May Fair Hotel - London, United Kingdom 

Decided early July to take the wife to London for the 14th July week-end and after spending more time than I wished (too much information on the internet !), I settled on a lastminute.com custom package with a train ride from Paris to London and two nights at the Mayfair hotel. I picked the hotel after reading some decent comments here, particularly one saying it was one of the "topsecret hotels" on lastminute.com - After comparing descriptions I was pretty certain I had spotted it and sure enough when the confirmation came in that was the one. I was looking for a centrally located hotel and a comfortable one, we don't travel very often so the 5 stars sounded good and the price of ?210/night was pretty decent. I picked it over Radisson in Leicester square for the size of the rooms, international sockets and room safe. I added ?70 to upgrade from the Superior to Deluxe room based on that previous feedback. Everything looked good on paper... Got in at 12.30pm and were given our room ahead of the normal 2PM check-in time, nice and confirmed it was indeed non-smoking. It was room 651 on the 6th floor, right at the end of an endless corridor and probably next to a "remote" kitchen because of the smell. Anyway we got in and immediately noticed a smell of cigarette...other than that the room was very nice, large bed, two windows, thick carpet. Still we hate the smell of cigarette so I called the reception to get that sorted. In the meantime my wife used the bathroom while I noticed that the "international sockest" were in fact a "socket" and US, not French, duh...My wife came back and I updated her on the cigarette smell situation and so did she since had gotten a bad headache in the bathroom. I went in there and wow, that's where the smell came from, obviously some idiot had been smoking in the bathroom and left is smelling like an ashtray, shameful, and the "perfume" added when they made up the room almost made it worse. ...20 minutes and two calls later someone came up to show us two other rooms, 812 and 814 on the 8th floor. Supposedly with a lot of "natural light", fine...unfortunately while the rooms were nice too they overlooked the roof of an adjacent building and it's massive air conditioning system. The noise was horrible and although the guy tried to tell us it might be a truck parked in the street we turned down these rooms. He then told us that's all they had available in the Deluxe category - strange since the hotel has 438 roomsand it was 1PM - so he would have to downgrade us...great. 15 minutes later he came back to show us three "superior" rooms, 661, 662, and 663. 661 had a balcony overlooking a powerful A/C again and was pretty shabby, 662 smelt like a some had sweated heavily...so we settled on 663. It also overlooked a distant A/C exhaust, but due to its small window it was bearable. Compared to the Deluxe, there is a sliding door for the bathroom instead of a real door, only one window no bed post and a slightly worn out carpet and some marks on the wall. At this point we were tired and settled for it. Naturally I requested some type of "gesture" for the downgrade, like "free breakfast". He said he would check with the manager... ..Called back to say the manager had refused but that he would keep on checking...never heard back from him! In the evening when we got back I went to the reception and made a nuisance of myself and they finally threw in a free breakfast for the next day, priced at ?22.50 so about the equivalent of the deluxe upgrade I had paid for. The rest of our stay was uneventful, but I did have to put a pillow over my head to get to sleep to drown the noise of the AC, fortunately during the night it slows down and makes less noise. In the noise department I found the insulation to be pretty poor, as you can hear people chatting in the corridor and the sliding door of the bathroom isn't great for intimacy. On the plus side the free wifi connection is very fast and it was nice to have a safe to store the laptop during the day. The hotel is also very well located, a two minute walk from the "Green Park" station and fifteen minute walk from Oxford Street. Overall decent, but I could have done without the hassle of finding a room that didn't reek of cigarette and that was reasonably quiet. I didn't expect this from a 5 star hotel.

This hotel was in a perfect location in London. It was within walking distance to Buckingham palace, Green Park, and so many wonderful restaurants. The restaurant named Nobu was across the street from our hotel. It has two restaurants, and also a bar that plays great music, and great drinks, but slow service. The rooms were nice and clean. The only downside was the shower. There was no curtain or door, just a half glass door that made a huge mess of water on the floor, which you have to be careful not to fall getting out of the shower. There was also no clock in our room, just a phone with a clock across the room. We were on the 8th floor, and it had big windows which you cant open, but at time the noise made it sounded as if the windows were open.