We stayed at the Pembridge Palace Hotel for 3 nights in September 2005. We had read a lot of reviews some bad and some good. We were very pleased with the quality of the room. Yes the room is small but you are only there to sleep, the service was very good and everyone was really nice. If you want to go first class this is not for you, but if you want a comfortable and clean place to rest your head at night this is the place. It is really close to the tube, close to shopping. A light breakfast is provided in the morning, it was good and sufficiant for a continental breakfast, we could even have cereal. Thank you for a very nice stay.

the cab drivers couldnt find Hotel and when we checked in the rooms were super small the bathrooms worse, the towels stunk! we ask about them they assured us they were clean..the covers on the rock hard cheap matteress were so thin you could see through them..there were no blankets to speak of..if the room hadnt been prepaid we wouldnt have stayed the one night..It was a dive..stay anywhere but not there..beware!

In order to fully explain what happened to me during my stay at this awful hotel, I will simply insert the letter I have sent to the local health authorities, as well as attaching the photos I mention in the letter:

I stayed at the Pembridge Palace Hotel, located at 55 Prince’s Square,
London, W24PX (telephone number ------) earlier
this month, from Thursday 8th September through Monday 12th September.

Though the hotel was a bit small, and the triple room very cramped, it
seemed clean enough superficially (except perhaps the towels, which
smelled awful), but then I was to discover that there was more to the
hotel under the surface.

On the night of Saturday 10th September, I went to bed in a perfect
state of health and nothing to report in terms of dermatological problems.
When I woke up on the morning of Sunday 11th September, my body was
absolutely covered with bites that appear to be consistent with bedbug or
flea bites (as my dermatologist has also told me). This is most
probably the source of the bites, because I was clothed with pajamas and the windows were closed entirely due to the cold (thereby excluding
mosquitoes, which could not get into the covers of a bed and through the
pajamas anyway).

I woke up with dozens of bites, the majority of which were located on a
straight line going all up my right arm, starting at the elbow and
leading all the way to the middle of my back. Besides these terribly itchy
bites, I also had many other isolated irritating bites on both hands,
my other arm, both of my legs, both of my feet and even two on my face.
Whatever was inside the Pembridge Palace Hotel room that night
practically ate me alive and made the whole rest of my stay in London an
itching nightmare. I have photographs showing the huge number of bites I had all over, and shockingly the marks from them have not completely
disappeared more than two weeks later.

When I attempted to complain to the management that morning, the
receptionists at the front desk, though they were polite and allowed us to
change rooms, never let me speak with a hotel manager. On Sunday, they
claimed there were no managers available on that day of the week, and
then on Monday when I repeated my request, they said there were no
managers that day either. According to them, a chambermaid inspected the room and "found nothing," but anyone working in a hotel should know that bedbugs cannot be found through a quick visual inspection. I am hoping that your Health and Safety Team staff can check the place out. We were staying in room 110.

My reason for writing to you is to formally complain that the hotel
room which the Pembridge Palace had provided us with was completely unfit for human use. Either the bed or sheets on the single bed were
obviously infested with something that needs to be fumigated (it was a triple
room with a double bed and a single bed). And it would have been nice
if the hotel could have offered something more than just a change of
room and an apology from a lower-level employee to make up for the fact
that my last two days (or in other words half of my stay) in London were
a miserable nightmare of itching, scratching and bad moods, since I
felt awful and looked disfigured on half my body. My whole arm and back
looked as if I had some terrible disease, and I was very concerned that
I might have caught something.

I have written an e-mail letter to the hotel, as well, and they have
not even bothered to send a response or an apology. I hope that you can
investigate their premises and keep any other guests from suffering the
same fate that I suffered at this disgusting, cramped hotel. If you
want me to send you the photographs of the damage, I would be perfectly
happy to.

Sincerely,
...

After reading the reiwievs on this hotel, we were VERY hesitant to stay there.
At first it seemed that all the bad things said about the hotel were true, the staff that worked the desk at our arrival at the evening sunday september 3:rd looked almost surprised to see a busload of tourists wanting to check in.
But after twenty minutes we got our keys to the room and as we entered we were more than happily surprised.
Yes, the rooms ARE small.
Yes, the bathrooms ARE small.
BUT, of all the hotels I've stayed in all over europe the CHARM was outstanding!
A little balcony just outside our window overlooking a little park where birds were singing and people with a key to enter walked their dogs.
My family had two room just beside eachother, so we used the balcony as a passageway between the rooms. And we had our eveningcoffee out there as well, looking down at (and chatting with) our fellowtravellers on the veranda.
A comfortable double bed with plenty of extra pillows, CLEAN fresh bedsheats with NO stains on them.
Bathroom with clean towels (no stains or funny smell), a bathtub and a fan to evacuate damp. The fan was a bit noisy, but stopped after a while.
Part of the charm was the ceilingheight, must have been about 4 meters and made the small rooms seem spacious when laying in bed looking up.
The hotel could need some new paint here and there, maybe a bit faster check-in-routines (one of the female deskclerks were VERY serviceminded, taking time to draw us a map to LittleVenice, where we took a canaltrip with Jasons - highly recommended!).
All-in-all a hotel with a good location, charming rooms, partially charming staff and I recommend it to anyone who is more interested in seeing London than watching television!!

Greetings
Anders with family