Park Plaza Riverbank London

I only spent a night here on business and so am unable to give any real detailed observations but here are some of my thoughts on the Park Plaza Riverbank.

First impressions and the hotel itself looks great, from the lit-up exterior to the ultra modern reception and bar area. It is, like most Park Plazas I've been to, prone to extreme darkness inside and the windowless atmosphere could get to some but I don't really find this to be a problem.

Check in was fine and the staff that I met were very friendly and more than happy to help - I'd left my scarf in the bar area on the previous evening and the chap at reception actually left his post to go and didg it out for me, so top marks there!

Dig a bit deeper though and there are problems. The room, whilst being very nice, had simply not been cleaned properly. I had a massive stain on the carpet by my window and this is pretty much unacceptable for a four star so-called "luxury" hotel. I could not get either the lights or the tv to work poperly (lights wouldn't go off and tv wouldn't come on) - I would normally put this down to my own inability to work the simplest of technology until I learnt that a number of my colleagues (some who had stayed there on the same evening as me and others who had stayed there earlier) had exactly the same problem.

I was also unlucky enough to have a window facing a main line railway and was woken a number of times early the next morning by the first trains running by, be aware of this when checking in and try and get a room away from the line.

All in all, not a bad hotel but disappointing in that it really could be much better if it were to eliminate such minor details.

Just returned from a weekend break at this hotel. The accommodation was excellent even although we did not have a river view ........ how long do you stay in your room on a break in London anyway. The bathroom with walk in shower wa particularly nice. My only complaint concerned the service in the hotel bar. Having been out on the Saturday evening we returned to have a night cap and waere confronted by an agressive demand to know if we were residents. When I said we were the barman demanded to see our room key - again agressively. Apart from this incident the rhe service was exemplary. I would return again

If I'd paid the walk in price of over £200 a night I would have been disappointed. The hotel is obviously trying to give the impression of a high class establishment but the devil is in the details:

- Stuck on the side of the desk next to the bed is a sticker "Embankment Stores 99p"

- the bathroom mirror has strange paint markings,

- the window downlight makes noisy creaking noises as it cools down long after it is switched off (i.e. when you are trying to get to sleep)

- the meal ordered up was missing one of the components listed in the menu

- I had to drap the iron and the whole ironing board it is permanently attached to into the batthroom to fill it up with water

- etc...

Such details give the impression of a management culture whose heart into the job of living up to the standards the hotel superficially boasts.

However I (my company) paid a negotiated rate of £125 - and at this price this hotel is the best I've stayed at in London.