Grosvenor House Suites — Local services in London

This place looks amazing online and when you first arrive, but things quickly fall apart once you're settled in. The staff on arrival were great, very professional and helpful and the aesthetic of the rooms are really beautiful. But you quickly find out that there are almost no outlets to plug your electronics in, the rooms are incredibly dark even on the sunniest of days and lack ample light fixtures, the bathrooms are so cramped and tiny with absolutely smallest sink and medicine cabinet possible so there are no places to layout your belongings, there are no towel / robe hooks, the toilet was leaking and made a very loud sound every 2 minutes (which they did finally fix) and doors are very hard to open. At a cheaper hotel these would be minor annoyances. At over $1,400 US per night, the hotel rooms should be perfect (and they were at the other hotels we stayed in during this past trip).

But where they really fell down was in service and how they treat their paying clients. We had a washer / dryer combo that refused to dry. Four times they sent different people up telling me that I was using the setting wrong. Finally, they took apart the machine and realized there was an electrical problem. After another hour of trying the cycle, it still wasn't drying, and they decided to replace the entire machine. This took over 4 hours dealing with surly housekeeping staff insisting the machine was working. But what really got me (and the reason for this review) was instead of being gracious about it and offering a reasonable apology, the duty manager came up to our suite in the evening unannounced and basically said that there had never been a problem with the machine even though their maintenance crew admitted to me there was. All they offered was a ride to the airport on our departure.

Additionally, the room service food was poor at best and the service in the restaurant extremely slow which I suspect was due to having multiple trainees.

And the final insult was when I received my departure invoice, they failed to credit the account with the AMEX Fine Hotels $100 credit that I was due. That took 3 emails for me to straighten out.

I really wanted to like this hotel. But they seem to do everything possible to make...

We booked via Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts for a one-night stay for our family for the princely sum of £1,150. This is not cheap. I mean - it's off-the-scale expensive for our normal hotels so we were hoping for something extraordinary.

The room we got did not disappoint: it was absolutely wonderful. Essentially a two-bedroom apartment and with the Amex benefit of a late check-out we got to use it for a nice relaxed 2nd day.

The other benefits from our Amex booking were that we got a nice upgrade and a nice bottle of wine in the room. Thank-you and all good so far.

Why not 5-stars then? Well... on checkout there was a mystery £40 added to our bill for "service". Uhm - I've paid over £1.1k for this room: what is this? Well, it's an optional service charge for the staff apparently. Come on GHS: it's a bit cheap eh? Removed without complaint but I end up leaving the hotel feeling cheap and petty rather than thinking about when we're coming back.

I don't know that we are after that experience.

Someone said to me earlier that day: "Retail is detail" and this is a case in point: a small detail spoils what had been a really nice stay and makes us question whether we'll return.

I don't want to feel cheap when I leave a hotel costing this much.

Edit Thank-you for your reply/comment. Just on a quick point you raise: "Whilst this practice is customary in London hotels". Perhaps this is a difference between this class of hotel and others we normally stay at. I am a Hilton Gold member and a Radisson VIP member and can confidently say that the practice of adding a "service charge" to the bill at checkout is not customary in those 4 star hotels.

Thank-you for your contact details and we will be back in touch next time we...

I really wanted to give this 5 stars all around. The location is superb and the staff is super helpful and attentive, without ever being intrusive.

The rooms are large. We stayed in one of their smaller suites for 10 nights and it felt more like a small apartment than a hotel. It helps that it has a separate dining area next to a full kitchen, including a dishwasher, gas cooktop and a small oven. A single washer/dryer is a great plus for not returning home with a lot of laundry to do.

The rooms are super quiet, kept spotlessly clean, and the evening turn down service, that leaves a couple of bottles of water at the bedside table, is a nice perk.

Why not 5 stars? While the blackout blinds are great for sleeping and privacy, when they are up, it meant that people in a building across the street looked directly into our room. Too bad there was not an additional shade that provided a bit of privacy when it wasn't time for the full blackout treatment.

Also, the bathrooms are finished in a dark stone and the lighting is barely sufficient at times. The shower is a clever design that is open, next to the bathtub. The no doors design looks good but it means there is always a mess of water on the floor everywhere when you finish a shower.

The doors in the room that close off the bathroom are floor to ceiling frosted glass and they require a very strong effort to open and close. It was fine for us, but I could imagine that older people could suffer with their weight.

Finally, while the quiet atmosphere of the hotel is nice, the lobby and eating/drinking area lacks any life and personality. You could mistake it for an office building at a quick glance.

All in all, a good place to stay in...