Notting Hill Gate Hotel

The location in the heart of London is phenomenal. I didn’t need to take a taxi once, and Portobello and the surrounding area have lots of good cafés. There’s no breakfast, but that wasn’t a problem. The staff were nice, and the atmosphere was cosy and comfortable for a simple place to stay. My room even had a lovely balcony where I could sit in the morning. I can’t recommend it enough. Amazing!

We paid £226 for two nights, but left after the first and booked somewhere else. It didn’t feel hygienic or safe. We arrived late with three children and couldn’t arrange another hotel that night, so we stayed until morning. The hotel wouldn’t refund the unused night, and Booking.com was no help. I hope people see this before booking. It’s a disgrace. There were pest boxes all up the stairs. The room door was hard to open, the curtains were falling down and couldn’t be closed, and the window wouldn’t lock. The beds felt like camp beds. In the bathroom, broken tiles caused my daughter to fall, the shower door was off its tracks, and there was a strong smell of urine. The tiny TV didn’t work.

We were seven people, four adults and three young children, and the rooms were cramped, dirty, mouldy, and falling apart. The hotel is terribly old, and the photos and description fooled us. There was no lift, so we had rooms on the first and third floors. Spiders were crawling around the first-floor room, and the third-floor one had bugs. The beds were small, the bathrooms were tiny, and the toilets smelled and had poo stains. There was no fridge, ventilation, or AC. Room service was a joke. They put old things back and didn’t even dust the cookie crumbs the children had left on the bed in the morning. The rooms looked so old-fashioned that I can’t describe it. We tried to switch hotels for the last two days, but they refused a refund, even after seeing spiders. We saw other bugs too. Don’t book here. It wasn’t even that cheap, and you can find much better hotels for the same or a similar price. Never again.

I paid for four nights and got no value from them. Within a couple of hours, the mould and dust had me coughing, so I left for health reasons. The room was filthy, with dusty radiators, awful bedsheets and a setup in terrible condition. It was smaller than a prison cell. Calling this a hotel feels misleading. This was easily the worst hotel experience I’ve had, and the place is a serious hygiene risk as well as uncomfortable. Please don’t trust the misleading reviews. Shame on Trip.com, Booking.com, and the other platforms that still list it. Absolutely not recommended. Have some respect for people and the money they spend.