Despite having made a reservation a month advance, and despite having ALREADY PAID for the room, we arrived at the Shaftesbury Premier Notting Hill to find that our room was not available. They claimed an unspecified "maintenance issue" and offered to taxi us a half-hour out to the boondocks to one of their sister hotels in Osterly or something like that. We specifically wanted to stay in this area and were to be in London for less than 24 hours. Obviously, our time was precious and their alternative was not at all acceptable.

The front desk staff did NOT offer to find us equivalent nearby accommodations--we were basically given a refund and that was that. We wound up traipsing around the area, on foot, with luggage in tow, checking the other hotels in the neighborhood one by one. (A very helpful lady at the sold-out Phoenix Hotel came to our rescue and not only found us a room at a competitor nearby, but then called the hotel herself, negotiated a low rate on our behalf, then gave us a map upon which she drew exactly how to get there. In other words, we got better service from a hotel we hadn't even booked a room with!)

This seems to be a pattern with Shaftesbury. Do yourself a favor and check out the reviews below from Semi_Circle (11/5/12), Haylea S (10/14/12), D_Kernoghan (6/29/12), JMH1953 (2/20/12), ElenaCL (1/25/12), matthew g (1/11/12), and Richroom101 (1/3/12), who all wound up getting the "Shaftesbury shaft" like we did.

Do you really want to gamble with your room while on a trip? I sure don't, and I will never make the mistake of attempting to stay at any Shaftesbury property ever again.

I booked a double deluxe room at this hotel for an overnight stay for my partner & I. The room was TINY. The bed was tucked in against the window with only one side available to get in & out of it. It took 5 steps from the door to the bed. The shower in the bathroom was even smaller. When I asked at reception what made the room 'deluxe', the receptionist had me shown to another room, which was exactly the same. Even the porter stated that it was really only suitable for a single person. We were shown & decided to stay in another room on the ground floor, which had no view (not bothered). It was by some extractor pipes which made noise throughout the night, at least we had some room to move & a shower we could raise our arms in. I am sure that there are bigger rooms to be had, these must have a different name. Not a lot of room for your money here.

We will were moved to this hotel as its sister hotel The Grand Royale was having renovation work. The hotel is situated within a rather grand house, common in this part of town. The reception area is small and modern, the bedrooms tiny. Only stay in these rooms if you are a midget. We stayed en route on holiday so consequently had a lot of luggage, this filled the room, there was an ironing board in the cupboard (I dont know why as the room was not big enough to put it up), the window was tiny and the view was of a central heating pipe, it was boiling hot, I was shown several other rooms after I complained, all equally bad, as we were going to a show we had no time to look at another hotel, we reluctantly stayed and checked out first thing in the morning. I have complained to the company and received a partial refund.

They are extremely disorganised. Upon arrival (about 5pm) we were told there were no rooms after i had booked and paid in advance. We got moved to their partner hotel near heathrow with a complimentary cab, when we got there ended up having to wait 30mins cause they knew nothing about us coming. The next morning they rung us up to say we had ordered a cab when we hadn't (slyly trying to kick us out). We got back to this branch and our room wasn't ready, when we got in however i was glad we had stayed at the heathrow one for 2days. This hotel is ugly, the rooms are tiny and closet like. You can barely move round it.
Im pretty sure the double beds aren't double and it definitely isn't 4star! We didn't get anything complimentary.
No bottled water or anything and no fridge! What 4star hotel has no fridge and has their curtains falling down. Its ridiculous. Their staff are extremely unhelpful too. Save your money. I unfortunately got trapped into booking it cause i booked through the secret hotel deal on last minute (cost 415 for three nights) and little did i know that their 4star would actually look like it should have been referred to as a run down inn.