My partner and I stayed at the Grosvenor through a lastminute.com secret hotel deal and were initially very pleasantly suprised - the room was lovely (clean, modern, nice shower etc.) and the location perfect for all the things we wanted to do/see whilst in London.
Unfortunately, on the first night, we were woken up at 3 AM by a fire alarm and had to evacuate the building - bit annoying but, fair enough, these things happen. Having returned to our room and finally got back to sleep we were then woken by another fire alarm at 6 AM - slightly more annoyed this time, as we had now had a completely disturbed night of sleep, we reluctantly evacuated again. The following day, a generic letter came through our bedroom door, to 'thank' us for our co-operation during the evacuations, but offering no explanation or indeed apology!
Feeling fairly agreived by the fact that we had had a completely ruined night of sleep, on what was meant to be a relaxing break, we were sure that the hotel would offer us something to restore our faith in the Grosvenor. However, when it came to checking out we found the staff completely reluctant to offer even an explanation of the two fire alarms, let alone any gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience caused. After having a long conversation with one member of staff, she was clearly unhandle to handle the situation and rudely passed us on to a colleague who then made us repeat everything that had already been said. The staff were off-hand and incompetent in dealing with this issue, just repeatedly stating that 'it was a precautionary measure and no compensation could be offered'.
We fully understand the need to evacuate the building in the case of a fire alarm, for our own safety BUT, in the aftermath, the hotel completely refused to take ownership for the problem. As a business, they should have taken responsibility for the fact that the hotel had failed to serve its purpose (ie. to get some sleep!).
Eventually, we were told that perhaps we should 'email lastminute.com with our complaint'! (Great service from the Grosvenor!)
If it hadn't been for the rude and incompetent way in which our problem had been adressed, we would have been prepared to forget about the disturbed night of sleep and use this hotel again because of the great locaton - safe to say that won't now be happening.
- Grosvenor Hotel London
- Thistle Victoria
