Alanna Cartier

Review of Le Meridien, Gatwick Airport

Terrible experience staying here before my flight ...

Terrible experience staying here before my flight home. I arrived at the hotel around 9:30. Five check-in agents were on duty, but all were busy checking guests in. I waited. As I waited 3 agents finished with their guests, and left the desk. The fourth available agent finally offered to help me. He was in training, and the other agent helping him had a very hands off did not appear to be approachable. The agent frequently had to ask her questions and bring her back to his computer to see what he was seeing. The process took much longer than it should have.

When I arrived in the room it had a system whereby you needed to insert the room card to get the lights to turn on. This was unfamiliar to me and there was no clear signage indicating what I needed to do.

I then called room service for dinner. The person who answered the phone had a very thick accent and was difficult to understand. I explained to him that I had celiac disease and that I would need a gluten free meal. At that point he went to ask his supervisor whether I could be accommodated. He returned to the call to tell me that they could accommodate me. I began to order the steak, but asked whether the fries would be gluten free (whether they were fried in the same fryer as gluten containing things), he again left the call to confirm. He returning saying that they would be. At this point things got very confusing, because I thought he was saying something about corn flakes, but I couldn't tell with his accent. I just repeated my order and that it needed to be gluten free. I also order a glass of wine, and creme brulee. Again the man had to confirm that it was gluten free. At the end of the call he said that my meal would take about 45 minutes, which seemed long but I didn't mind waiting.

While I waited for my food I began to unpack. The garbage in the bathroom had a step to open it. It was broken. There was a shelf in the shower that was also broken. Despite being a luxury hotel there were no robes available. The TV had only local channels, no movies available. The binder in the room also did not include a breakfast menu or menus for the restaurants in the hotel. There were no plugs near the bed to charge my phone.

Eventually my food arrived. The steak was very over cooked. The creme brulee had fruit on top that made the sugar melt. The side of the creme brulee was covered in granulated sugar. There was also a dish of cornflakes which are not gluten free in a plastic wrapped bowl. I was exhausted and didn't make a big deal of it. Overall the food was so bad that I didn't end up finishing most of it. Also- the small table in the room had such a wobble that I couldn't cut my steak on it. I had to move my tray over to the desk.

Overnight the room was fine. The bed was passable. Definitely no where near the best hotel mattress I've slept on. In the morning I could hear every person that walked by in the hall. The shower had good water pressure but the water was dangerously hot. I needed to put the gauge at well into the blue section to get reasonable warm water.

There was supposed to be an easy drop off check out process, but there was no information in the room to indicate what needed to be done, so I checked out at the desk. This process was easy and quick. The desk agent was very friendly.