The Langham

I'm afraid I was soooo disappointed with this hotel. I used to work nearby and, for several years, wanted to stay there. It is spectacularly beautiful inside the lobby, Artesian bar, Palm Court and the dining room; really stunning refurbishment. And likewise, the hotel website is beautiful. But for me, that was where the loveliness of the hotel ended.

The room was absolutely nothing special. It was a standard room so perhaps if you pay more it gets more exciting but it was very, very small and it felt rather shabby and not sparkling clean. It was also far too hot. The air-conditioning did nothing and I had to resort to opening the windows during the whole visit. Actually, I didn't really mind this because I used to live in London and I enjoyed hearing the night noise of the city. But obviously, this would be a problem for others. The hotel does have a good, central location.

I ordered breakfast one morning and the porridge tasted cheap and watery and was sort of sealed up, presumably because it had been waiting some time to be brought to me. I honestly could make it better myself. The cost was outrageous for all of this. The bread rolls were very hard (almost impossible to open and chew) and similarly during the famous afternoon tea at the Palm Court, the edges of the sandwiches were slightly dried out which I assume means they'd been lying about some time. We were the first sitting for afternoon tea.

A visit to the small swimming pool was ruined by several young and unaccompanied children bombing into the water repeatedly and who refused to calm down when I asked them to. But then I'm not their parent and had no authority to remove them from the pool so why would they? I accept this is not the fault of the hotel, rather the strangely absent parents. But there was no member of staff there to uphold any sort of rules about children in the very small leisure area. Presumably someone admitted the unaccompanied children because to enter the facilities you had to go by a reception desk. And the whirlpool was broken throughout my stay.

The worst thing about the Langham was a sort of spirit of meanness which underlay the whole 'luxury' experience. It was as if everything was too much trouble. There was no drinking water in the standard room. Wifi was charged at, I think, 40p a minute with some rule about minimum charge. I found that astounding when wifi is free almost everywhere nowadays. I felt that some of the staff at the Artesian Bar bordered on rude and when a problem with a bill (of their own making) developed there was a flat denial, very unwilling refund and no apology. I felt that my friends and I were treated as if we were doing something (or about to do something) wrong which we certainly weren't. We were a small group of old friends in our 30s who spent two hours there together and had I think two drinks each and consequently spent a fortune there.

Lastly, one night I went out to Pierre Victoire with my sister and brother-in-law in Soho for dinner. Yes, it was busy and noisy and we had to queue even with a booking for about five minutes because it was a Saturday night. But it was such a relief to be there. Where the food was excellent, the staff were friendly and we could be ourselves. It was a great, unpretentious, fairly-priced evening out and really showed me that I'm not a Langham girl. I would definitely never go back. And if you click on my username you'll see that I do also write glowing reviews so I don't think I am a very critical traveller.

Staff very helpful, good location, extremly comfortable room.

We had an evening meal, which was a good price with excellent service.