Ambassadors Bloomsbury, Club Suite

Stayed on a Saturday to go to the theatre. "Upgraded" to a superior room so dread to think what the room I had booked would have been like. Bathroom essentially a cupboard with only half a shower door, so using the shower soaked the rest of the bathroom. Toilet very low so your knees are by your ears. Lights have two settings, all on or all off. Bed relatively large but hard. No kettle only Nespresso machine. You will hear traffic noises from the main road outside. Breakfast lackluster with hash browns you can build walls with and soggy black pudding. Limited vegetarian range.

Very disappointed by my stay at this hotel. Firstly, I arrived at the hotel, got to the main entrance and saw the steps, but no signage as to where the nearest accessible entrance was. A kindly passerby stopped and asked if I was okay. They had to go in and ask your colleague where it was. I got to the accessible entrance - which was around the corner - and there was no way I was able to open the door automatically. I had to sit there waving for what felt like several minutes before a member of the restaurant staff was alerted to my presence by a diner in the restaurant. Check-in was fine; your staff member was excellent. I then got to the room and found it was stiflingly warm. There was no way I was able to open the window as a wheelchair user because it was blocked by the bed. I tried to use the apparatus on the wall to turn down the heating, but I was unable to do so. When it came to the shower, I noted that there was no seat for me to sit on in the shower, so I had to go downstairs to ask for one - despite them knowing I was a wheelchair user at the time of booking. Also, the sink directly blocks easy access to the toilet. I waited half an hour for a knock on the door to bring one in, but nothing came. Owing to the stiflingly hot conditions in the room, I fell asleep without realising shortly after getting into bed. A seat was brought up and placed in the room - directly behind my wheelchair - rather than in the shower area. Upon waking up this morning, I tried to move it into the shower area, but as someone living with cerebral palsy - a condition which affects my balance and co-ordination, I am unable to do so easily. After the chair fell over three times and the legs came out several times, I was get the chair into the shower (see picture), but alas this is where the next barrier came. I was looking around for the shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner but couldn’t find it. I then realised that - in a supposedly accessible room - they had put the rack with the soap, shampoo, and conditioner far, far above the reach of any wheelchair user so I had to try and stand - with difficulty and falling down out of my chair several times as I tried to get the shampoo and conditioner off the rack and I was able to do so after several attempts with great difficulty. I then sat on a very rocky stool - which I almost fell off several times - and had a perfunctory shower. I then got dressed, before leaving the room and checking out downstairs. Again, this was a satisfactory experience. I then left via the side entrance, with the accessible door having to unlocked by a staff member. I thought nothing more of it and was going to give them a satisfactory review with some suggestions for improvements around accessibility. That was until several hours later when I received a request on my bank account for £150 from the hotel. Considering it strange, I called them up and was told that a lamp had been broken. I did not break any lamps during my stay in the room and if one did fall off the table onto the mattress, it was because the plug and air conditioning point was blocked by the lamp. But again I repeat: I didn’t break any lamp. The receptionist passed me onto the manager who had very broken English and, when I was explaining the inaccessibility of his room, hold music came on, and was abruptly transferred to a colleague. I then proceeded to explain the inaccessibility of the room again and that I had not knowingly broken any lamp. He then proceeded to gaslight me, by saying that the room had been checked by health and safety for accessibility (clesrly they hadn’t consulted any actual disabled people though) blah blah blah. In short, I would strongly advise disabled people against staying at this hotel. Inaccessible accessible rooms which are overpriced and very small, gaslighting unsympathetic staff… But surely the locked accessible door tells you all you need to know.