Kensington Aparthotel

The staff were polite and helpful, and the room was cleaned each day with fresh beds every evening, which was lovely after busy days out. We stayed for four nights in October half-term with our three children and found it very good. The location was great, less than five minutes from a Tube station, with places like the Natural History Museum and the V&A Museum within walking distance. The room was clean and cosy, with tea and coffee facilities, a microwave and a fridge. It had two double beds and an old but manageable en-suite shower. I’d recommend it and would stay again.

It’s a pleasant enough place, with friendly staff, a reasonable location and a price that isn’t too high for the area. I’ve been staying here for about two weeks. The kitchen area has very little food storage space, though the fridge is big enough. The place could use redecoration, and even the bed linen looks worn. There’s no light above the bathroom mirror. A tied-off cable makes it look like one may have been planned, and with only ceiling lights your face is in shadow. I found that annoying after a few days. The road out front is busy and can be hard to cross. If you’re arriving on foot with luggage, use the crossing 50 yards down. You’ll also almost certainly need to check in at number 4 Knaresborough place, two doors down. My booking information wasn’t clear about that.

The reception staff were polite and helpful. The apartment was simply but nicely decorated, and everything seemed to work as described. The WiFi was unreliable: it didn’t work on our first night and kept dropping in and out after that. Otherwise, no real complaints.

WARNING, STAY AWAY. The rooms were generally outdated, despite what the prospectus says. You can’t control the temperature, and it gets extremely hot. Opening the windows brings in terrible street noise. There’s no air conditioning, so the hotel descriptions misled us. The free WiFi hardly works, except at night when nobody else is using it. Our first apartment hadn’t been cleaned, so we were moved to another one that was dirty too, with old leftovers in the fridge. They also forgot to clean the room each day. One day it was finally cleaned at 7pm, after we’d asked numerous times. Avoid this place if you don’t want a bad experience that costs a fortune.