*** Volvodriver Rating - 6 ***

I think I might be the most qualified person on the planet to write about Club Quarters in Trafalgar Square, London. I have lost count of how many times I've stayed here and despite the fact it's not too close to the office, I still choose it, particularly in the warmer months as it's location is by far it's best selling point. Having Trafalgar Square 50 metres from your door is pretty fantastic and allows for a few hours of roaming around central London after work, especially in summer when there's light till quite late.

The inside of the hotel, particularly the lobby looks alot more impressive than what you're about to get as far as rooms go. The lobby is shared with another events venue called 8 Northumberland, so on occasion you will find a party of some sort with lots of people milling around the main foyer. There's also no porters to help with your bags and you have to lug the suitcases to reception from your dropoff outside yourself. Staff behind the front desk range from very friendly to quite direct and impersonal, but I never actually faced any rudeness here. If you have a problem with stairs and suitcases make sure you specify that you need a room that is accessible without any stairs as there are many floors in this hotel with split levels.

The rooms range from woefully small to very tight, this is however central London where space is at a premium, also the windows you get can be quite small, not all rooms have a fridge and/or microwave and none I have stayed in so far have a safe. There was one room in particular that was a 'superior room' which really felt like a dungeon, it had one window out of the way that just opened up to the middle drop in the building, so you basically got zero natural light and in the main bedroom it felt even worse as there was no window at all, it was room 420 and while it came with a kitchenette and large space to work that was separate from the bedroom, it felt quite depressing in there. The bathrooms are basically the same size and config, they are of course small but functional and at least the shower has a bit of room to move. My favourite room was probably 505, it was roomy had a fridge and a microwave, a large window that faced Northumberland avenue, and a TV and work area that faced the bed so it was easy to lay in bed and watch TV or the laptop hooked up to the TV. As I suspect the layout of the floors are similar for most floors try and get an '05' room on any floor. It's the last picture above and the first two below, the last one below is of the kitchenette in the superior room.

The superior room also has quite a few extras in the kitchen including a coffee machine, but no capsules to use with it, something of course you can easily get at a local supermarket. You can also see the extra dining/working area in the superior room which has the only window, and as mentioned above it only looks out to the centre cavity of the building so not only is there nothing to look at, you get very little natural light. Moving on, all rooms have 3 power outlets at the desks, the media connections were not tried, I couldnt even find where to actually plug anything in, however they all had wired network, you had to fish it out from under the desk and feed it through but it worked and the speed was noticeably faster than the WiFi, not to say the WiFi is slow, it's more than adequate to Skype video call, stream Netflix or YouTube. Also by the bed there's some power outlets and handy USB chargers. The cordless phone in the room doesn't work, I never got that to work in any room I stayed in, but using the phone at the desk does the job well enough the few times you'll need to use it.

The bathrooms also have the standard stuff like shampoo, lotion and soap, but for some reason they are very stingy with the soap, in every stay I've had here no matter how small a slither of soap I have left it is never refreshed, once I even hid the remaining soap I had to test whether a new one would be left and it wasn't! What I ended up doing was either calling down specifically for soap or when seeing a member of staff in the corridors requesting some. There's also adequate room to store your clothes and each floor near the lifts has a cold water and ice dispenser, not all of the ice dispensers worked but the cold water always did, sometimes they run out of bottles but they do a reasonable job of keeping it stocked. After having stayed here so many times the staff kind of got used to seeing me around, and I definitely noticed a difference in the level of service when I first started staying here to now, meaning it's gotten alot better, so much so that one night I accidentally smashed the flat screen TV in my room, when I reported it the next day I got told they'd check it out while I was out. When I returned in the evening the manager told me they had replaced the screen, I asked whether there was any charge I had to pay he said 'no it's fine these things happen' This really impressed me, it's obvious the main reason for this is because of my repeat business but it basically ensured that I'll keep coming back.

Room service is pretty much only available from either the Italian restaurant or Boyds grill in the foyer, but it is chargeable to the room and there's a decent selection. Strangely though Sunday appears off for more than just you, it's not possible to get food delivered to your room on Sundays. Either way the location of this restaurant is it's trump card, you're a stones throw away from so many restaurants and if you choose to stay in still you can use a food delivery service like deliveroo and have the food come directly to your room. In addition to that being able to walk to pretty much all of central London is great, the proximity to both Charring Cross and Embankment tube stations is also very handy to getting around quickly, walking across the nearby Jubilee bridge gets you to the London Eye and the surrounding area where there's heaps to do and see. There's a small gym and also an executive type lounge for club members, both of which I have never frequented as with London being right outside any spare time was spent roaming around. Overall while the service level of the hotel and its rooms aren't amazing, given the location and price I'd have to say it's a recommended place to stay.