There’s good news, and there’s bad news…
Be sure to read the bad below for why I wouldn’t stay here again.
We just got back to the US from London in May 2025, and stayed at the Gresham Hotel in the Paddington Station area for 6 days. The area of Sussex Gardens has its charms, and is within walking distance of Paddington station. Paddington Station is great because it will get you anywhere. You can take the Elizabeth Line or Heathrow Express train straight from the Heathrow airport. And you can get on the Tube (underground) and get just about anywhere in the city. We also took the GWR train to Windsor to see Windsor Castle.
So, we thought that we’d stay in the Paddington area. Now, last year we stayed at the Royal Cambridge Hotel and also the Dolphin Hotel in the same area. You can see the review of last year’s hotels here. This year we wanted to try somewhere different, although in the same area, so we chose the Gresham Hotel. All of the hotels mentioned are in old Victorian Townhouses, which I love for the history.
Hotels are small in London
One thing to know about London, is that most of the hotels have very small rooms. My husband is much too noisy for me to share a small room with him, so we opted to book two single rooms. There is usually no AC in the hotel rooms, open windows with no screens is all you have if it’s hot outside.
The good-ish
The hotel is situated about two blocks from the entrance to Paddington Station. Come out the open entrance near the Burger King and Pasty Shop, then cross the street near the McDonald’s. Stay straight. After that you’d walk two blocks to Sussex Gardens and turn left. The hotel is nearly at the end of that block.
Receptions and luggage storage
We got to Heathrow at 7:35 am, and after we got through Customs, we took the Elizabeth Line to Paddington Station. We got to the hotel before 10 am. It was too early to check in, but the nice receptionist allowed us to store our luggage in a dedicated luggage storage spot near the front desk and told us to come back after 2 pm. This area was not locked, and anyone could come in, so I locked my carry-on case, and took my backpack with me. We came back to the hotel after 2 pm and check in was easy and the weekday receptionist was delightful.
The rooms
As I mentioned before, the rooms are tiny, but they were clean. My husband had a room on the third floor (226, all the rooms start with the number 2, which makes it confusing to find your room), which was clean, but did not have a fan. I had room 219 on the second floor at first, which was in a little cubby with two other rooms. (Read more later about the “at first” in the story.) I did have a fan. There is a tiny lift (elevator) in this hotel, but it was very slow to react. Each room had a power strip with multiple outlets on it. However, they were glued to the desk close to the wall, and it was hard to use my USA power adapter on it. My USB outlets on the adapter were on the back of the adapter, and the charger cords barely fit between the outlets and the wall. There is a desk in each room with a chair.
My first room (219) was clean and the bed was comfortable. The shower door was a glass folding door, but the shower was tiny. The water took a while to get hot, also. Some of the toilets in the area seemed to share a common water tank, so you couldn’t always flush again right away. Shower Gel, shampoo, and soap were provided, along with towels and a bath mat. It’s a very basic hotel but it’s also one of the less expensive in London. I thought that the beds and pillows were comfortable enough, although kind of narrow. We didn’t spend all that much time there so that was okay. They do have free wi-fi. Both rooms had their windows open with no screens each evening when we came back, although bugs didn’t seem to be a problem.
Included Breakfast
Breakfast was probably one of the best parts of this hotel. The breakfast room is in the basement. It would get crowded, but we always got a table right away. Included is an English Breakfast, which includes baked beans, sausage, and 2 eggs sunny side up. The very nice staff will ask you if you want the English Breakfast, and you can tell her yes or no. There is nothing made to order. You can also get white or wheat toast, although the toasters are very slow. There is hot water for instant coffee, coffee bags, or tea bags. Other selections include cereal, yogurt, biscuits (cookies), fruit cocktail, hard boiled eggs, and juices. The breakfast is included each day, and the only day we didn’t go down there for it was the day we flew back home. It’s actually very good.
And the bad…why I would not stay here again
Okay, the first night in the hotel for me was not fun. It seems that the walls, ceilings, and floors in the building have no insulation and the walls are thin. I believe that an elephant in shoes was in the room above me, and walked around for hours. I was wearing earplugs, and had a sound machine connected to my headphone sleep mask, but still I could hear the sound. I finally got to sleep at around 1:30 am when they finally stopped making noise. I spoke to the receptionist from the day before, and she told me that I need to speak to the receptionist if it happens again and they would talk to the person and ask them to be more considerate.
So…night two… the noise started again. I tried everything to sleep, including sleeping on the duvet on the floor in the bathroom/entryway. My goodness, those people were loud. I was thinking that someone was having a party in that tiny room. There are no phones in the room, but at 11:30 pm I got dressed and went and talked to the night receptionist, as instructed. Well, he was no help at all. He definitely didn’t want to go and talk to them and said he couldn’t change my room because there were none available. So, I went back to my room and waited till 3:30 am when they finally shut up. Needless to say, I was tired and unhappy the next morning.
I spoke to the kind weekend receptionist about it, and she said “sure, I can get you a different room. Just pack and leave your luggage in the luggage room, and when you come back we’ll have a new room for you.” And thankfully, she did just that. So much for “we have no vacancies.” This was room 253.
But it’s not over…
The next three nights were much better and I got some sleep. On our last night there I figured I’d get a decent night’s sleep before our flight home, but I was wrong. The people above me had been a bit noisy earlier, and seemed to take a lot of showers, but I fell asleep quickly. However, I woke up around 11:30 pm after the wall light came on. I knew I didn’t leave the light on, and when I flipped the switch to turn it off I got an electrical shock. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, and then felt water splash on my face. I turned on a different light and realized that water was running down the wall into the wall lamp. I tried to turn the lamp off with a piece of plastic but it would not turn off no matter what.
I really didn’t know what to do. I moved the bed away from the wall, but I was afraid of fire. Time to get dressed again and talk to the weekend night receptionist. He came and looked at the wall and didn’t know what was going on, but he said he’d get me a different room. He did get me a room quickly and walked me to it, but by then I was worried about fire in the hotel because of water hitting electricity, and didn’t get much sleep. I had to get up early to get to the airport, but I was really glad when I was out of that hotel. And I won’t go back.
Now, my husband had no problems in his room, guess I was just the lucky one. lol
How were my other rooms?
Room 253 started out okay. It was comfortable and clean. However, it had a short shower curtain, instead of a shower door, which made showering awkward. There was water all over the floor after my shower. The last room in the basement on the last night was a double, I guess. It was slightly bigger and had a bit bigger bed, but I wouldn’t want to be in it with someone else. It had a window on each side of the room, one looking into the hall, and one into the courtyard. Both windows had blinds but it was light in there. I don’t remember the room number of this one, but it was in the basement right next to the breakfast room. And it was very cold. In all the rooms, I could hear the rumble of the underground train, but it wasn’t loud enough to keep me awake.
My thoughts
Honestly, I cannot recommend this hotel. Although it had its good points, I feel that, after the water situation, this hotel could be a fire hazard at any time. Plus, it’s very noisy. There are plenty of other hotels in the area. Read the reviews and stay somewhere else.
The Quiet Cruiser 