Sea Containers London — Hotel in London

Worst service I've ever experienced. My boyfriend and I are Titanium members of this hotel group. In total we stayed 2 nights. We asked for an early check in a MONTH prior our visit to London. Did we get a reply? No. Arriving there the receptionist tells us that we can't check in early, becuase our room isn't ready. So we waited in the lobby for a few hours without being given any drinks or little snacks. We booked a standard room with an included upgrade. Since we're Titanium members we already get 2 upgrades, so in total we thought we'd get 3 upgrades. We did get 2 upgrades, but not our booked 3, becuase they only could give us the higher given amount of upgrades, means 2. What we couldn`t know beacuse neither it was said to us prior nor the webside told us that the included upgrade wasn't valid. The third upgrade wouldn't even be an upgrade since it would've been a room with a patio but without river view or the same room we had but with 2 beds instead of one big bed. With only 2 upgrades we got a room with river view. Does that make sense? I don't think so. Also our "upgraded" room with view on the river was located on the lowest floor possible. I felt like our Titanium membership was worthless. When (finally) checking in, the receptionist tells us that breakfast is a buffet and anything extra, that is on a menu card, we'd have to pay for it. Not a problem at all. But were we given a menu card at breakfast? No. Turns out any "specialty coffee" is 5£ extra. The guy checking us in for breakfast was very friendly and treated us nicely, but I wish he or other staff members present would've reminded us of the menu card. Instead we were asked every 10 minutes if we'd like a coffee, which I'm sure would've costed us 5£ each (cappuccino, latte etc.). On our last morning we had a look at a menu card and yes, "specialty coffee" is 5£ extra. There are other breakfast options like eggs benedict or other special meals, but that you obviously have to pay extra. Except that, the breakfast was rich and had basically everything you might crave in the morning. I'd loved to have some bread with butter, but I couldn't find any butter. I'm not sure if they didn't have it or if I just couldn't find it, but if they do have it i wish it would be displayed better. There were more minor inconveniences, but in general breakfast was delicious and filling. Diffrent topic: There are 2 or 3 entrances to the hotel. The main entrance is located at 20 Upper Ground and another one you can access from the side of the Thames, where their restaurant is. After a long day of walking we entered the hotel from the side entrance, where their restaurant is. A female staff member stood at the check in for the restaurant. She briefly looked at us and then continued to look down to whatever she was doing. No "hello" or "welcome" came from her. "No ningun afternoon, ningun hello" how Ana María Polo would say. We did not feel welcomed at all.

I'm shocked that we're being treated like that at a 5 STAR hotel WITH a Titanium membership. At our check out we were asked how our stay was. Of course we displayed those inconveniences but we weren't asked any further questions, what makes me think that they aren't intrested in how a guest is treated. Not every staff member is as rude as I wrote about some, the staff who brought our luggage to our room and later delivered our food from the reception to our room was always very helpful and reliable. Loved that service. Our room was very clean, besides the vent in the bathroom above the toilet. There was a lot of dust inside the vent. Everything else was okay and proceeded well. If not the "modern" and "sea like" equipment and features I would've never believed that this is a 5 star hotel. In my opinion 3 or maximum 4 stars would fit better.

I believe you can have a great experience here, but that was not our case. This is very unfortunate since the hotel is in a very good location and has much potential. Next time we'll be in London we'll book different accommodation.

Never coming...

Hmm, mixed experience here. Booked a 1 night stay (reservation 492300) in a river view room with my wife as a nice treat. Room itself was lovely, a good size and very clean with the promises river view from the 5th floor. Bed was comfortable and we had a good night's sleep - apparently there was a thunderstorm overnight but neither of us noticed it! Really couldn't fault the room at all.

The stay was rather let down by the service though. I'd downloaded the app in advance and checked in online, but still had to queue behind quite a lot of other people who hadn't checked in yet to get my room key - they could really do with a fast lane for those who have done the paperwork, especially when it's busy. Got to the desk, signed the paperwork was told breakfast was included & when the restaurant was open. I queried this as I thought I'd booked room only but was assured breakfast was indeed included. Back to this later...

