The Darlington Hyde Park in London

Would not recommend. We booked a triple room, which according to the hotel’s website should be on the ground floor. Instead, we were 4 floors up in a double room that had a third bed shoved in, no headboard and no reading light. Since we were there during a heatwave being on the ground floor seemed ideal since it would have been less hot. Our room only had one window that could be opened and closed, the other was stuck open. But worst of all, in order to have electricity in your room you must insert your room key. The problem is, once the key is inserted an extremely bright light comes on and you cannot switch it off. So basically we were forced to choose: no fan in 90 degree weather; or, hope to sleep with a fan in a room with an obnoxiously bright light. Prison conditions. We brought up this issue after our first night and were gaslighted — oh you must have not tried all the switches. Not the problem. And clearly the hotel knows this is an issue because there was a pile of these lights that had been removed and left on the staircase near our room. Finally, our last day there we were told that a workman would show up and fix it. This never happened, and we had to spend our last night once again forced to choose between fan or darkness. When I asked about the possibility of getting any type of refund since the issue was never resolved, I was told she had comped our $3 pounds worth of drinks, but that was all she could do. We paid over $1200 USD for a room that was not at all as advertised.

The location here is excellent and the price point is low given that, which is why I booked. So I did lower my expectations on that basis. However the bed in my room was not of good quality, nor was the continental breakfast, and they are two of the primary things guests tend to rate. Also there was an annoying buzzing noise that could be heard from my room (no idea the source)- I had to play a YouTube video to get to sleep and it wasn’t a good nights rest at all. Lastly it feels like they are trying to extract little extras from guests instead of enhancing their experience. I was offered early check in for £20 when the room was ready and you can only leave your bags for 2 hours after checkout or there is a £5 charge. They probably think this is increasing revenue therefore it is right to do for the business but I beg to differ. These are the differences that are noticed by guests and reflect on the review scores and whether they rebook or not. I won’t be for the reasons above and hope they take the feedback onboard. I will say staff were friendly and no issues with that side of things

It was too hot to sleep. I asked the waiter for a fan, but he told me to change hotels. It was 12 o'clock in the middle of the night and the restaurant air conditioning was freezing. It is close to Hyde Park, but the roadside is full of ***