The Leonard Hotel

Overall happy with my stay. Had a clean and pleasantly decorated room. Centrally located, cosy hotel. I would stay again.

the quality of the hotel is pretty good but not as good as it could get 5 points. I learned that the points the hotels get is just a matter of how they liked the hotel, just an individual view point, soRead more to be fair and to help other people from their being tricked by the comment of a particular guest, I should give a lower point that they deserve. Hotel was pretty clean but the room was so tiny, the bed was filling up whole space of the room, and the view from the room was dreadful, The breakfast was rather poor and their service was very slow and the worst thing is that everything is badly organised. They should have some smile on their face when they are dealing with guests. The potter had a lovely smile and helpful though. However, when I visit London next time, I do not think I will be staying there again Hide

Rooms were ok, but it's a hassle getting to the top floor as elevator doesn't go up that high. I had a very disturbing incident with a night manager: he barged into our room about 10:30 PM without knocking.Read more I was getting ready for bed and was undressed. He tried to explain why he was there...made no sense (as I'm standing there trying to cover myself). I called down to the front desk and received only an "I'm sorry." Talked with manager the next morning who promised to look into it...didn't hear back from him before we left the next day. When emailed after our return, he merely apologized. I will never stay here again, nor will I recommed it to anyone. The staff is obviously not trained in proper hotel etiquette, at least as far as US standards go.
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Great location and atmosphere. Nice, old world hotel. Friendly staff. Large rooms for London. Warm and cozy lobby and bar area. Near the Marble Arch tube so easy to get around London. Comfortable rooms,Read more if not a bit dated, but did have new flat screen TV. Elevator a bit scary (it's old). Food was average and very pricey. Better bets around the neighborhood (excellent Egyptian food a few blocks up).
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When I checked in I was delighted to find both the lobby and my room in this small hotel was beautiful and cozy, with friendly helpful staff. I got an acceptable room rate for the excellent location --Read more high by normal standards but acceptable by London standards.

I am here on a business trip. One thing incongruous with the otherwise flawless experience: It's now Sunday night, and the guest internet has been down since I checked in Friday afternoon.

Some of us have come to depend on the Internet for affordable telephone calls for business and with loved ones at home (via Skype), research about how to operate in foreign cities (via Google Maps, Wikipedia, etc.), our work communications (email and videoconferencing), and our appointment scheduling (Google Calendar). For people like me (and maybe you, since you read tripadvisor reviews), no Internet is like no electricity.

The manager explained that the issue was apparently between the ISP and BT. In the US, three days of downtime is extraordinary and inexcusable -- a sign of laziness or incompetence in the Internet Service Provider, who would normally be providing several layers of redundancy. I'm new to London, but with all the important business activity here I can't imagine standards are that much lower. I hope the hotel will be switching ISPs, a process I would have initiated after the first 24 hours of downtime.

On the second day the staff graciously provided a workaround: letting me use one of their work machines in the lobby (which are apparently connected through a different ISP or something) or plug my laptop into their network. Certainly this is better than nothing, and I appreciate the flexibility in this regard.

I will need to do network conference meetings for work, which would be impractical from the hotel lobby (or an internet cafe, due to the time zone difference and privacy issues). My assistant in the US is checking for other places to stay if the network doesn't come up Monday morning.

Bottom line: DO stay here. But if you depend on being connected, first confirm they have changed ISPs, or developed some kind of redundant connection. I rated two of five, which reads "Okay, but some problems." I would have rated five of five if the guest network issue had been fixed in a timely manner.

--mj

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