Went down to the restaurant for our pre-booked 1930 slot - I'd signed up for the £50 pre-payment which was supposed to give us £25 off our spend. We were promptly served with drinks and our food orders taken. All good so far, although I was slightly disappointed that my beer was served to me in a can rather than poured into my glass. Our shared starter of ham croquettes arrived shortly afterwards. Finished those off and ordered a glass of wine each to go with our main courses. We were then made to wait over an hour for our main courses to arrive, which they eventually did with apologies at around 2115. Very nice food although a little too salty for our tastes, especially the potatoes. Asked for the bill as we'd decided to go upstairs to 12th Knot for dessert cocktails. This arrived and they had been good enough to knock off the cost of the service charge and two glasses of wine, but the promised £25 discount from my pre-booking was missing. Queried this and was told it would be applied at check out the next day, so paid our £101 bill (one bottle of water, one beer, one prosecco, one starter and two mains) and headed up to 12th Knot. Lovely evening there although the delays to our meal meant that we couldn't sit out on the roof terrace as we'd hoped because it was too late - it closes at 10.

Had a wonderful night in our room and headed down for the promised included breakfast in the morning. We were checked off the list, shown to our table and served with coffee. I had the hot buffet, served in two parts as they didn't note down my order correctly and had to fetch the rest of it on a separate plate. My wife had the eggs benedict. Breakfast was good although the mushrooms were extremely salty.

And so to check out - more issues here unfortunately. I was at least attended to promptly this time, but I was told that breakfast wasn't included after all and I'd have to pay a rather astronomical £51.75 for it. They also weren't able to process my £25 discount from my pre-booked evening meal as apparently that should have been done in the restaurant, who had told me it was done at check out. I'm told I'll get a call to sort this out, so I'll wait with baited breath for that.

So, in summary, lovely comfortable room with a great view, but service was slow & confused and it ended up costing me nearly £80 more than I'd expected for a 1 night stay. Would I return here? Maybe, we'll see how they deal with the issues mentioned above. The hotel itself...

First the good bit.

My best friend and I stayed here for the weekend 1-3 November for my birthday celebrations. The hotel itself is great, decor gorgeous. The staff helpful and polite. We stayed in a double double room which was lovely, the beds were super comfy and we had a gorgeous view. I would love to give this place 5 stars as we really did have such a lovely stay, however, I cannot due to some really rubbish issues that could have been dealt with so much better than they were.

Now the not so great bits.

When we arrived we checked in I was met with “we need to take a £200 security deposit”, which I was not aware of, and the money went from my account straight away, I have never had this in any hotel I’ve stayed in, card details have always sufficed. We were told however it would be returned on checkout. Not ideal but okay. We then went to our room but our room keys did not work. My friend went downstairs and came back up with new keys and a lovely chap came with her to make sure they worked. However the keys did not work! Said lovely chap tried his key and that would also not work. Turned out the room was double, double locked and he did not know why. We were asked to go back to reception where we stayed until around 4.30 when we were finally able to get into our room. While said chap was very nice no one came to apologise or explain what was going on we just sat there waiting for a considerable amount of time.

Then disappointingly there were no towels in our room - I did not find this out until I’d had a shower reached to get a towel and all I had was a hand towel to dry myself with. I mentioned at the front desk about lack of towels, again no apology but towels were then put in our room.

Upon checkout we were then met with being made to feel very uncomfortable about paying a service charge for the housekeeping staff. Bear in mind, we paid a lot of money for our room, we spent a lot of money in the hotel on drinks and food and we paid a service charge every single time and this also included cash tips on top of said service charge. We were made to feel very uncomfortable and felt we had been put firmly on the spot, so we paid up. We did contact the hotel and request said service charge be refunded and it was.

On check out we were told once housekeeping has been in the room the security deposit would be processed later the same day.

By Monday afternoon I was a bit perplexed the money was still not in my account given they took it immediately. We emailed raising the matter only to be told it takes up to 10 days for the security deposit to be returned. At no point was this explained to us. We were told it would be processed that day.

It is now November 15th, 2 weeks on from our stay and I am still waiting for my security deposit to be returned!!!! Emails have been sent and I get apologies and that it’s been processed and yet I still don’t have my money back.

This had potential to be an incredible stay and on paper it should have been and it’s a place we would have visited again and again but sadly it has been let down very very badly by some really...