Royal House Luxury Apartments Chester

The £100 deposit still hadn’t been returned 48 hours after checkout, so I had to get Booking.com involved. Communication was slow throughout, and the problem seems to be structural. Apartment 1 was handed over in an unacceptable state, with a dirty sofa cover, stained cushions underneath, a badly scratched kitchen worktop and hob, discoloured towels, and a chicken bone in the bedroom basket. It was clear it hadn’t been properly cleaned between guests. I lost a full hour of my stay before being moved to Apartment 7. Its shower drain had a persistent sewage smell, which I reported immediately, but it was never fixed during the stay. Apartment 13, which I inspected as another option, smelled the same.

Our anniversary trip ended up cancelled after the company cancelled our booking just two hours before arrival. They said they’d tried to call me, but that’s a lie. Before that, there had been an overkill of emails and they’d asked for a £100 deposit, something I’ve never had to do through a booking website. What a waste of time and effort. I wouldn’t recommend booking through Agoda, and would avoid ‘Stylish City Centre Apartments Chester’.

Where do I start? We paid £145 a night for what was supposed to be a 5 star apartment, but it looked like it hadn’t had a proper deep clean in months. There was food and dust on the coffee table, marks on the walls, cobwebs around the light bulbs, and make-up on the bathroom surfaces. A screw sticking out of the bed frame cut my leg as I walked past. The front door felt like it could fall off, and the fridge tipped forward whenever you opened it. The apartment’s location didn’t match the photos. We were in a house with single glazed windows, so it sounded like everyone outside was in the living room. Taxi drivers gathered outside through the night, talking loudly or playing music, and woke me a couple of times.

We couldn't clean the floors during our long stay because there were no mop or brushes. The flat also wasn't accessible for us, with three steps at the entrance and narrow corridors. We got no reply to messages to the owner. Inside, the oven was dirty, a bowl was already damaged when we arrived, and there was a broken picture with sharp wood in the broom cupboard. The shower swung between very hot and very cold, and there was no hand soap or electric shaver socket.