Royal Guest House

We actually booked a room at the Golden Strand for 4 nights but when we arrived, we were told they had no available room for us and we had to go down to 47 Shepheds Bush for our room - the Royal Guest House. Apparently The Royal Guest House, Royal Guest House 2, Rex Hotel, and Golden Strand are all owned by the same family. They all look exactly alike from the outside.

We stayed in Room #4 on the main level. I believe it is the only room on the main level. It was clean, and the gentleman who ran the place was very nice. The room however was the tiniest hotel room I have ever seen in my life. We had a double room, it was L-shaped with one side taking up the entire bed. You could probably open the front door and jump onto the bed from there, but your head would hit the ceiling light, so don't do that. You can stand/sit in the middle of either side of the L and outstretch your arms to touch both walls on either side. If you wanted, you could actually use the toilet and brush your teeth at the same time as your knees hit the sink when you sat down. The toilet seat was cracked and bit my butt every time I used it. Ouch. The bathroom is the size of a small closet, the entire room is the size of a small walk-in closet...but the bed was comfy and we weren't there to stay in a room anyway. Be careful with the shower settings..you could burn the crap out of yourself. There was a refrigerator and TV. It was in walking distance to the tube station and the Hammersmith Apollo so that was great. I probably would not stay there again, but it was an experience at least.

Oh, they have a free internet connection but my laptop would not connect to it...or even recognize it, but they let me connect to the Rex Hotel's router for free, so that was good.

I was actually very impressed with the accomadation, there were mixed reviews from other Guests that had stayed there, but the staff were great very informative, Breakfast was clean and Healthy i thought, Rooms were a fair size but for the price we paid we were'nt asking for the Hilton. We'll come back, Location was great. Newly Refurbished rooms nice.

First thing to mention is that if you book this hotel you can end up in another "hotel" along the road - namely Balkan, Bex and another. It doesn't really matter because they all complete and utter rubbish.

Myself and friends booked two rooms at this hotel. A double room costs £65. For that, I got a cheap mattress, a window curtain hanging desperately to life and a tiny bathroom that was separated by a plastic door curtain that not even Ikea would sell in its shops. This door curtain separating the toilet/shower and the bedroom was itself torn and couldn't be shut - i guess that's one way to get know your partner! At least it was better than my friends room - where she was playing a game of "spot the pubic hair" on her pillows and unfortunately spotting a few!

There is a iron and ironing board that you can have, but first you have to track down a person to get the stupid thing. Then, you have to find room in your chosen hovel to put the thing up. My double room was barely big enough to swing a cat! Lucky i packed a jumper!

The worse came after I returned late at night. First, the radiator was on full blast and the room was pretty hot. You couldn't really open the window because quite frankly anyone could just climb in! The fridge had iced over my water and less said about the sorry excuse for a shower the better. Well, I'm still waiting for hot water anyway.

The best bit (well it amuses my friends) was that at 7.00am I was woken up and realised that my room was basically tagged onto a kitchen. So I got to hear them serving breakfast for two hours, then washing the dishes (or at least sounding like that!) and then just to make sure I was completely bonkers with anger they started vaccuming outside of my door. I wouldn't mind so much if a) the food was nice (I wasn't so foolish to try), b) you could notice that an attempt had been made to keep the place clean!

Still, at least they decided to turn off the heating from wherever the switch was. Thanks for that. Funny thing was that my friend and her partner in the "hotel" next door were living in baltic (ie freezing) conditions.

I got dressed, gave up any attempt to have a shower or wash and went to Wetherspoons for a breakfast. This experience (and the one at Paddington earlier this year) leads me to conclude that you cannot spend less than £100 a night on a hotel in central london and expect to be treated as a human being. It's an absolute dive and i'm really embarassed that anyone from outside this country should visit the UK and experience this rubbish. I will never, ever slag off travelodge or other budget hotel chains again. At least they can usually get a shower to work and the bed isn't that uncomfortable!

It's not really in a decent location either. There are a few night buses about but that's about. Remind me why we visit London again please! Because I'm running out of reasons! Pay more elsewhere and enjoy yourself. You'll spend more on therapy otherwise!