I totally agreed with the last reviewer. The Shaftsbury Bayswater Hotel is a total scam. It doesn’t exist. My wife and I were very excited about finding a 4 star hotel, in Bayswater, close to the tube with air conditioning and room service. When we arrived in early May, London was going through a heat wave, and we were looking forward to settling into a nice cool room after our 9 hour trip from Atlanta. After lugging our bags up the steps at the Bayswater tube station and then over to the supposed 4 star hotel, we were shocked to find a gutted building where they Shaftsbury Bayswater should have been! After 5 to 10 minutes of cursing and swearing, I deiced to drag our bags down the street to a known 4 star hotel we had stayed at a couple of times before, the Somerset Bayswater, and pray they had rooms available. I felt as though I had been shafted by the good folks of the Shaftsbury and there was no way I was doing to deal with any Shaftsbury property, ever. Luckily the Somerset did have room’s available for 175GBP ; vs the 75GBP we have been promised at the Shaftsbury. So the lodging for the trip ended up costing twice as much as we had planned, but at least I was not going to be jacked around anymore by the Shaftsbury folks, and I could enjoy the rest of my trip and deal with this problem after I got back home. Now the issue of refunds….If it had not been for the good people at CentralIR reservations continuing to hammer the Shaftsbury management, I would have never received my refund. I can’t say enough nice things about CentralIR. It took almost thirty days, but they eventually got the Shaftsbury management to grant the refund. I’ve attached some pictures of the Shaftsbury Bayswater Hotel. Feel free to compare them to the pictures at the hotel’s web site!!!!

Myself and my friend booked a twin room in the Shaftesbury Bayswater (the booking was made through Centralr in March 2006) but when we arrived at the hotel at around 10.30PM on what should have been the first night of our stay the building was empty and in total darkness! We went to a nearby hotel, they sent us to the Shaftesbury Hyde Park to look for help (at about 10.45PM). Here we were told that the Shaftesbury Bayswater hadn't been granted planning permission and that they (the Shaftesbury Hyde Park) would honour our reservation - however they couldn't find our reservation on the system. There were no twin rooms left so we were offered two single rooms - we were not happy to accept this, we were on our own in a strange city and were not comfortable to sleep in separate rooms. We were then offered a double room. Then we were told that the air-conditioning wasn't working and also that there was no room service available!! I'm 6 months pregnant and hadn't eaten since that afternoon, we'd booked a 4 star hotel with a number of facilities including air-conditioning and room service - therefore we asked to be moved to a hotel of equal standards to the one we booked with a room equivalent to the one we had booked. We were told we could be moved to the Shaftesbury Piccadilly - we were happy to accept this. Then a short time later we were told we would have to pay £185 per night for the Shaftesbury Piccadilly (we were supposed to pay £79 per night for the Shaftesbury Bayswater). This was totally unacceptable and at this point we were so fed up and tired (I'd been standing in reception for an hour and a half and as I previously mentioned I'm 6 months pregnant) we said we would accept the double room in the Shaftesbury Hyde Park. We were given our key card and went to our room - it was in the basement off a very narrow hallway, the bed was very small, the room was very small, the bathroom was tiny and it was very hot (and couldn't be cooled because there was no air-con). The window opened to face a wall. We would have had no comfort in this room and so we went back to reception and asked that we be moved to the Shaftesbury Piccadilly at no extra cost. As we were discussing this with reception at about 12.15AM, a man in a suit approached us - he recognised that we were Irish (he was Irish himself) and had been in reception for quite a while - he sat us down, got us some tea and we explained all of the above to him. Initially he organised that we would be moved to the Shaftesbury Piccadilly at no extra cost. After he had heard the full story he asked reception to refund us the first nights accommodation. We were then brought to the Shaftesbury Piccadilly. Unfortunately the problems didn't end once we reached the Shaftesbury Piccadilly. When we arrived at the the Shaftesbury Piccadilly we were given room 404 which was supposed to be a twin room, it was actually a double room. We were told if we waited another hour they'd split the beds - as it was already after 1AM we decided to just stay in the double bed (the room was so small, we really couldn't see how it could be turned into a twin anyway). The room looked like someone else had been staying in it - the mini-bar had been used and someone elses key cards were on the table. The wall in the room was badly stained from a leak and the air-conditioning was broken (although we'd been assured in reception we'd be given a room with working air-con). We ordered room service - a cheese and tomato panini and a chicken and vegetable panini, milk and a bottle of still mineral water (to our surprise there were only 3 things available on the room service menu - neither of us had ever seen such a limited room service menu before!) - we were then told that the hotel was out of tomatoes so we could only have cheese in the cheese and tomato panini and also there was no still mineral water in the hotel. We were told there may be some in the mini-bar - there were two opened and half used bottles of water in the minibar!!! We were very amused when the paninis arrived - with a side salad of cucumber and tomato, but no tomato in the cheese and tomato panini!! I asked for an extra pillow - there weren't any spare pillows in the hotel. Then at 2AM we received a call from reception to tell us that our double room was ready - we were totally baffled by this as it was a twin room we had requested- we were already in bed so we decided to stay in that room for the night!!! By the following morning we were totally fed up and very very tired, we would have cancelled our booking and moved to a different hotel for Saturday night however the Shaftesbury Hyde Park had charged us for 2 nights accommodation and we had no proof that then refund we'd been promised had actually been made. We were told on Sat morning that £63.20 not £79.00 had been refunded to my credit card - the first night of our stay was more expensive than the second night and we would only be refunded for the second night of the stay - this seemed totally ridiculous!! We were told to come back later and they would try and sort it out. Later that evening we came back, the refund still wasn't sorted out, however we were given a new room (room 203) which had twin beds, was bigger than the first room, had working air-con and all in all was much nicer (what we would have expected to get the first night). The following morning (Sunday) we went to reception to check out and still the refund had not been sorted out - we left our bags and came back at half-one to collect them and go to the airport. At this point we were assured that the refund had been made although the receptionist couldn't give us a receipt, statement etc. to prove this!! I've contacted the credit card company who don't yet have a record of the refund although they do have the original charge from the first night. I've emailed the Operations Manager of the Shaftesbury Bayswaterand I'm awaiting a response.