Kimpton Fitzroy London — Hotel in London

Even setting all the negatives aside, we would only rank The Fitzroy, AT BEST, as 4 star. As an IHG Rewards Elite member who has earned 3 million points, you will find that any Elite status you may have, will mean absolutely nothing at this property. We stay at many 5 star hotels Worldwide, but were very disappointed by the Fitzroy after reading all the 5 star reviews. The building is, without exception, a beautiful architectural gem worthy of visiting, but as a hotel, the property is in desperate need of greatly improved professional management. ALL the individual employees we encountered were polite, pleasant & courteous, even though many seemed to lack the proper training needed to best perform their assigned jobs, & we experienced solid housekeeping.||Be wary of hotel photos which shows a top-hatted doorman at the entrance. During our 3 day stay we NEVER saw a SINGLE person at the entrance, let alone an employee dressed as one would expect at a 5 star property. Absolutely no one was on duty to help with luggage when we arrived about Noon, or when we departed about 1P. As Elite IHG Members we requested an early check-in at 1:00P, which is only 2 hours before the normal 3:00P time, but the room was still not ready when we returned at 2:50P & we did not gain room access until 4:00P. One angry guest confronted the front desk staff with the logical statement: "So no rooms are available at 2:50P, but supposedly every room in the hotel will become available in only 10 minutes at 3PM"? Sadly, his party was still waiting in the Lobby when we departed at 5:00P. This indicates a complete & total failure of communication between the front desk staff & housekeeping, which is absolutely unforgivable for any hotel, especially one "claiming" to be 5 star. ||Be VERY aware when booking a room by the comment: "While bed type is not guaranteed and subject to availability we will do our best to meet your preference". This seems to be attached to more room types than ANY other IHG hotel we have booked Worldwide. By the comments we heard from angry guests over a 3 day period, it seems to be an obvious "out" for the hotel to "ignore" ANY guest preferences & place them in rooms they would NOT have preferred. As an example, we were arbitrarily placed in an "accessible" room with a bathroom sink height that was appropriate for a 5 year old child, but a bathtub with a dangerous 30" step-in that NO physically-challenged person could possibly navigate, & plumbing fixtures that would be out of reach by the person showering without another person assisting. Our other room had the same dangerous 30" step-in tub with NO grab bars for safety. Both our rooms were TINY & faced the interior courtyard, which is certainly not a room preference. ||Our room only had a table lamp on one side of the bed & the other reading lights did not work. There was also a very LARGE wall mirror with hinges so it could lowered. When we asked the front desk about the purpose of the wall mirror, we were told it was for persons wanting to perform in-room yoga, although the guest would have to physically relocate the bed to lower the mirror. Our wall-mounted TV could not be viewed without physically moving the 2 chairs away from the wall & reversing them to do so. Has any "serious" consideration, or review, been given to the room furnishings &/or layouts? Attached photos would indicate probably not.||While the public areas are impressive & spectacularly beautiful, actual operations are sloppy & unprofessional. The bar is divided into 2 separate rooms, with one side playing loud 80's American rock music, while the other plays pleasant jazz at a lower volume. Unfortunately the music noise filters into "both" areas which creates an unpleasant atmosphere depending on your personal music preferences. To further underscore this absurdity, are the bar operations. When sitting on one side of the bar we ordered a wine from the bar list, but after a 15 minute search the bartender stated (quote): "Our vendor did not deliver our order this week so we do not have this wine". Surprisingly, they also did not have a 2nd wine we selected from their wine list, so we ordered one they did have. However, when we moved to the other side of the bar, which is divided by a "sliding curtain", we told the bartender we would have the same wine we had ordered on the other side of the wall, because we were told the vendor had not delivered the 2 wines we originally preferred. To this the bartender replied: "So sorry sir, but we have both the wines you ordered on THIS SIDE of the bar". To say this level of confusion is merely absurd would be to offer an unintended compliment. ||Location across from Russell Square is pleasant, but the immediately surrounding area is NOT to be confused with Mayfair, Grosvenor, Hyde Park or Kensington. We found the Kimpton Fitzroy grossly over-priced for the lower level of service provided, & not even remotely the quality of the many truly 5-star London properties. Would not return to stay, but only to admire the...

I have very mixed feelings about this Hotel. However, I could not stay here again. The positives are, it's location is fantastic, the staff are really lovely and friendly, they'll be as helpful as they can and were very accommodating, I have no faults with them at all. The hotel itself is very beautiful, it also has some very interesting history behind it. Breakfast is good, though not the best I've experienced comparing similar hotels. There's ample choice and the food tastes good. One annoying thing, is you need to request eggs to be cooked freshly. So, say you're having a "full English" from the banquet, you've likely finished eating most of your breakfast before your eggs arrive, it doesn't feel very cohesive. The cocktail bar is pleasant and the atmosphere is nice, some interesting specials on offer to drink. Room service is efficient and quick, though the chips given with meals were a bit disappointing. I cannot speak on the Spa facilities as I did not use them.

