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New England Hotel - London

Pretty bad place. They continually seek to see how little they can do to stay in business.

The place is dingy and not well maintained. Carpet was old, stained and thread worn.

  1. On arrival the guy behind the desk said: "Room 25. You're lucky, you have a window!" Yep, that was the only way to get any fresh air in the room. Of course, that let in the the full range of street noises all night long. The sheer curtain in the window was ripped and worn where it has rubbed against the window sill for ages.

  2. The toilet would flush only once out of 3-4 times despite the "instructions" of "Hold the lever down for 2 seconds."

  3. We went down to the breakfast about 5 min before they indicated they were to close but found a very surly guy tell us they were closed. WE looked around and found some stale rolls and went elsewhere.

  4. The website says they have "partial elevator." That means the elevator stops on a landing between floors. You still have to use the stairs to go up (or down) to the floor your room is on.

  5. I asked about their posting a letter for me and was told, "I never use the post office."

Posted by
4071 posts

The title of this thread made me wonder if you were talking about a classic Maine or Vermont hotel that had expanded into London!

So with your description of this hotel, what part of the property is "new"?

Posted by
16411 posts

Yes, this hotel is in the Rick Steves book.

I have to wonder how often the guidebook is really updated.

This is like the receptionist at my hotel in London is planning a trip to NYC. He found a deal for hotel and airfare for 500 GBP for seven nights. That sounded kind of low to me so I looked up the hotel. It is rated #430 out of 467 hotels in NYC--and it's part of a major chain. I think nowadays travelers need to do extra research than to just rely on the opinion of a guidebook.

Posted by
23642 posts

But -- it is a first time poster with a rant. Don't know how much credibility to give to the poster. I am always suspicious when someone comes here for the first time to complain.

Posted by
2 posts

The intent of the post is two things:

  1. Alert those that use Rick Steves recommendations that this one is FAR from the reality of the property.
  2. Inform whomever grants those recommendations that it id time for a re-look at this one.

Yes, I know we should consider other sources when making hotel selections. We usually do. This one slipped through. When I found that the hotel I stayed in last time in London was omitted and found The New England, we booked it to our great regret.

Posted by
1 posts

I can confirm that it's pretty terrible. I just got back home from a trip to London where I stayed at the New England Hotel. I didn't bother to check outside sources, because it was recommended by RS and I have what I would consider a high degree of tolerance for quality of hotels. Yet, this place was so bad that I thought I'd look up some reviews in retrospect. Was glad to see that this place got its due on tripadvisor.

I'd second bstevens' thoughts about updating the RS guide.

Some thoughts: The place was very small, which is OK, but it's tighter than you might even imagine.

The toilet in my room (not the same room 25) behaved the same way. Keep trying, most of the time it will eventually flush before you give up.

The hotel charges a 10% "service charge" above the reservation that I made at booking.com... the only place I stayed in England that did so.

The bathroom in my suite was clean enough and roomy enough. The water "pressure" in the shower left a lot to be desired. The light over the mirror worked, but the main bathroom light did not. There was enough light, though.

But the main room was absolutely filthy. The carpets looked like they had not been cleaned for 25 years or so. I slept with my socks on so that when I got out of bed at night or in the morning no part of my body would have to touch that floor.

I've stayed in some pretty sketchy places over the years, but this was the worst. The Airways Victoria Hotel directly across the street, where I stayed one night, was sooo much nicer in every possible way, and wasn't that much more expensive.