The Dilly

Our stay was very good. Ilona at the reception was very kind, friendly, and helpful.

This is a very average hotel and I’m not quite sure how it achieves a 5 star rating. The room was tired, as were the hallways. There were some quite bizarre touches - for example a party banner on the bed saying “welcome to your new home” with a Twix bar on it - plus writing on the mirror in what looked like lipstick. It was the kind of cheap, tacky thing you’d expect if you were on a hen or stag party to be fair. Definitely lacking in sophistication - and expensive. I’ve stayed in far better hotels nearby for the money - The Londoner, for example.

Location was good Room was shabby with very used items in room. Worn and creased carpet. Plug socket in wall hard place to reach to charge phone. Not able to shut plug in bathroom bowl to save hotwater to shave. Hotel resturant bar. Very bad. 40 min to order my first beer. Ordered 2 others while waiting. When the barman came back he was then serving other customers and ignoring me. Asked if food was still being served. It was. By the time the barman came back to me. He said no to food and then he went off to check if i could have bar snak menu. I could. I ordered with another barman and he said they are not doing food. I asked him to check with the first barman. 10 min later he came back to take my order. Service was slow. I asked loudly 4 times to be served another drink. The last time a wqitress came over with a drinks menu. With 4 bar staff in closerproximety. Staff wasted time and ignored a few customers No drinkng in the hotel 24 hrs a day. Bar shut at around 1 am.

We arrived at The Dilly at 11.30am for our 35th Anniversary break, to our room being already available, early for us. As we walked in to the newly refurbished entrance we were greeted by staff who took our cases and chatted to us. It’s so bright and clean now, such an improvement! Check in was quick and smooth and cases were taken to our room for us. The room was beautifully decorated with rose petals, swans a Dilly teddy bear & balloons with a lovely message written on the mirror. The room was spacious, clean and had everything we needed in the room. Unfortunately we didn’t get a front view as requested, which would have been amazing. We decided to go out and on our arrival a couple of hours later sparkling wine on ice plus a slice of cheese cake with chocolate covered strawberries had been delivered to our room, such a lovely touch. We used the restaurant Madui’s which was also recently refurbed to a high standard. Both the bar and restaurant were fabulous along with the friendly service and fabulous food. I used the swimming pool which was a good size. There was a lane sectioned off for lengths which was perfect for me. I was given two towels on entry and the lockers are by 4 digit code. Facilities were good and they have a steam room near the pool too. Lockers, hairdryers with seating also available. One night we had room service which was delivered quickly and was of high quality. The only complaint about that is everything is with chips! You can’t get a curry until after 10pm!! This needs looking at!! This is our home from home in London and we can’t wait for the rooms to be refurnished next (which is definitely needed now). Exciting times ahead. We can’t wait for our next stay at The Dilly London. 😊

