Museum Hotel Oxford

Our room wasn’t very spacious, but that was fine since we only used it to sleep and rest. The location is superb, the bed was super comfortable, and the coffee machine makes better coffee and hot chocolate than you can buy in town.

The place has a bit of a museum feel, with a few artifacts in the lounge to look at. My stay was fine and reasonably clean, but don’t expect much help in person, as nobody is there physically. You can contact the host by message or phone, though replies may be slow. The coffee machine, which is one of the hotel’s pluses, wasn’t usable during my stay. It needed cleaning and had no coffee beans, as shown in my photo, and the host ignored my message about it. Keep the stairs in mind if you have a big suitcase: there’s no lift and you’ll have to carry it up a spiral staircase, as also shown in my photo.

The only real plus was the central location. The bedroom was noisy from a huge engine or ventilator that vibrated and kept switching on and off through the night. Even with earplugs, I heard it and woke every time it restarted. The electricity also went off twice. There was little attention to upkeep or guest comfort. The room wasn’t especially clean and smelled, the kettles in the room and dining room were covered in limescale, and there were no drawers or shelves for underwear or folded clothes, only a hanging rack. There was no hand soap or bathroom shelf for toiletries; the bathroom drawers were dirty and the shower holder wobbly. The common-room fridge had several expired items left by previous guests, and dirty dishes from earlier days were still in the dishwasher. The entrance alley had very little light after dark, the staircase was narrow and uneven, and there were no staff around.

The room was actually okay, nice in a few ways, and the communal canteen was a good addition, with a fridge, cooking facilities and tables to sit at. It was very clean, with a nice bathroom and excellent location. The room felt rustic but contemporary. Still, a few things let it down, so I’ll probably not return. This was more of an Airbnb type setup than a hotel, which was fine, but I was told check-in instructions would arrive the morning of the booking and they didn’t. They only came in the afternoon, and the phone number in the email went unanswered on all three tries. We live three hours away, so the delay wasn’t ideal and left me unsure how reachable anyone would be if there were a problem. In room 8, the shower drain was partly clogged, so the tray filled like a bath. A blind in one roof window had come off its runners and couldn’t be used, and the main window blind was broken, so the room stayed dark. The stairwell and corridors smelled fusty, and the access alley was somewhere people seemed to gather at night, which I imagine could feel intimidating to some.