast we were looking were breakfast was actually served from. We were then advised by the reception staff to go through these glass doors from the side of the reception. ||This was the norm apparently.||We then found ourselves inside the Bella Pasta restaurant which was literally next door. ||We had actually eaten in here the night before.||It seems Hotel Indigo make use of this exact resturant and kitchen at breakfast times. Must be a mutual agreement 🤝 and is cost effective for both establishments.||The Bella Pasta restaurant itself was advertising breakfast at £6.95 per person, this was also advertised on the display boards outside on the street.||People were wondering in from outside and queuing up for seats. There was only "One Menu available". I noticed the waitress was dealing with the people off the street before dealing with hotel guests, that said we got seated quickly and given this menu.||I got speaking to an American couple whom just walked in off the street, they were given the exact same menu as us.||They placed their order which was Coffee & Tea, Crossaint and Jam and Scrambled Eggs on Sourdough Toast" for both of them, they paid in total £13.90. ||We had incidentally ordered exactly the same thing for both of us but ours was already pre-paid at reception in our inclusive B&B rate. We had paid £34.00||If we had known this was the way breakfast was served and it was going to be at Bella Pasta next door, it was going to be the exact same menu, it would have just costed us just £13.90 a saving us £20.10. ||The hotel receptionist never mentioned anything when we were checking in, why didn't she mention the breakfast rate is cheaper paying on the door tomorrow.||I was fuming at this point because no payment was actually taken at this point, she was then putting our credit card details into system to take payment. ||This was the disappointment, why charge over the odds for breakfast when diners are using exactly the same resturant at exactly the same time and having exactly what we ordered, it was disappointing, really disappointing 😞. ||We will return to the hotel as its perfect in every sense but it's a shame that the hotel can just make easy money on food and beverages from it's guests in this way. ||Do the decent thing and reduce the breakfast rate on your website, or tell your guests thats breakfast is next door and you can pay on the door for £6.95 why make your own guests pay another £20.10.||The management needs to be aware, more customers from the street will keep walking into the restaurant and will inevitably talk to hotel guest just like we did and it will be discovered that the same resturant charges £6.95 for person for breakfast and the hotel charges £17.00 per person (£34.00) like we did. They will be fuming too.||In conclusion it makes us lower our exellent 5 star overall ratings down to 4 star rating. ||We left feeling slightly disappointed, but we will be back as ite great in every...

Update: Stayed a further 2x nights in the last month on business since initial review. I only booked again as this was all that was available on corporate booking system at the time.

1st visit spent 45 mins trying to get a RFID key to work, manager losing his cool and all sense of customer service by arguing and blaming me for putting card next to my phone, honestly I understand this and would not choose to sabotage getting in to my room on the top floor. Had to use the stairs each time to test a new key as the lift is painfully slow, yes you can call the lift in reception and if it’s not there immediately you have time for to walk up the stairs to the 3rd try your key and head back down before the lift has even arrived! After about 5 or 6 attempts I had to wait for maintenance to let me in to the room with a master key as all keys issued failed? I lost so much time I didn’t get time to change and ended up late for my dinner appointment with a client and left with no working key. Had be let in to the room on arrival later in the evening as the same shenanigans was happening all over again with each key update/recode. Final straw was no TV remote in the room when I got in and had to wait for one to be brought up, which you guessed it… the batteries where of course dead🤦‍♂️

2nd visit 20.9.23 - Same manager guy on duty with what looked like a trainee as she wasn’t sure how to use the booking in system to check me in which is fine everyone has to start somewhere . Again very harassed manager guy was not only rude and snappy to her when she asked for help but again towards me. I assume he remembered ‘key gate’ from a few weeks prior! Without explanation as to why I couldn’t be checked in (arrived 6:30 pm ish), I was eventually told there was a maintenance issue with room due to intense rain that was happening right then. I suggested they give me a different room, was told firmly that was not possible and I had to wait. Meanwhile others were checking in around me all fine. After a flurry of activity including getting me to pre-pay, Manager guy now demands to see official ID (which I don’t carry as a British citizen) and starts to get increasingly rude finally telling me he could refuse entry without it. Sadly the other receptionist had already taken payment in full before he started, as I think I would have just left. Eventually he calmed down and decided I could pass without showing ID but I’m now 35 mins in reception still waiting for a room key to be issued due to some so called ‘maintenance issue’😡 After another 15 mins I eventually got a room key to 501 in the dungeon. No natural daylight dusty floor, dirty bathroom/shower area and broken lighting. And this apparently was an ‘upgraded’ room promised to me as a gesture of good will after ‘key gate’ a few weeks prior when I complained to the morning staff. Just awful!😞

It’s clear to me that this hotel is vastly under staffed, completely devoid of any customer service, empathy, politeness I could go on. The manager (I’m assuming he is a manager?) is both out of his depth, and or in the wrong job. He’s obviously very harassed and rude and abrupt with it. The building is desperate for a refresh and modernisation throughout it just not a great place to stay. I will avoid totally from now on.

Original review: Very compact room, no chair at desk (as no space!) Painfully slow lift (quicker to walk to the 3rd floor!) Old RFID keys which lose there lock details and need to be updated constantly (not great when you've just walked up to the 3rd and had to go back down again to get your key reactivated) Otherwise fine for a couple of nights away...

Update: To add fuel to this bad experience. This hotel told us they would refund our first night (see below) then subsequently charged us for an extra night which I only caught by checking charges on my credit card. When we requested the bill there were three nights flagged as “no shows”. It took them a week to get back to us because their manager was out. When they did finally get back to us, they said they were wrong and could not refunded us for the first night and were sorry they accidentally charged us for a fifth night. They didn’t mind keeping our extra money for a week however. We will take this up with IHG but very disappointed in this hotel.

Original: Disappointing all around experience. We booked an extra night (4 nights in total) . We only needed three nights but booked at an extra night because we had a morning flight arrival and wanted to check in that morning to rest a couple hours before meetings. The room was not ready when we arrived at 10:30am. They still charged us for the room that night. We were able to shower but could barely move around the room they gave us it had two twins and a fold out bed in the rest of the floor space.

This is a very average ( to below average) hotel. We booked a king garden view room. They did reconfigure the room while we were at our meetings and it was ready when we arrived back that night. The room did not look like the photos. The furniture is not very nice. The bed was average. The pillows are terrible. The rooms are very small to the point where I had less than 12” on the side of the bed and I opened the curtain every time I got out of bed at night. The room has an AC but never cooled down. The bathroom shower had a constant loud drip (well more like running water) so we had to keep the door shut at night to avoid the noise. Our key didn’t work at the gym. Apparently no room keys work at their gym so you have to walk back upstairs and find someone to open the gym for you. It’s a pretty small gym but it did have a nice set of options. It too was very warm - so think warm yoga class if you go in there.

We were not impressed with the front desk staff starting with our arrival and them not understanding we had booked a room for the previous night. We are Platinum and I had sent an email the day before to remind them we would be arriving in the morning after for the room we booked. I asked for two feather pillows in my booking request, then I asked again on the second day to a person at the front desk. Later that night I called the front desk and asked again. They sent up two foam pillows (not feather as I requested). I gave up. The towels smell burnt from the dryer.

The only two redeeming features of this hotel is that it’s close to Paddington station (but many hotels are), and it’s attached to a lovely restaurant Bella Italia where we had a wonderful breakfast each morning .

Platinum status has no meaning at IHG. This isn’t the first IHG we felt gave us a bad experience. Guess we go back to Marriott as our...