Americana Hotel

My husband booked the hotel room directly 9 months in advance and paid for it in full. He requested the best room in the hotel and received a confirmation that a ‘premier” room was available during our stay. Several weeks before the event we were going to attend the organisers had changed the dates and my husband asked if the hotel would be kind enough to accommodate this change. Providing it was only one night in the end to be cancelled and one added on at the beginning of our stay we were hoping no additional charges will be requested. However, there was no compensation for the cancellation of the Sunday night, but he was told to pay extra of £160 for Wednesday night. - We came at about 4 pm on Wednesday and were given a key to room 105. It was a basement room without a day light and no ventilation. We immediately saw that the room is too small to accommodate us with all our belongings (2 standard suitcases for 4 nights). A year before we stayed in the hotel and there was no such problem. We came back to the reception to ask for a different room but were told that no other rooms were available and offered to empty our suitcases and to store them somewhere else. - There was no storage space in the room except for a tiny desk, soft stool and two bedside tables with 4 drawers between them big enough to put a pair of sunglasses in each plus two short rails by the door with hangers for clothes. We asked the suitcases to be stored away and a foldable stand along with an Oxford dictionary to be removed from the room as there were no space for them. Our belongings had to be stored on the floor. The housekeeping had to touch underwear to move it around to be able to clean the room. By no means this is the hotel staff fault that there is no adequate storage. - The room had a radiator set on full heat, hot, when we checked in. No air conditioner. I turned the radiator down but it still stored the heat in the middle of the night. I opened the door to a space outside but as the space is inclosed there was no ventilation. My husband was concerned that the door being open in the area shared with other rooms presented a safety issue and I had to close it. I did not sleep the first night because of the heat. - We were hearing noise at regular intervals eventually we realised that we were hearing tube trains that were passing every 2 or 3 minutes. I could hear them despite having ear plugs in my ears, How the basement room can possibly be regarded as an upgrade due to lack of sound proof, ventilation and natural light.

Nice refurbished hotel close to Baker Street and Marylebone stations.

Great location. Newly renovated rooms. Small but very nice. We also enjoyed the breakfast buffet. Again: small but absolutely sufficient. Definitely recommended. Price / performance really great!