London Day 7 - The Rathbone Hotel in London Sucks

Monday, April 07, 2008

Categories: Diary • 2008 London Trip • Product Reviews • Products

Day 7 - the Rathbone Hotel in London

Now, faithful readers of my diary know that I don’t give bad reviews lightly, so it may come as a surprise to read the occasional one, but I’m going to talk a little about the place I’ve stayed in London: the Rathbone Hotel.

After my pleasant but exhausting international flight and my rustic sojourn to Yorkshire, I was excited to settle into London. I disembarked from the train last Wednesday and was met by a congenial representative from the festival, who delivered me to the Rathbone.

It is a nine storey building tucked among a few pubs and shops on a side street of the city proper, near enough to walk to lots of cool things like the theatre district and Oxford Circus. I was checking in as a guest of the well-oiled machine that is the LILGFF, which went smoothly. Aside from a weird affect from the international staff, which left them appearing to be stifling annoyance at the colossal inconvenience of dealing with me by smiling very firmly, all seemed to be well. I would encounter this “barely concealed annoyance” many times in the days to come, however much I tried to chalk it up to a cultural misunderstanding.

The room was nice by European standards, with plenty of space. I began putting away my papers and things, and noticed that I was listed as “Mr. Calpernia Addams”, which I chuckled at with only a tiny whiff of annoyance. I knew that during the booking of my reservation, they had nothing to go on but a name, so it couldn’t have been anything but a misunderstanding. Still, I would have liked them to have corrected it upon seeing me, something which never happened even after several imteractions and a room change.

In the first day of my stay, I learned the Internet access cost about $30.00 a day. As there are signs all over London advertising “unlimited wireless access” for 20£ a month, I was more than a little annoyed at being so harshly gouged on something so vital to modern business travellers.

When my three days of festival-sponsored hotel stay were up, I still had two days in London, so I went to the front desk to extend my stay.  You would have thought I had asked the front desk if they’d mind giving me nude photos of their mother to sell on the Internet, so tight were their smiles, so annoyed were their eyes.

To make a long story short, they extended my stay and then called my room the next morning and flat out lied to me by saying that I had to leave so that “something in my bathroom” could be repaired. The no- frills toilet-and-shower bathroom which had functioned perfectly thus far. I was told I’d move right next door, so I assumed my original room had been booked, so they were moving me. I went for a walk on their suggestion (in the freezing snow) and upon my return I was told I’d been moved to a third room on the top floor. All of this by the unfailingly smiling but terribly annoyed staff, who kept looking around and throwing their hands up as if they were barely clinging to decorum in the face of my annoyingness. In all the changes of information in their computer system, my designation as “Mr.” stayed the same.

I go up to the new room, and upon opening the door I am confronted with the staggering stench of cigarettes and acrid cheap cologne. The room is tiny, to boot, and on one of the coldest April days in London since 1989, the heating won’t come on.

I try to endure the stench, but after an hour I decide I can’t, and with great dread I go to ask to be moved. You can imagine my reception. After much hemming and hawing, and dealing with three separate staff members, they agree only to place a dubious “oxygen machine” in my room for an hour, requiring another sojourn into frozen London, where I sat depresed in a pub and drank a pint of beer, seething at the money I was being gouged and the time which was being wasted.

Upon my return, the room indeed smelled only faintly of a trailer park ashtray, and strongly of something like sour milk. I didn’t feel like going out at all by this point, so I went to bed.

By the time I woke up this morning, the cigarette smell was back in full force. I decided to escape to the dining room and at least try to enjoy the free continental breakfast. After a leisurely munch on a few small croissants and fruit with coffee, I went to leave and was presented with a bill for what will end up being about $26.00 in American money. Apparently, my new ash tray room doesn’t come with the free continental breakfast.

I hate the Rathbone Hotel, it sucks and I strongly advise against anyone stating here.

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