The Kingston Lodge

We stayed here on one of their Hampton Court special offer packages, including a three course meal and tickets for the palace. It was quite good value and there was plenty of free parking.

The front desk staff were friendly. The room was a reasonable size, but the décor was old and tired with peeling paint in places. This did not particularly concern me, but it may others! The room was dark with a hedge outside the window on the ground floor. All lights had energy saving bulbs that were so dim when you first turn them on that I could not see a thing and was looking for a dimmer switch. They took several minutes to work properly!

The restaurant food was ok, but the actual restaurant area was largely empty, and cold set in a draughty conservatory type extension. It lacked any atmosphere, but was better for the buffet breakfast. The corridors were cold too – with some fire escape doors left open.

So the decor and the restaurant were the only real down points and it could do with some modernisation. Overall not bad though.

As an aside there seem to be two entries for this hotel on tripadvisor, here and also at http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186338-d1177619-Reviews-Kingston_Lodge-London_England.html

I stayed here for 2 weeks for a course with work. I had been looking forward to the 'modern' rooms and the '4 star' hotel as described online..........however when I arrived the hotel I saw was nothing like described. the building itself was lovely, however the rooms are very run down, the staff not very good and the food awful.

I was put in an upgraded room at first, by the courtyeard area. However the only windows were patio doors that opened onto the patio area where people were drinking, I asked to move as a female staying alone I wanted to be able to open a window without feeling people could walk in at any moment. However I was told they were full and I'd have to stay where I was. The room was pretty worn and grubby. The bedding was nice so I will give them that, but the towels in the bathroom were stained and the room was thick with dust and there was rubbish on the floor. Breakfast was NOT good - one member of staff at breakfast was lovely but the others did not speak english well. I tried the buffet one day (over coooked and awful) and ordered vegetarian sausages and poached eggs another day (so overcooked it was unbelievable the egg yolks were solid and grey!!) after that I stuck to fruit.

The second week I was in a better room (in my opinion) it was a standard room, so smaller and overlooked the carpark which was not as good as it was noisy. However I had a fridge (although they never replaced the bottle of water I got on the first night) again the room was not clean (3 dead spiders on the ceiling, hair in the bathroom and dust). The walls were also very thin, I was often kept up by next doors tv and telephone calls. This week I decided to order breakfast in bed twice as a treat (not a great move!) the first time they got my order completely wrong!!! The eggs were still raw in the middle, my breakfast was covered in a tarragon sauce deptire me stating I wanted no sauce and it was generally not good. When complained they took off the tray charge. I ordered an evening meal in my room once (it was nothing like it was described on the menu but was quite nice) however none of the staff coudl understand what I was trying to order due to their poor grasp of english. Also there was a tray charge (which yes i would expect in a hotel but this was not stated on the menu or in the room service guide). There was also no salt and pepper or anything like that on the tray. My second attempt of breakfast in the room was better, but again not great I was missing my fruit on my tray. I again complained. I settled my bill early on the day of leaving, but asked if I could keep the room until 1pm which they said was fine. However after being disturbed 5 times by the cleaning staff (despite a do not disturn sign on the door) I gave up and left by mid day.

Over all I would NOT say this was 4 star, maybe 3 at a push and I would not recommend staying here. OK it is not completely awful if you get it cheap enough, but if you pay anytihng over £60 I would not bother - they were charging £145 a night when I was there - a total rip off!

One bonus is it is a nice area - although this hotel is a little out of Kingston itself.

Further to your comments on I am extremely sorry that you were disappointed with your stay.

It is extremely rare that we have complaints about our hotel, and are very keen to regain your confidence in the hotel so we are therefore delighted that you have taken up our offer to return to the hotel. We are looking forward to welcoming you back and demonstarting our usual standard of service and accommodation.