Rose Court Inn Paddington

There are bad hotels, and then there are bad hotels. And there's this travesty of a hotel located in one of London's finest neighbourhoods. When I booked the hotel on Expedia, I wasn't expecting Ritz or the Waldorf, I mean it is London and we are humble tourists. But at the same time, I wasn't expecting bargain basement quality either.

We reached on Saturday night at 10pm. The reception was run by 2 Indians. They proudly announced that because we came late, we'd be given the "only available" room in the basement (did I just say bargain basement earlier?!). Whatever, who cares, as long as the room is good.

But we go in, the room was dreadful. There were spit stains on the dustbin, the lid was broken, the beds screached in pain when we sat on them, the AC when turned on sounded like Celine Dion on prozac, the night lamps weren't working and the power points were hidden behind the heavy beds and not visible, so God help those who have to recharge their camera and phones. We called and complained about 2-3 times, finally the man said "I'll try to get you into a better room t'row" and hung up. But we were all so tired we just slept.

BREAKFAST is served right next door in a very small breakfast room ALSO in the basement. (Notice a theme here!) There was good bread toast with jam (it really was good. I'm not being sarci), stale cereal and I'd love to say the egg whites were great but they'd run out of eggs when we arrived. So all we got was a view of their aquarium instead and an empty vessel...where the Scrambled egg once lay! :-)

So that morning, when my mum went to complain to the receptionist (a new one this time) saying that the room was the pits and we want a new one, the receptionist complained about how she can't do it , and she said she'd consider it if we checked out and put all our luggage in the reception. WTF! My mum threw the key on the table and said "we're not".

But finally, they did move us to a new room - on the 2nd floor for the 2nd night and that was good. Note though, they didn't move our luggage for us. The bags were promptly placed in the reception, and we had to carry it ourselves.

We've paid the same amount and stayed at much better hotels in Paddington. If nothing, the staff in other hotels weren't as stuck up as the ones we encountered in this hotel.

The only saving grace is the location. Paddington is an area to die for - nice trees, cool, lots of rsnts, nice streets to walk around, and of course the Heathrow Express is just a stone's throw away.

But as for this hotel, I'm not staying here again, come hell or high water.