Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel review

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Customer reviews for the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel.
Address: 66 Knightsbridge, London, England, UK, SW1X 7LA

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Average Customer Rating: 1/10 (1 review)

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Rated 5 out of 5:
The Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London, is one of the best city hotels, I have ever stayed in.
I have contacted them in advance in order to ask for an early check-in and, in course of that email, just mentioned the birthday of my spouse: We have got a complimentary upgrade to a Junior Suite with an amazing view over Knightsbridge, a bottle of Champagne and a birthday cake. Really nice, I think.
Other than these great complimentary services, the hotel was simply great: perfect service. Great a-la-carte breakfest. Perfect location. Cool bar. Great Spa.
I will definitely stay there again, wenn I am in London the next time.

Rated 5 out of 5:
I can't believe there are negative reviews of this hotel. We had two connecting rooms for me, my husband and our two daughters, ages 10 and 12. It was my 2nd stay at the hotel. My husband has been quite a few times. The service is fantastic. It was even better as family in two rooms. Everyday when we came back from sight seeing there was a new shirt for both of our girls with little teddy bearsa on them, more slippers, chocolates. The staff goes out of their way to make sure you are taken care of. The four of us LOVED it. Our rooms were beautiful and the location is great. We were at Claridges a few years ago as a family, and I have a hard time saying which is better. The fact that there are nay-sayers out there regarding this hotel is astounding! I highly recommend this hotel.

Rated 4 out of 5:
A great hotel, the location is pretty much perfect for shopping or a little cultural break. The service is consistent with other Mandarin Orientals - top class.
Upon Check in we were offered a choice of rooms, but unfortunately due to the airports being closed many customers were hanging onto their rooms so there was limited availability of choice rooms [Hyde Park view].
We did settle for the Grosvenor suite, a beautiful bedroom, separate living area with Molton Brown amenities. Later in the night we realised that the bathroom was freezing, after we called the front desk an engineer turned up and told us that there was no heating in the bathroom. The towel radiator was merely decorational. They opened up the adjoining room to allow us to use a warm bathroom.
We were moved to another room on the 8th floor the following day. If I am being honest, despite the suite coming off a complimentary upgrade, it really isn't good enough to be aware of an unheated bathroom and not tell the guest when there is freezing weather outside.
The next room ticked all boxes apart from having no view apart from a courtyard - I didn't want to be moved again. The other option was to pay an extra ?1000 a night for the next category with a park view which really was not going to happen.
We scheduled dinner at Bar Boulud and it was very nice and also great to have hung on to have drinks later in the evening with some guests we had invited round. It is a celebrity hangout so you might see a few famous faces.
The Mandarin Spa is renouned in the UK - BUT.... it is only open from 7am to 9am free of charge. You need to book a treatment out of this time to use it or spend ?25 to get in which I don't like - perhaps the hotel could of waived the fee in consideration of having to change rooms - but I didn't ask.
Overall, it is in my view a 4* hotel with 5* service. Staff take ownership of issues but are restricted by occupancy rates and an ageing hotel. The towel radiator in the Grosvenor suite was a classic example of something that is very easy to resolve [I am in real estate - I know the ease of correction] but it had not been done. I can't see how anyone would pay full price for a suite with no heating in the bathroom, it's ridiculous.
However, overall a positive experience. I will come back but not when there is such high occupancy!

Milesfaster.co.uk customer reviews ↓

Rating out of 10: 1
Date stayed: November 2006
review: We decided to stay at the Mandarin Oriental in London because we had heard good things about it.
What a disappointment.
It has a thin veneer which appears luxurious and welcoming but our experience there was no better than that we might receive at a motel, in fact it was worse.
Our room was run-down and faced onto a building site which had pneumatic drills going all day, our towels were not changed and the furniture was very badly damaged.
Some of the staff were very friendly and professional but, in general, they were ignorant and rude.
We were constantly interrogated as to whether or not we were guests of the hotel if we dared to use any of the public areas and random charges were applied to use facilities that we had already paid for. Charges, I might add, that were sporadic and illogical.
Within minutes of entering the bar, just after we first arrived, we faced a public grilling from the 'security' staff. This made us decide not to use any of the facilities at the hotel if we could possibly avoid it (having already unpacked and being on a tight schedule we were unable to simply change hotels). We even went out for breakfast rather than be embarrassed by the behaviour of the hotel staff.
On our last night we decided to meet some other (more regular) guests in the bar (the hotel does not have a lounge) but were told the bar was full and we could not go in. An acceptable reason you might think but we were then told that we could go in if we paid a cover charge.
Obviously this is a new meaning of the word ?full? that I was not previously aware of.
This charge clearly did not apply to all customers so we called the manager of the hotel to complain.
He confirmed our suspicion that the charge applied to non-residents, as is common practice on busy evenings.
Having stayed in high quality hotels before, I would have expected this misunderstanding to be dealt with swiftly and discreetly. Unfortunately, we had to suffer the spectacle of a heated debate between the manager of the hotel and the bar manager and we were STILL told that there was a cover charge.
I didn't begrudge the nominal fee they were demanding but I did begrudge the fact that the fee was applied so randomly.
I will point out that I was asked three more times if I was prepared to pay the charge, once in front of our friends who, as regular guests, seemed to be even more embarrassed than us.
I?m still at a loss as what these random charges and impertinent outbursts are designed to achieve. The hotel certainly wasn't making much of a profit out of them and they didn't seem to prevent anyone from entering the bar which was ?full?. If they were attempting to appear exclusive they overestimate the standard of their bar. Although the bar staff themselves were clearly hard working and conscientious, we had to wait far too long to be served.
On each occasion that we were treated in such an appalling manner, we remained polite and composed but the staff seemed to take pleasure in resenting their guests and disregarding our concerns.
The pathetic excuses they gave us beggar belief. We have stayed in numerous luxury hotels around the world and have never before been told, ?We have to keep asking if you are guests because the wrong people can damage the reputation of the hotel?. The outrageous nature of that comment aside, I couldn?t give two hoots about the commercial interests of a hotel that I am paying ?400 a night to stay in. Apparently, guests are expected to provide free training on customer relations too. As I informed the 'security' staff on numerous occasions during our stay, ANY complaint can damage the reputation of a hotel.
I might have been able to stomach the constant suspicion if I was not staying at a hotel that uses the words ?opulent?, ?chic? and ?superb? to describe itself. The service certainly does have a ?style of its own? though.
We were bewildered by the whole experience until we discovered that several ?celebrities? were staying at the hotel while we were there.
Apparently, because my personal wealth and success is not regularly publicised in the tabloids, my custom was not worth retaining. Incredible when I consider that the amount of money we gave to their competitors was almost 3 times what we paid for the room.
But money isnt the issue. It would be shallow to just bemoan the fact that I was treated badly even though I am wealthy. I make a point of never beginning a complaint with the phrase "don't you know who I am?" because that is simply not relevant. The truth is that EVERY guest should be treated with courtesy and respect no matter how often they appear on the television. The fact that I should even have to point out this basic principle of hospitality takes my breath away. The hotel's choice to make non-celebrity guests feel unwelcome was at best a commercial blunder, at worst ugly discrimination.
Needless to say we will not be staying at this poor imitation of a luxury hotel again. I only wish I had packed my bags before staying one night.


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