Hemel Hempstead Vacations from $1,396

I spent 26 days here. It was good value and very convenient location. The staff were nice. Unfortunately, I had my backpack with my work laptop stolen from the breakfast space. I was away from the table for less than 4 minutes. cctv shows the man walking in the lobby, walking through the restaurant, picking up my bag and walking out. while I was there someone else had their mobile phone taken out of their hand while standing in front of the hotel. This unfortunately is common in London. I was not happy with the security (and told the front desk). Anyone can get to a guest floor. You don’t need your room key to get into the ground floor stairwell or through the doors on guest floors. And there is no security downstairs.while the front desk is immediately in front of the doors, many times they are not watching and often I walked in without anyone seeing me. Housekeeping wasn’t the greatest. As this had a kitchen they provide you with a kitchen towel (same as a bath and hand towel for the bathroom). When the kitchen towel needed replacing I put it on the floor, they put it back on the counter. The next time I put it with more towels. They took it and didn’t replace. I also came home to the rubbish bin perched on my line of shoes which I had along the wall. I use my own silk pillowcase to sleep on, every time they made the bed (I didn’t choose housekeeping every day) they put that pillowcase (the obvious one I use) behind. All this to say it was convenient.

The room was extremely small. No place for a suitcase except on top of the small built-in desk. No space in the bathroom even for a small trash bin. One could not bend down to pick up anything without smacking one’s head on the side. In fact, entering the narrow shower requires one to enter sideways and to carefully hold onto a handle to avoid falling (and I’m a fit person). The shower doors would not close all the way, the room AC rattled and was so loud it sounded like a lawn mower in the room. The elevator uses an old fashioned metal sliding door you must manually close when leaving otherwise it won’t respond to calls from other floors. Guests don’t always do this and staff do not keep an eye on it so be prepared to have to walk down or up stairs most of the time. For “breakfast”, which is extremely light the tables one sits at are the size of a shoe—enough for a cup of coffee. And there are only 3-4 places. The public rooms, and ballrooms, however, are beautiful! I was eventually moved to a larger room but only on the last day of the stay, and even that process was awkward with poor communication from the staff. For the price I paid—£440 per night—I would never go back.

Amazing hotel. Info in Spanish and English (super useful!). Delicious breakfast.

Could have been worse. Location is prime. Pillows were hard. Dental kit amenity really should a small tube of toothpaste. Staff should make sure safe works before new guests arrive. Glad that there was air conditioning.