Regrettably, for the following reasons it's not a 5 star experience to me, far from it.

I've stayed in a few 5 star hotels now, and this was by far the worst experience I've had. The rooms are incredibly small. We had an issue with our first room and got moved to another and it was just the same. The bathrooms have very minimal counter space, so if you're sharing with someone it can get a bit difficult to find space for your products. If you're a woman and want to put on makeup, this is an incredibly awkward experience. Our bathroom was also partially broken, the rainfall shower dripped freezing cold water on you when you weren't using it. The handheld shower, when bent even slightly jetted water out the other end of it's hose, so I ended up drenching the bathroom as I wasn't expecting it when I was trying to rinse my hair. There was a broken latch on the window in our bathroom, so our bathroom was diabolical, walking on the tiles was like walking on ice. A lot of that cold then leached into our bedroom, I couldn't stop shivering all night, despite putting the heating up as much as we could.

The absolute deal breaker for me however is this is one of the noisiest hotels I've ever stayed in. Through-out the night, constant loud bangs, there seems to be no sound dampening at all, inside or out. I could hear the room next to us flicking their light switches, talking, walking etc. I understand we're in the center of London and there will be some road noise, but it felt like there was no sound proofing from the street either (And having stayed in other city-center locations, I've never heard so much noise before, this loud and clear). I'm a light sleeper so this was far from ideal as I barely got any sleep at all. In the end I needed to put the TV on in order to try and drown out some of the other sounds for a more consistent volume to attempt to get any sleep, I think I managed about 2 hours on my first night. My partner however, that usually sleeps like the dead, also struggled to sleep and was constantly awoken by the sounds. The banging from inside the hotel and noise was incredibly intrusive. I'm not sure if it was from staff moving around inside the hotel, or people coming back to their rooms, but it didn't stop at any point during our stay and it was very consistent.

Overall, these issues greatly impacted our stay, and made it a much more negative experience than a positive one, and I couldn't recommend to stay here to others,...

My wife and I visited London for a week last month. After extensive online research, I booked a 6-night stay at the Kimpton Fitzroy London based on the hotel’s location, photos of the property, and reviews. The hotel was expensive, but I wanted to treat ourselves with a bit of luxury.

Everything seemed great. The day before we checked in, I even emailed the hotel to let them know when we expected to arrive and was assured our room would be ready. We arrived at the expected time and check-in was efficient, if not particularly warm. However, when we entered our room, we noticed that it felt very warm and stuffy (a “dead” air feeling). On checking, I realized that the air-conditioning / ventilation wasn’t working. Even in the short time that I tried to get the ventilation going, my wife started to feel faint. So we went back to reception to ask for a different room where the A/C was working.

At first, we were told that no other room was available for the six days of our reservation. Then we were shown a different room (which was bright and fresh and slightly larger) but were told it would cost an additional £90 per day. When we said that we weren’t looking for an upgrade, we were told that if we stayed in the original room for one night, we could be moved to a different room for the remaining five. Given that the A/C in the original room wasn’t working, that was completely unacceptable. It was only when we started talking about canceling our entire six night booking and going to a different property that another room was “found”.

As we had lost a lot of trust by that time, we asked to see this other room, which on inspection was small but acceptable. All in all, check-in took well over an hour, which was draining after over 16 hours of travelling.

My wife worked for many years in guest services at a 4-star hotel in Canada. I’ve heard many stories from her about guests who would make trivial or even fake complaints to try to get an upgrade or a rate reduction. I despise that type of dishonesty and I hugely resented being made to feel, by the front desk staff’s indifference to the situation, that our concern about the stuffy room was trivial or even made up.

Overall, the property was well-appointed, housekeeping was brilliant in looking after our replacement room, and the location was convenient. However, our initial experience and impression soured our stay, even after we were given an acceptable room.

One other comment — the staff working in the lobby, while friendly enough, could be better trained. On three mornings, we tried to get a coffee from the large serving pot in the lobby. Twice, the pot was empty. On the third time, I managed to get a cup by tilting the container to the side. I would have expected the coffee to have been monitored and replenished if needed. Another time, I asked for a glass to get a drink of water from the dispenser in the lobby. A lobby staff, after a search, said he couldn’t find any paper cups, even though there would have been no shortage of glasses in the adjoining bar. Not what I expected from a 5-star hotel.

So, would we stay here again? No. Would we recommend the property to others? Not without a lot of...