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Small Luxury Hotels of the World - the Academy
Bloomsbury London|0.49km van University College London
The photos and website information about The Academy are incredibly deceptive about this boutique hotel. Sounded and looked lovely online and with a middling price of £188.00 per night B&B sounded a good choice for a solo mini trip to London. The reality was incredibly different. The hotel is scruffy and shabby and the loos smell of fish. Sadly, the service was non-existent and not at the level I would expect of a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World. I had a single room (which I chose as it was just me) on the ground floor overlooking the courtyard. It as very basic, but adequate and unlike the other reviews, it was quiet (except from the noisy air-con system). The en-suite was tiny, but the shower was reasonably powerful. As many have already mentioned, the room was stiflingly hot, with a small and inadequate air-con unit which struggled with the heat. I can only imagine what it would have been like when we had the 40C heatwave. I struggled to use the remote control device to work the air con and so, at 12.30am in my dressing gown, I went in search of someone to help me. Daniel came into my room and helped me to get the aircon working and it tried its best to cool the room down. By the next day, and with it on 24/7 the room did finally cool down. As someone else has also mentioned the lights from the aircon system lit up the whole room like a disco! The lights outside the room in the corridor also didn't turn off at night and so the room was bathed in a bright white light from outside and red, green and yellow lights from various fuse things in the room. So, once the air-con was working as best as it could, my attention then turned to the lights! I propped open the en-suite door to block out the light from the corridor, and then managed to pin and stuff towels and a spare pillow case over the disco lights to dim the bright glare. As you can imagine, the first night was a bit of a nightmare with not much sleep. Breakfast the next day was good and the staff in The Refectory were the first to greet me with a welcoming smile and were so helpful and attentive. The breakfast (and staff in the Refectory) have saved this review from being the lowest rating of Terrible. I am incredibly disappointed with my two night stay at The Academy and regret staying there. To finish on a positive note, the location was great and easy to walk to all the places that I wanted to walk to. So great location for Soho, Piccadilly, Covent Garden etc, but poor service and a tired and tatty hotel. So, Bloomsbury is super, just choose an alternative hotel.
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