---Something Wicked this way Comes---

I've been incredibly busy recently. Doing what? I don't even know. I've in one of those terrible black holes that make you think you are doing everything, being pushed to every limit and bending space and time till you think you have none left. Then you look back and can't even remember why you've been so busy. My partner obviously sensed that I was going a little crazy and ever so, rather awesomely, prodded me to book a trip away to London for a short stay and a jaunt to the theatre to see Wicked.

---Where did I stay? ---

After looking for a hotel near the theatre I stumbled upon The Z Hotel (Victoria) via booking.com. I suddenly remembered that another ciao-er had reviewed their other hotel in and had an alright time, so I went ahead and booked it. For two nights for my self and my partner it came in at £192 which was fairly cheap for what looked like a nice hotel.

The Z Hotels sum themselves up thusly:
"The Z Hotel is where you sleep, in a city that doesn't. It's dead central. Because anywhere else would be just....dead. That means that you can check into your room, congratulate yourself on choosing a central hotel with uber-modern interior design, then go and check out the city." It goes on to boast of "Achingly stylish design". Ignoring the fact they used "because" at the start of a sentence, I was intrigued as to how "achingly stylish" a hotel room can really be. I would soon find out.
---Surprises lurking---

I got my first surprise after booking when I went into the hidden room details on the booking.com website. It hadn't made it entirely obvious that there was no window in the room we had booked. The Z Hotel's own website does make it a bit more obvious that you won't be paying for a view. I consoled myself and my man with the fact that the rooms, though windowless, looked clean and was really just for two nights.

---Flash forward---

Skipping a very long trip on the train down to London, we arrived at Victoria a little worried about finding the place. Thankfully, less than five minutes later we were standing outside amazed at how close to the station it is. Literally directly across from it! After we knew where it was we could have gotten from the station to the hotel in just over a minute. We were both very impressed with the location. It was also less than a 5 minute walk Wicked (the show we were going to see) so that made me happy. It meant I got to spend what little time we had in London exploring rather than having to worry about travelling from the hotel to the theatre and back again.

---Enter stage left...---

You enter the hotel via the Z café and check in at what is essentially the café checkout. The area is small but nice, with large glass windows looking out onto the street and a few tables and chairs dotted about. Upon check in we were informed that complimentary cheese and wine is available in the café in the evenings. I don't know if this is a regular thing or if we just caught it on a good night though. We were advised of the breakfast price menu which ranged from a low priced continental breakfast to a whopping £11 for a full English breakfast. The train station across the road also has a weatherspoons that do a full English for half the price. Personally I live in Scotland where I can get a full English for less than £4 so I wasn't overly impressed with the cost of breakfast. It did feel slightly awkward checking in, in the café. Standing with all our bags right next to people who had had a chance to freshen up was a little unnerving but not a big deal.

---Alcoholic beverage, sir? ---

The café has a small selection of drinks and snacks which we didn't get a chance to sample. We did have a look at the drink selection before realising there was nothing there I'd drink. If you are a fan of wine, you're probably more in luck. If you prefer spirits or basically anything else, the range isn't fantastic. However there is a pub right next door to the hotel so nothing to worry about if you do want a wider drink selection at the end of your travels.

---The Cell---

Upon entering the room you have to pop your key card into a holder on the wall to activate the electricity. We were only given one key card between the two of us, so this could cause issues. You need to be extra vigilant on leaving your room. The room was as wide as the bed which fitted snugly into the far end of the room, surrounded on three sides with a leather headboard. There was a Samsung Smart TV with Sky (though not the full package) set into the wall at the end of the bed. On the left hand side there was a frosted glass cubicle that contained the toilet, a sink and a shower. All of this leaves just enough room for a small desk and a stool along the right hand wall. There is space under the bed for storage and there were about 6 hangers provided on coat hooks for hanging items up. There wasn't a cupboard to hang things in so if you did want to hang anything it was basically hung in the middle of the wall and did make the place look a bit untidy.

Under the desk there were a couple of drawers containing a kettle with the usual accompaniments and above it there are plug and usb sockets. There is also a bottle of Z Hotel water (which after tasting I assume is tap water, I also saw a bunch of the empty branded bottles sitting in crates outside one of the rooms) and two glasses. As you have no ventilation via the form of a window, there is an air-con unit above the door with controls on the wall. The controls don't have a manual so you will just need to play around and figure it out, (which took us a good half hour) You may want to ask for 2 keys if you want to keep the air-con on while you are out, which I would suggest if you go in summer.

