I use Shaftesbury Hotels frequently for both business & leisure. The location is ideal for me as there are two tube stations within 2 minutes walk and several bus routes 1 min walk away.
Queensway / Bayswater is a thriving community with lots of shops,restaurants and bars.
The reception area of the hotel is impressive and staff welcoming. Rooms are a little on the small size which is not unusual for Central London but they are clean and have everything you require for your stay.If you book on the Shaftesbury Hotels website your stay also includes a full breakfast which can save you a considerable amount compared to what other London hotels charge as an extra!
Having stayed in most of the Shaftesbury hotels I have recommended this hotel and others to friends and business colleagues and they have also commented on the value for money they enjoyed with this hotel chain.
Reading some of the other reviews I think that many people expect 5 star service for little money and perhaps for their next visit to London they should look at Park Lane hotels!!
Without doubt for overall standards and value for money you will have to look a long way to better
Shaftesbury Hotels. James

My stay at the Grand Royale Hyde Park was perhaps the most absurdly, ludicrously mediocre hotel experience I have ever had.

My wife and I arrived at the hotel at approximately 12:30 on the day of our reservation. The hotel foyer really is very beautiful, with deep carved wood and luxurious furnishings. So far, so good.

We had to wait in line behind two other guests who were complaining about the quality of their rooms – an experience that was duplicated virtually every time we passed through the lobby. We were told that we could not check in until 2:00, but they stored our bags for us and we headed out to get lunch. We returned at around 3:30, got our key, and headed upstairs to our “Deluxe Double” room 311.

The first thing we noticed, upon arrival to our room, was that the way was blocked by a rather flustered housekeeper. Even though we arrived 1.5 hours after check-in, the room had not yet been fully cleaned. And from the looks of the room once we got inside, the poor housekeeper wasn’t actually done cleaning it, either!

The room itself was quite small, but that is no surprise in an older, cheaper, hotel. Yes, there are maybe 5 inches of space between the sides of the bed and the wall, but you can always just hop straight onto the bed – really, who doesn’t need the exercise? We expected that.

What we didn’t expect was for a hotel employee to ***walk right into our room***, taking several steps in before he realized that we were there, and that we were staring at him. He seemed startled and confused, asking us several times if reception had really put us in this room, room 311, as if it were not a room in which guests were supposed to be placed, before apologizing and taking his leave, leaving us to feel relieved that we were both, more or less, fully clothed. (It was at this point that we discovered that there was no lock, deadbolt, or chain on the door. One did need a keycard in order to get in, but that clearly was not an insurmountable obstacle in these parts!)

We also didn’t expect the walls to be quite so badly-scuffed, the bathtub and duvet to both come equipped with other people’s hair, or the carpet to be so dirty that my wife refused to remove her shoes. The room was sparsely decorated, and looked little like the deluxe double represented on their website. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t unlivable by any means, but it was the sort of experience one expects from a Motel 6, not from an allegedly 4-star hotel. “Luxurious” was not exactly the term that sprang to mind.

At this point, my wife and I were wary and disappointed. It was only when we decided to take showers that our experience veered sharply into the realm of the absurd. You see, our shower possessed neither curtain nor door. This can of course be fine in a large enough bath, with a shower nozzle focused enough, and a tub wide enough, to prevent excessive spray. This was not a focused shower nozzle. This was not a wide tub. As soon as the faucet was switched on, water began to splash out onto the floor. The imposition of a body in the water’s stream only made matters worse. Standing perfectly still under the water, carefully trying to shield the spray with your body, meant giving the bathroom a nice light sprinkling; actually moving about freely under the water unleashed a flood. By the time we had each taken a shower, we had to use all of the towels we were given to sop up the water that had spilled out.

A note on the towels: they are not the worst I have ever used. I once fell into a lake whilst on a hike, and was forced to dry myself by rubbing quickly against the bark of an exceptionally gnarled and knotted oak tree. That experience was very slightly more unpleasant than this one, as the towels in this hotel do stop just short of actually drawing blood. (When I went downstairs to request additional towels, explaining that the lack of a shower curtain had led to some flooding in our bathroom, the front desk staff seemed to nod knowingly, as if it was to be expected, as if that sort of thing was common for guests staying in that room, but didn’t go so far as to actually apologize for the stupefyingly absurd setup.)

The truth is: the hotel lobby is really stunningly beautiful, but that is the only thing luxurious or 4-star about this hotel. The rooms are tiny, dirty, and poorly-designed, while the staff, though not actively rude or hostile when they aren’t barging unannounced into your room, are not particularly helpful either. The experience fell far, far short of our expectations. It’s not a 4-star luxury hotel. It is a 2-star hotel with a really nice lobby and really bad housekeeping.

good location 2min walk from Bayswater, rooms were clean, I'm afraid that's the only good thing I can say.Night 1,Nov 28th, our room on the ground floor, had no heating, a huge draft blowing in the window, someone had tried to fix with selotape, unsuccessfully, was so cold couldn't sleep very well under our thin duvet.Night 2, asked for heating/window to be fixed, or new room, were given a sheet/blanket which helped somewhat but was still a draft blowing on us, on a very cold night of freezing temps.Morning 3, asked again for new room, was told it would be sorted by the time we came back later that evening.Night 3, was assured it had been fixed, but it wasn't, then told it was too late to get another room,so we were transferred to a sister hotel in Notting Hill, and had to come back the following morning to leave our bags.Night 4, given a nicer room, with heating/no drafty windows, and a bottle of wine/chocolates to apologise, which was a nice touch.Morning 5, woke and electricity gone, tried to shower in dark bathroom but no hot water,no phone,no internet,no hairdryer,no iron.while going down the stairs instead of the lift, came across a breakfast room, full of breakfast, noone had told us about. Checked out amidst many unhappy people with wet hair! Everytime we were at reception there were lots of other people complaining. I feel sorry for the people who work there, it could be a great hotel.

Very good location in central London with many restaurants/eateries and supermarkets within 3 minutes walk. Convenient access to all forms of public transportation and even the sightseeing hop-on hop-off buses. Breakfast is fantastic. Rooms may be small but it is value for money. This is my second stay.