This hotel has impeccable service. Every single member of staff I encountered was friendly and could not do enough for me - whether it was their "job" or not. I am a full time wheelchair user so this review is primarily aimed at assisting other disabled people to make their hotel selection. But I will deal with just a few general points first. First impressions: the lobby is gorgeous. Just the right blend of tradition aligned with contemporary twists. And plenty of white shirted waistcoated staff running about to assist with door opening/ taxi hailing or whatever. I only ate breakfast in the hotel. The food was fresh, flavoursome and of good quality. The service is outstanding and the setting is fabulous - pristine black and white floor tiles, a hugely high leaded conservatory type roof and plenty of plants to create a nice buzzy vibe. All in all, a pleasant way to start the day. As other guests have commented the bedrooms are exceedingly dark. This appears to be deliberate - the glass is frosted, the walls were painted a dark navy if memory serves and although there were a number of lights in the room all had a low wattage so even with them all on, the easiest place to read anything was the bathroom! There was a small spotlight on the desk where reading was possible - but not easy - it was competing with too much darkness all around. I'm in my late sixties and require glasses to read: younger people may now have a problem. WHEELCHAIR STUFF The hotel is completely flat in from the street, into reception. It does have what look like its original heavy wooden doors but there are plenty of staff to open them for you - or they are propped open if the weather outside is warm. From reception, it is a short roll to the lifts and then along to your disabled room - all completely flat with no steps or ramp. For those on stick(s), please note the disabled room I was in (on I think the third floor) was a significant distance from the lift. Not a problem to anyone on wheels. I've encountered some brutal springs on hotel bedrooms over the years. This one was my toughest ever. To get the door open wide enough to stop it closing with the wheelchair was a major strategic effort - you needed 3 hands - one to pull/ push the door open and the othear two to propel you forward. Anyone in a manual w/chair with no person accompanying them will have a major problem. This is compounded by a door threshold which you need to "flip" over which meant I frequently got wedged in the doorway - the spring was too strong to get myself going through the door at right angles so my castors just got jammed against the threshold with the door at about a 60 degree angle. There were occasions when a passing guest or member of staff saw me struggling and gave welcome assistance. Of course, I could just have rung down to reception and I'm sure someone would have rushed up to help but I don't like to do that. I just want to come and go from my room like everyone else. The room I had was spacious. Buckets of room around two sides of the bed. the left hand side - as you faced it - was wide enough to have taken even an electric chair I would think (just) but there was a heavy armchair blocking the way. A helpful person had left a floor lamp down this side of the bed illuminated for me - but I couldn't get at it to turn it off. I had to ask housekeeping to come up and move it to another socket where I could reach it and then I just "dunked" the heavy armchair out of my way so I could get at the curtains to draw them at night. The bed was 58cm high which I thought would have been grand for me. However it was slightly more difficult than I expected as the mattress was so soft that when I was sitting on it and wanted to transfer back into my wheelchair, the chair was higher than the bed so it was a little trickier than I'd anticipated. The bathroom has a similar threshold to the room but, as there was a "normal" door, I had zero difficulty going in and out - it was less than an inch high so I found it very easy to "flip" over. There is a roll in shower and the shower seat was a super height for me to transfer on and off. But the cubicle itself was too small to happily accommodate even my wheelchair - so many people's chairs would not fit once the sturdy shower seat is folded down from the wall. Having deployed it and transferred onto it, I discovered that there was only enough space in the cubicle to bring my chair in in a straight line - so completely parallel with the front of the seat - with my legs on one side of the seat. Plus the cubicle wasn't deep enough so the big wheels hit the back wall which meant I was forced to transfer with the chair more forward than I would like.... so I had to go over the big back wheel - which was precarious and uncomfortable. Consequently, I only had one shower during my 3 night stay. It was welcome nonetheless as in the majority of "accessible" rooms I've stayed in recently, as my disability has worsensed, I haven't been able to use the shower at all so I was thankful for small mercies. The loo was 48cm high and I did manage it OK but I knew before I went (the hotel had sent me photos) that a wall very close to the RHS of the loo as you face it, would pose a problem for me. So it proved. At home, I use this side of the loo to transfer on and off. I did managew the transfer each time .....but I did have 2 near misses. In short, a few years ago my disability was such that I'd have been delighted with this room. Now, not so much. But it was do-able - whereas so many rooms aren't even that. Breakfast was delicious but a bit of a palaver...... It is served on the second floor. When you come out of the lift, there is an unexpected half metre long very steep ramp down onto the general level of the second floor. No problem to go down but leaving the eating area each morning required the assitance of someone to shove me up this ramp and into the lift - it is way too steep for a manual user to self propel. When you arrive at the desk in the restaurant to tell them your room number, a member of staff has to put you into a wheelchair platform lift to bring you up half a floor. This is the main eating area for breakfast. But the food is a buffet up another few steps - and there is no platform lift for those.... so anyone travelling solo who can't manage steps needs to tell a member of staff what they'd like to eat and they will willingly fetch it. There are a few "overflow" tables also at the entrance level of this restaurant so the second morning, I opted for a table there rather than using the lift. There is no question though that the main eating area is a pleasanter place to sit. A big plus is that the hotel's superb level of service extends to you even before you become a guest .....so I got prompt and detailed answers to all my questions before I even booked. I'd recommend anyone with specific needs do the same.