As people in most of the reviews already mentioned, the Romanos is not a very pleasant place to stay. The rooms are small and rather dirty (nothing spectacular, but they just seem not to be cleaned very often and at least a bit thoroughly), toilet had the size of a wardrobe, and the front desk lady is rude and not very helpful. The stairs are steep and narrow - not for people with disabilities.
The Pimlico has its charms though, and I don't think you can find many better hotels in this area for the price you can get at Romanos. You get a breakfast in the price, too, which is useful when you are starting a busy day early.
The idea with paying up front and additional charge for using a credit card speaks for itself though.

Hello Romanos,

I was staying in your "hotel" the last 7 nights.
I wanted to place a complaint via e-mail.

It was incredible. I booked your hotel by Gatwick Station and paid 70 pounds for one night. 70 pounds is the price for a good hotel.

Coming to your hotel, your personnel received me with a friendly "Room 8, Floor 2", without any comment or any advices.

Well, I can live with that. But coming into the room, I felt like: how come I can't even turn around in my bathroom? Well maybe that's a matter of design, but in my home bathroom I can't brush my teeth, being on toilette and taking a shower at the same time, because it's not that small.

Coming to your breakfast in the morning means having no space for legs, arms or anything. The "Continental Breakfast" consisted of six toasts (who would ever dare to ask for more for two people being served by such a "nice" personnel) and one egg. Well, at least a cup of tea then.

Next experience was the room service. Brilliant. After three days, pillow and blanket were incredibly dirty. How did you "clean" that?
Speaking about cleaning: Have you ever washed your towels? I rather felt like drying myself with my clothes.

Other things: the walls looked like a fancy pattern by a modern artists (dirty, musty, HEALTH!!!!!!), the lamp of my bedside was broken and the room service didn't ever clean anything.

The worst thing of your hotel, dear Romanos, is not the filthyness and the dirty rooms and unreliable personnel. No, it's the missing friendlyness, the missing passion of all of your staff. I did not feel welcome, I did not feel good, I just felt bad in your hotel. After four nights, the room service knocked at my door at half past eight in the morning and told me to get out of the hotel. I needed to leave the hotel because I haven't paid yet. "Aha. They got it after four nights, fine.", I thought. Once again: Me and my friend, we paid 70 POUNDS FOR THAT ROOM PER NIGHT, 6 NIGHTS. Cheers. Oh btw, you remember that I've booked via Victoria Station? Yes, so I paid before and I couldn't leave the hotel, if that could be an argument of yours.

We unfortunately needed to add one night more because we stayed one night longer in London and were too late for booking another hotel. Your only comment was "Have you paid? You need to pay, or you leave". Well.. we wanted to pay via credit card, but that was not possible without an extra charge of 5 POUNDS FOR PAYING BY CARD. We went to a cash machine and got back to you. You said like "Give me the Key" to log that thing in.

Another thing, and the actual claiming of this e-mail is the incredible amount we needed to pay for our room. 70 pounds is, considering your own pricelist on the internet, 11 pounds too much per day. Your double rooms cost 59 pounds, which is your own tag. (Source: www.romanos-hotel.co.uk)

I claim 77 pounds payback. 7 nights, 11 pounds each.

If you don't pay back those 77 pounds, I feel obliged to send the whole, and I mean, the whole complaint to each forum I can find that has any relation to hotels or London.
Also, I'm sending this as a copy to the official LONDON HOTEL CONTROLLERS.

I placed that complaint already in a oral way. But you didn't care about it, so I decided to give it another try via e-mail.

I'm waiting for your answer, to leave my bank details.

I love London, but you, you're a shame.

Booked this last minute double room for £75. Was dreading the hotel given reviews however, really surprised. Room was small with ensuite shower. But clean and all we needed for the night. The location is fantastic and very central excellent for Victoria train and coach station. Breakfast was ideal, toast and bolied eggs just enough to get you started for the day. Staff don't speak much english but very diligent. A good base for a short trip. I would use again. Better value than the previous 3* hotel we stayed in night before. To be honest I would have used this for the two nights if previuos reviews hadnt been so off putting. Small, clean, not too noisy, good value for London.

In june 2010 my brother and I had made a booking at a nearby hostel which was really unorganised and there was no room available despite the booking,so we found Romanos hotel instead where we stayed for 3 days.It was really expensive because of the last minute reservation (as we were told) and we were given a tiny room in the basement with a sink and a bed.
The sheets and blankets seemed dirty and a bit rugged plus there was no bathroom in the basement and we had to go up in the second floor to find a decent bathroom.No problem there,it was clean and I never found it occupied despite the hotel being full.However the kitchen was next to the room and the noise was terrible every morning,didn't sleep quietly!Though the breakfast was full and with plenty of choices and even served after the programmed hours.
The service wasn't that bad,they were trying to be helpful but didn't speak english that well and were rather lazy as we had problems with the entrance card several times and they postponed helping us.The location is good,it's between two metro stations,one of them being victoria and it's in a small street which decreases a bit the amount of noise.
I would recommend only as a last alternative of hostels mainly to yound people and low-budget travellers,as long as the booking in done ahead!