---Flushed Away---

I was a little dubious about the glass cubical when I saw it. Personally I didn't mind it but I can imagine that others might have more of an issue. You can hear everything that's going on in there. Now, I love my partner and we are very comfortable round each other but I have been with others in the past that I wasn't as comfortable with and the thought of them hearing every plop and splish is, quite frankly, mortifying. It also doesn't exactly do wonders for containing any bathroom related smells.

The sink was fine, square, stylish, a little shallow for my liking but that's being picky. The water didn't really run cold which was a bit of a bummer for getting a nice cold glass of water (since the bottled tap water provided was decidedly room-in-London-in-summer temperature).

The shower was great. I detest baths so I was quite happy to not have one. Others may not agree. Either way, the water pressure and temperature was brilliant; the hotel complimentary toiletries were also quite nice. You'll need to bring your own if you plan on getting more than a couple of good washes out of them though. The towels provided were lovely, big and fluffy and did the job perfectly. No complaints here.

---Bed Bugs---

How was our stay? In short, an absolute nightmare. At least it would have been if we had managed to get any sleep. It's very rare that one of us has a bad night's sleep, let alone the two of us. The first issue I actually noticed as soon as we first entered the room. Dust. The place looked like it hadn't had a good dust at least in a couple of weeks. The bottle of water actually had a big hair sitting on it and the leather headboards had a coating of dust on top also. Not a huge thing if you don't have crazy skin like mine. As it stands I was itching for a good part of the night thanks to the lack of a good feather duster.

Further to this the bed was the most uncomfortable bed I've ever slept on. Not only was it solid, the linen was so crisp that it rustled like a bag of crisps at the slightest movements. I'd have probably have been more comfortable sleeping on the floor. Poor Allan being quite tall kept knocking his feet off of the wall since the bed was flush with it. "Achingly stylish" seemed a much more apt phrase now that i had experienced the bed.

---Light up, light up, as if you have a choice---

Above the door there is a bright green LED set into the roof. And light emitting it was. After turning off the lights to settle down we noticed it was still ridiculously bright. We have south facing windows at home so we are used to the odd bit of light straying its way through the sides and top of our curtains, but this was something else. It was the equivalent of leaving the door open to let the hall light in, or having a children's night light plugged in. This wasn't mentioned in any literature on the booking site or the Z hotels own site.

Adding insult to injury was the TV at the end of the bed. We had been given a remote to control the Sky and turn the TV on and off, however there was no button on the TV (possibly because it was in the wall) to turn the big red LED off. Our choice was to either lie with the LED at our feet and stare directly at it, or lie with it at our heads and stare directly at it. I wanted, quite simply, to break it.

---Bring the Noise---

Our luck wasn't going anywhere fast with this room. The noise from various sources was the worst culprit of all. As there was no ventilation in the room we had to keep the air-con on to maintain a comfortable temperature. If the air-con didn't have a constant absent minded hum coming from it, this may not have been an issue. But it did.

Joining in this absent minded chorus was the TV from one of the rooms near us. I could hear the muffled voices of a few celebrities and their admirers thudding through the walls. Couldn't tell you which direction they came from but it left me feeling depressed about the inadequate noise proofing in the room.

Worst of all, however, was the train station. Six floors up and a minute or two away from the station you'd not think you'd hear much? Think again. Every single train that rumbled in and out of that station made its presence known to our ears. Keep in mind that Victoria station closes at 1am and opens again at 4am. Overall 3 hours without the train adding its deep tones to the magnificent song our air-con was singing with backing from the neighbours TV in our bright green box.

---Getting it fixed---

Having went to bed at 10:30pm after travelling since 09:00am I was tired. Allan was knackered. I decided I had to do something. At 01:00am I finally accepted that we couldn't sleep like this and went down to the café/reception to see if anything could be done about the light at the very least. When I told the guy at the counter the problem, he informed me the green LED was an "emergency light". He did, however, come up to the room with some black duct tape and cover it over. As for the LED on the TV he had to flip the breaker switch for the whole floor to turn it off. That was something at least but the noise and the uncomfy bed persisted the whole night leaving us shattered. We got up at 8 and were so tired that the thought of staying another night almost brought us to tears. We decided we had to check out and go somewhere else.

