Royal Eagle Hotel, London

Stayed there Nov. 2005. Staff was helpful and friendly. Decent location, very small rooms, clean, However this place is very noisy. Hard to sleep even with wearing ear plugs.

I have to admit that before we booked this hotel we were looking for the best deal in the best location. We did read the reviews and even after reading them we wanted to see them for ourselves. We've always thought that people who post on here are usually unsatisfied customers who give their overblown opinions. Not true at all about the above posts. This hotel, though well located by the train station, many restaurants, the tube stations and sights really let us down. Yes the rooms were small. We expected that. We were after all are in London. What we didn't expect is the noise from the tube(subway) to be such an overwhelming presence. It was as if we were in a thunderstorm/small earthquake each day starting from 5:30am to midnight. Our first visit there (yes we booked our hotel, non-refundable, ahead of time and booked it with Royal Eagle for the beginning and end of our trip) we were on the 4th floor and the noise from the tube was dampened a bit but was still a strong presence. Meaning we could hear it loudly but were tired enough to sleep through it. The bathroom was amazingly small. I say amazingly because I've never imagined a bathroom could fit so many things and still be able to fit a person. There was room for a toilet, a sink, a shower and a medium-sized adult and THAT'S IT. When we saw it we couldn't do anything but laugh. We had no heater in the room. We visited with our 15 month old son. And didn't realize the importance of ramps and elevators. The elevators by the way worked 20% of the time and the stairs seemed to be at a very steep slope. We were told to use the service elevators by the front desk and then beratted by the cleaning staff for using it. Bad communication between the staff. On our second visit (the end of our trip) we were set up in a room in the basement. The noise from the tube seemed A LOT louder and we could hear the footsteps of those checking in and out as well as those of the people crossing infront of our window from the street. The bathroom was twice as big but there was an awful smell of mildew. We informed the staff and when we returned it was as if they just used a very strong smelling cleaner to hide the smell because the next morning the smell had returned. We actually had a heater. A room heater that we had to unplug the T.V. in order to use. A collegue of ours told us in hindsight that when in Europe if you pay a little less you get a lot less. And we found that to be absolutely true. We paid $50 more at another hotel and it was amazing the difference. We felt like we were at a luxury hotel and we had only paid $50 more per night.

I did not like it because it did not have A/C and the sheets were not changed on a daily basis. The rooms are tooooo small. The only convenience was that I was close to the station, and several restaurants and fast food places. Also had access to the internet from a few stores, just a few blocks away.