I stayed in room 517 from 7 to 9 November 2007. I was told that I was upgraded because I am an Hhonors Gold member, but if this was the upgraded room, I'm glad I never saw the regular one.
This is a pretty rennovation to an old building, that doesn't really come up to modern standards.
On the day prior to my arrival, I'd been keynote speaker at the European Commission conference on Digital Business Ecosystems in Brussels. I was staying in London to be keynote speaker of the Olswang Open Source Summit at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center.
I think the Hilton Park Lane would have been closer, but it was full.
The room has a connecting door with about a magazine's thickness of gap at the bottom, so light and sound from the neighboring room leaked under the door. I was awakened when the lodger next door started playing television loudly. I called the duty manager rather than directly confront my neighbor or pound on the wall, he promised to look into it and soon the TV was turned down.
The room has a veranda, but the door to it was locked and no key was provided. I don't know if things would have been different had I arrived in the summer.
The wired internet service and the television menu / pay programming system were both broken. At one point I complained about the network and the desk man told me about the direct service number of the internet provider. Of course I was going out then, and did not call for service. In my opinion it's a mis-step to ever suggest the customer do the service call, but they caught the mistake when I returned, and that same desk man told me he'd make the call if the system was still broken. I was leaving in the morning, so it wasn't fixed while I was there. I found that if I put my laptop on the window sill, I could get BT OpenZone, and used that for internet service during my stay. I probably looked silly from outside, working on a laptop on the window sill like that. The two electrical outlets at the desk were in use by the desk lamp and the internet device, none were available for my laptop without unplugging something else. A power strip would have been helpful.
The bathroom had a smell of mold at times, but I couldn't see any mold. Heating is by hot-water radiator, there is a thermostat marked 1-5 on the radiator, you guess what those mean in degrees. A plug-in electric radiator resides in the closet - just in case the plumbed one isn't enough on a cold evening. Being British, perhaps they should pass out hot-water bottles.
There is an air exhaust in the bathroom, constantly running, and no other air duct in the room. The area to the rear of the hotel is presently a construction site (or maybe an archeological site, they had dug below the street to expose a brick wall).
There are several steps down from the hallway to many of the rooms, these would not be handicap accessable, but there are also many rooms that would accomodate a person who can not handle stairs.
The dry cleaning arrived a bit late for dinner - at 17:30 it had just arrived at the bell desk and I got it from the bellman. If I'd waited for it to be delivered I would have missed my appointment, as it was I was so short for time that I jumped straight into a cab with my laundry and changed my clothes in the jakes of the British Museum. Note to hosteliers: guests who travel light need laundry in time to go out for the evening.
In the staff's defense, the building's old.
The next day, I stayed at the wonderful (and new) Hilton Sao Paolo Morumbi. What a contrast!