Review of Thistle Barbican Shoreditch 3*

Survival guide for staying at Thistle Barbican: The smell: When you saw the reception and met with the lovely receptionists you think maybe this place is actually not too bad, then you enter the room, bang! The smell of fermented mould just hits you. The window: The bad smell forces you to open the window, and then you discover that the window’s conveniently broken. Room service: You pick up the 1980s phone on the night stand to call room service. It rings on and on till your ear starts burning, no one answers. You stop a housekeeper in the hallway for help. She's totally nice and lovely but cannot understand a word of English. Hygiene: By the end of the day, the air in the room gets really bad, for there's no air system and the window cannot be opened. You can chew the air. During shower, you find more mould, and more, in the shower, on the wall. The carpet has stains everywhere and some previous people's spilled drink and chewing gum still there near the window. You call the room service and reception at different times of the day for five times just to roll the dice and try your luck. Number of calls answered: 0. The last straw: The wall is paper thin. You hear couple bantering in the next room and decide that the wife has a point, someone sneezing and coughing and cursing. When you call your family at night and speak any louder than whisper, there will be angry knocks on the wall from your lovely neighbours. 6am in the morning, alarm clock wakes you up. Then you realise: it's NOT my alarm clock, but from the other side of the wall! 6:30am the pipe in the shower starts to make squealing noise, which lasts for an hour. (Plus it happens everyday during your three days of stay) You start to read the Google reviews and wonder: how the hell does this ****hole gets three stars and all the jolly PollyAnna reviews? Then you read, 'if you pay top dollars you will get a good room but if you have a budget… ' True that you get what you pay for. But honestly this hotel is cheap at all even by London standards, and you have already paid for the full week. You call room service for just one more time. Then you pack your stuff, hop on a cab, straight to Hyatt. If you have to pay top dollars, you pay it elsewhere. Also pictures attached *** pictures taken AFTER cleaning.