---Say what? ---

Off we went downstairs at half 8 having skipped a shower in favour of getting the hell out of dodge. I asked straight away to speak to the manager and the gentleman I had asked straight away said "yes, how can I help". Imagine the luck of getting the manager on your first go. We explained the situation; he apologised and then asked another woman behind the desk to deal with us. Apparently he was just the duty manager. The hotel manager hardly even looked at us as she was busy with a delivery man. She was brisk to the point of rudeness. She said she could put us in another room but that it would have the same beds, the same lights, the same problems. She then informed us that she would only refund half of the second night as she won't be able to resell the room (even though we checked out hours early in one of the busiest areas of London). We were a bit taken aback by this odd hotel policy but just accepted it as we were dying on our feet.

---Happy ending...almost. ---

We did find another hotel, which happened to be the one directly on top of the station. It also had air-con, a window, a bathroom, and a bigger bed and was a lot more expensive than we had anticipated BUT there were no noise or light problems. I'm not really sure what to make of Z hotels offerings when compared to that. I'd be inclined to say you get what you pay for, but £192 isn't exactly cheap either.

Needless to say, when we were less exhausted and had gotten home we sent off an email to the hotel to complain. I detailed the issues we had and I pointed out that other chains will happily refund your whole stay if you have a bad nights sleep. The next day I received a short reply from the hotel manager refunding the whole stay and saying that the hotel CEO would be in touch soon. It did make me wonder why this wasn't offered when we were actually in the hotel. I would have been happy to leave things there and be over with it.

A week later the CEO responded. Rude does not cut it. After making comments about my "lengthy" email and how she would find it "churlish" to give a point by point response (similar to my original email) she went on to tell me how expensive the beds were (three times she said they were "expensive") as if to negate the fact they weren't comfortable. She reiterated the green light was an emergency light as if that makes it ok to not mention it on room bookings or on the website anywhere. She advised me that they "don't benchmark ourselves against other chains as we feel we offer unrivalled locations with carefully designed bedrooms" calling Travel lodge and Premier Inns locations "inferior". That of course would depend on what you were doing since they have fantastically central locations themselves.

On a more positive note, she did acknowledge that the dust situation was unacceptable and that she has reminded hotel staff about the importance of cleanliness within the rooms but then defended it by saying "as we have only recently opened the building still does have dust settling in it as any new building does". Most importantly, she did also refund the room again (so a total refund of £384 on a room that cost £192). Had she left it at that I'd have probably been quite happy. Of course, one last total clanger of a statement never goes amiss.

She concluded by stating "clearly our offer is not suitable for you and your partner" and that she "would suggest in future you chose to stay in other hotels as clearly our brand isn't ever going to please you and we are fully aware that our offer isn't suitable for everybody as it is different." I'm not quite sure what she feels is different about her hotels other than the lack of decent customer service or comfy beds. But there you have it. I certainly didn't feel it was any more stylish or better designed than the numerous other hotels I've been in.

---Will I be staying there again? ---

Given that the CEO of the hotel so bluntly told me to do one after raising genuine complaints, no. I may have considered the other branch in Soho, since a different location may deal with some of the noise but after the attitude received from hotel staff and the CEO, that's never going to happen. The beds were not comfy, the room was not clean and the noise and the lights were too much to deal with. Some off the staff were nice; the ones in charge need to learn a quick lesson from them.
I'd much rather spend a bit more money and go on a real, relaxing holiday.


===My stay in short===

Location: Five stars. The location is amazing for theatre goers, however there are plenty other hotels in the area who can also boast of this, some are even closer.

Bathroom: Three stars. Small and compact but not as self-contained as I would really want from a bathroom. The shower was great though.

Room: No stars. Zero. Nothing "Achingly stylish" about it. Looks like every other hotel and comes with its own light and noise sources. Terrible sleep = terrible room.

Cleanliness: No stars. A quick dust would have sufficed probably, but to someone who gets itchy as hell, I'm shocked the room wasn't given a once over before we were let in.

Price: Three stars. While fairly cheap, you certainly end up paying for what you get.

Overall experience: One star. And that's really only because the location and the shower were good. Minus points for the terrible customer service and terrible sleep.


===Contact details===

Address
5 Lower Belgrave Street
LONDON
SW1W 0NR

Central reservations number:
020 3551 3700

Email:
Hotel - victoria@thezhotels.com
Resrvations - stay@thezhotels.com
CEO - bev@thezhotels.com