Park Inn Hotel

Four colleagues and I stayed at this hotel for between 3 and 5 weeks whilst working nearby. It has to be one of the worst hotels I have experienced. Had our booking not been made and paid for centrally we would have moved to another hotel. There were some good points about the hotel. The buffet breakfast is good and it was close to where we were working. The bad bits far outweighed the good bits though. For a one or two night stay this hotel may be OK but no longer.
It is difficult to know where to start with the list of what went wrong. Here is a brief run down of some of the problems encountered;
• In one of the coldest spells in London for years my room heating failed. Despite 5 calls to the maintenance department (of these five calls the promised engineer failed to appear four out of the five times) over three days no repair was forthcoming until on the fourth day I was told the heating could not be fixed. I moved to another room only to find problems with that one and so was moved to another room.
• The tea, coffee and milk portions in my room had not been replenished so I called housekeeping and asked for some supplies. A non English speaking member of staff was dispatched with a kettle and could not understand why I did not want it. It was at this point I wished I had learnt Polish or Romanian when at school. Eventually four milk portions and four tea bags arrived but it was a struggle.
• One of the attractions is the free use of the hotel’s fitness centre. When new this would have been, I imagine quite smart, however like many parts of this hotel it is now run down and shabby – and dangerous. The equipment in the gym has seen (much) better days and some of it, especially the bikes, need replacing or refurbishing. The men’s changing rooms are poor. One of the members I talked with told me he had given the hotel management a four page report on problems in the gym, pool and changing room areas. I could see his point as the hard rubber matting on the main changing room floor and in the shower cubicles was badly worn. The air conditioning vents were clogged with dust. There used to be a spin dryer for swimwear and a cold water dispenser in the changing room but these had been removed and all that was left of these were holes in the wall and a few wall plugs.
• In the pool area there are broken tiles with the sharp edges exposed right at the edge of the pool and beware the handle into the jacuzzi which wobbles.
• The most dangerous thing in the changing room was the shower. The shower head and a length of pipe came away as I showered and glanced off my head. Luckily I sustained no injury but I mentioned it to the gym attendant. He told me he would notify maintenance (not a lot of hope there then) and placed an out of order sign in the shower cubicle. I also asked for the incident to be entered into their accident book. When I returned that evening for a sauna the shower head and pipe had been “repaired”. When I checked I found the pipe and shower head had just been pushed back into the hole. The repair needed, a copper olive and tightening of the fitting, had not been done and the fitting came away in my hand. I had to take the maintenance manager from reception to the gym to show him before he understood/believed me.
• To the left of the main lobby there are three lifts; two large ones side by side and a smaller one opposite. All three are for guest use however when positioned on the ground floor both the front and rear door of the smaller lift open. The rear door opens into the back of the hotel reception area and a large sheet of wood has been placed up against the entrance to the lift however this wood is not secured in any way and will fall into the reception area if knocked. Why not just stop this door from opening on the ground floor?
• My colleagues had similar experiences. Having to move rooms because of the horrendous noise coming from the air conditioning/ heating system. Fawlty Towers style service from housekeeping and heating breaking down.