190 The Gore Hotel - London, United Kingdom     

The Gore is a wonderful place to stay if u want to get away from standard mass market properties & enjoy some real character. Our room & bathroom were small ( not by Parisian standards) but adequate & as another reviewer commented rather dark due to wall colour BUT - we liked it. Free wifi,good towels & linen & my wife always likes robes. Double glazing was exellent. It is a really good location & if going to the Albert Hall you can eat in the Bistro before or after the concert, also very handy for the park & Kensington. However its the best part of ?200 a night so in future i will return to The Vicarage Hotel in Kensington Church Street which sadly was full on this occassion. Its not as grand but half the price & with an excellent breakfast included. Breakfast at the Gore was also fantastic but added ?30 to the bill for 2. We did not dine in the Bistro or use the bar this time althouh we have previously enjoyed both as non resident customers - yes drinks are a bit pricey but thats what u would expect in a smart bar in central london. Bistro is very competitive on food.

Originally planned as a first romantic meeting, we sourced this hotel on a Mr and Mrs Smith recommendation. I booked directly in the hope of taking advantage of any special offers..as at ?315 per night I was expecting something more intimate and special than your bog standard 4/5* hotel. Sadly I was disappointed that, after arranging a 4 poster room, I was given something that was more 2 1/2 poster. I had requested the Dame Melba or the Judy Garland. I'm not sure I got that... The decor was somewhere between Jane Austen and Ikea, with some great period features accompanied by plastic white plug sockets and light switches, some potentially iffy MDF and a carpet that was laid in the 1970s, not the 1870s... On the first night we drank in the bar and found the staff to be quite aloof. This carried on through to the bistro, where granted we were wearing jeans (not the done thing allegedly), where some staff were helpful and others made us feel like they wished either they were somewhere else or we were somewhere else... The food was nice as was the wine, but it had delusions of grandeur that didn't match the room...we were left confused as to the hotel's purpose and whom its target market was... The final elements were around the bill and the general facilities. The mini bar was only half stocked, of which we were then charged for an item we never had in the first place. We were also very nearly charged ?30 + 12.5% service for drinks we never had. Had we not reviewed the bill and gone for an express check out option, then we might never had picked it up... I wouldn't recommend a stay here other than for the ease of location. I have stayed at some much better hotels for less and got a whole lot more...I appreciate the hotel is in a rich part of the Smoke, however what I didn't anticipate was getting burned....