The Fitzroy Hotel

I have read a lot of negative things on Fitzroy before leaving home. I tell to everyone, it is not so bad. If you are a traveller, and want to be in the center of London for this price it is ok. We (a 28-30 year-old, and a 54-57 old couple from Hungary) spent in the hotel 4 nights. Breakfast is good, staff is kind. Rooms are a bit worn out, but beds are clean, you get also clean towels. We have traveled a lot, have spent vacation in camping sites, 5 star-hotels...quite a variety. We know what luxury means, but we for us it is more important to be in the center of a city to be able to take a walk in the evening, and not to use the metro for hours to get to the hotel, to be able to turn back to the hotel any time during the day when we get tired. Location of the hotel in this respect is excellent! And basic things are also ok. You can take a shower, you get a clean bed, clean towels, and googd breakfast, smiling staff. For this money in London, this is acceptable.

This has to be the worst "hotel" experience ever and I've done my fair share of traveling and staying in dodgy hostels. But I've never seen this.

The hotel has potential (location, historical building) but it is so incredibly rundown, dirty and mismanaged it is DISGUSTING.

There was a dead fly stuck to the wall on top of our bed for the entire week we stayed there. We pointed this out to the hotel "staff" (a guy who sits in the darkin the basement... a bit strange ) and the cleaning woman - but to no avail. The window sills had 2 inches of dust on them. Shower had dirt and mold all over. After complaining, the shower got cleaned a bit but not the rest so I ended up cleaning it up a bit myself (so anyone staying in room 11 you can now imagine how much worse it was before).

The fire exits were blocked the entire week with two huge mattresses for no apparent reason.

There was no proper lock on the door to our room.

There was no real staff. It was all just creepy.

Breakfast was included in the price but after seeing how much the hotel cared about cleanliness in places we could see we could only imagine how they treated their kitchen.

The smell lingered with us long after we left and we're still traumatized about the whole thing. We tried to be troopers and bear it but we really should have left.

We were looking for a central budget hotel and ended choosing the Fitzroy - we wish we hadn't. The first thing the manager said to us on arrival was "your staying in a different hotel, we're fully booked". Despite having a confirmed reservation with them, he expected us to cover the cost of a taxi to a hotel that he'd arranged as an alternative! So we ended up having a huge row - in which he said that 'it wasn't his problem' and 'he didn't want guests like us anyway'!!!??........So we didn't actually see the rooms. The parts of the hotel we did see were awful, dated damp and grotty. Avoid!!