Here’s the 13th post sharing our adventures in the British Isles and Ireland from September 29 to October 17, 2025, for genealogy, business, and sightseeing. Hope you enjoy it!
Sunday, October 12, 2025
We spent just one night at the Park Plaza Riverbank on the last night of our tour and then took an Uber to the Novotel London West. Jim’s ISACA Global Leadership Summit started with a welcome reception at 5:00 p.m., so we had a relaxing Sunday to decompress from the whirlwind tour of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Wales.
After we checked into the Novotel London West, we walked down Hammersmith Street to a pub called The Swan and got some lunch, which filled us so well that there was no need for dinner! When Jim left for his reception, I headed to the gym, much needed after two weeks of hedonism.
At home, we don’t drink very much, and certainly not during the day. Anything goes on vacation, though!
On Monday morning, Jim went off to his conference in the hotel, and I went to the gym again. After a shower, I walked down the street and brought some lunch back to the room. Be sure to read to the end of this post for my scathing review of this hotel!
I had planned to go on tours and sightsee while Jim was in his sessions, but I was so tired from a week of touring with Trafalgar that solitude and rest was just what I needed. So, I spent most of the day catching up on my journal entries that would become blog posts. Jim’s conference treated the attendees (no spouses) to an evening event at the Natural History Museum and I was happy to stay in the room and work on my relaxation some more.
On Tuesday, Jim left for his sessions, and I went back to the gym. Later, I went a-walking down the street again for lunch and did some more relaxing, writing, and reading.
Jim’s conference wrapped up at around 5:30 p.m. and we walked a half-mile to a tiny pizza parlor called Zia Lucia’s. We had a huge arugula salad and wood-fired margarita pizza—and of course, beer.
Our table was right near the front window of the restaurant, and we were entertained by a constant parade of Door Dash drivers, or whatever they were. The delivery guys would scan a label on the restaurant door. They showed their phone through the door, and the employee would hand the pizzas out to them, because they were not allowed to come in! All drove motorcycles or bicycles. That restaurant did a booming delivery business!
The next day, we would move to another hotel, which couldn’t be more different from the one we were leaving. Different in such a good way!
My Review of Novotel London West
First, I will say that I shared this review on the satisfaction survey and received a very nice response from the hotel manager. Of course, that won’t solve the systemic problem of the chain.
You know, when I have a negative experience with a service provider, restaurant, or hotel while traveling, I try to leave them unmentioned, rather than posting a negative review. It’s important for consumers to be informed about extremely negative experiences, though, so they can make informed decisions.
There may be people who love Novotel hotels, but I can’t imagine who they are. We had to stay in some on our AAA/Collette Australia/New Zealand trip in March 2025, and we were less than impressed. So, when I saw we’d be staying in one in Glasgow during our Trafalgar Britain and Ireland Highlights tour, I was not especially thrilled. Then, at the end of the trip, I knew we’d also be staying in the Novotel London West for my husband’s conference, and I tried not to be too prejudiced.
Let me tell you a couple of the most-notable experiences during our stay in October 2025 at the Novotel London West, an Accor hotel.
1. Our guest-room door was left propped open for more than an hour by the housekeeping staff.
I looked forward to hanging around the hotel and cleaning up my travel logs that would form blog posts upon our return to Pennsylvania. For most of the morning, I worked in the lobby and came back upstairs at around noon, thinking that our room would have been cleaned by then. It wasn’t, so I went out to get a bite to eat and bring it back.
When I returned with my lunch, I saw that our door ajar, so I walked around a while and picked at my lunch in the bag, returning every so often so see if the housekeeper was done yet. After a while, I wondered what the heck she was doing in there, so I pushed wide the door—and the room was empty. I had noticed several other guest room doors propped open, too.
I remained in the room to wait for the housekeeper, because I didn’t want to leave my room open and unattended. When she finally came in, I told her I didn’t appreciate that the door had been ajar and the room unattended. At the same time, I asked her if she would please clean the fingerprints off the glass door of the fridge. She was having a difficult time understanding me, so I thanked her and left her to do her cleaning.
I have a soft spot in my heart for hotel cleaning staff, because I spent two summers as a maid at a motel near Lake Erie. I saw a lot, and I was actually a very poor housekeeper.
I went downstairs to guest services and had a language problem there, too. Mind you, we were in England, so I would think that guest services would at least have someone who understood English. Oh my. Am I being insensitive? Tough! Anyhow, I finally communicated the issue, and the guest services person told me she would inform housekeeping of the matter.
2. Hotel services did not answer the phone.
When I returned to the room after the housekeeper was finished, I noticed that I had been given six decaf pods for the Nespresso machine and no regular. That was not going to do me one bit of good in the morning, so I figured I’d get that taken care of right away.
I called housekeeping. No answer. I called guest services. No Answer. I called the operator. No Answer.
So, I schlepped back down to guest services and asked if the phones in the rooms work. This was a different person from the one I spoke with earlier, and she had difficulty understanding me, too. Was it my Pennsylvania accent? She assured me that the phones did work, and I said maybe just mine didn’t because no one was answering. She told me that happens when they are busy. I said, “Even the operator?” She said, “We are the operator.” Oh, brother.
So, I told her what I needed, and a nice man showed up an hour later with six coffee cups, glass. I told him that I didn’t need coffee cups, I needed the pods, and he said, “Oh, the capsules.” Okay, I’ll give them that. He was so nice, we had a good laugh, and he returned with the correct capsules.
3. Unsanitary cleaning practice in the gym.
There’s a water dispenser in the gym, and I thought this would be a good place to fill my reusable travel bottle rather than the tap. No so! On my third time using the gym, I noticed that the bottom tray of the water machine was gross. When a housekeeper came in, I paused my rowing and tried to tell her about it. Again, a language barrier. I finally got the message through to her, and she took a used towel out of the bin and proceeded to dig at the troughs in the tray. She really went at it. Well, I had to give her credit for her enthusiasm.
Now, let me stress that EVERY person I encountered at Novotel was very polite. So, Novotel gets that right; unless I’m just so charming. What does this tell me? It’s not the employees who are the problem. It’s not just the management of the Novotel London West, because I’ve had these types of experiences at more than one Novotel. It’s corporate.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have found Novotel properties to be tired in varying degrees. This one was exhausted. Here are some photos of our room.
Novotel’s parent company, ACCOR, should give its subsidiaries, at least the Novotels, much more attention. The company does not educate and hold its employees to high standards of service, cleanliness, and safety. It doesn’t maintain this brand’s physical plants well either.
Organizations, such as ISACA, should be aware of the condition of Novotel London West, because the experiences of their members matter when it comes to growth, or even just sustaining numbers. Before I retired, I booked conferences for our students as a program director at a major university, and I would have been horrified if I had subjected our students to a property like this.
Sherri
Good to know