Hampton by Hilton London Waterloo

I stayed at the Hampton Inn during a cold February 2016 it was amazingly and surprisingly wonderful the hotel is super clean great amazing breakfast rooms are tidy bright small but by European comparisons normal I highly recommend coming to this hotel the staff was lovely

Great value especially with the breakfast included. Couple minutes from Waterloo station. Very modern and clean.

Knowing that I was traveling to Europe, I couldn’t be too caught up that the hotel room was smaller than usual. But it was a wonderful stay as the hotel was in a very convenient location (near many buses and trains) and not too far from the London Eye and other attractions. The rooms were clean and we also had a nice view of the Shard. They also served a buffet breakfast in the morning — pretty good, I must say, which we took full advantage of before starting our day. The staff was courteous and helpful and it was nice that the lobby had computers and printers for use to print out our tickets.

Summary based on a 2 night points stay:
–closest thing to a US business hotel I’ve found in London (17 hotels so far)
–relatively new construction
–friendly service, needs a bit more interaction than a biz hotel in the US, which can be an issue when people are queuing for service
–free good internet (see photo)
–quiet room. Ambulance service across the street, but didn’t notice it.
–somewhat small room, but it had a true US sized double bed and a sofabed
–free good breakfast with healthy choices (best to come before 8:45A) because of less than ideal seating. Self serve, multi function coffee machine that was ok.
–earlier than usual check out at 11A
–no parking
–pain leaving luggage for storage. Huge disorganized queue. I finally left.
–5 minutes walk from Waterloo station (look for Waterloo Road exit)
–close to restaurants, fast food, convenience stores, and the Old Vic
–taxi easy hail on road
–15 minutes walk to Tate Modern
First time I’ve stayed south of the river and I was dreading it, but it worked out ok.
I saw a review complaining about a wake up call issue. I thought these were a thing of the past.
The one star review I see sounds almost like it’s a different hotel. Air con/​heat was more quiet than usual. Internet wifi clocked at 2.49M down, 8.33M up (see photo).

My experience was largely positive with this place. Even though there were a few mishaps here and there.
Pro
– great location, very close to Waterloo Station
– new hotel and facilities
– great buffet breakfast included in the price, much better than any American counter part I have been to. Here is a full buffet breakfast with good quality food. Nothing like the cheap stuffs in the standard US Hampton Inn
– friendly staff
Con
– one reception punched in the wrong time for wakeup call
– the gym equipment were not well maintained, i.e. fitness ball were not pumped it was soft
– no water in the gym, after I notified the reception, 25 minutes later there was still no water. I have to credit the staff at the reception who gave me complimentary bottled water. I was sweating and not able to rehydrate
– the Guest book stated that there are sandwiches and pizzas in the bar, but there was only pizzas available
– slow internet …
There you go, check out the pics, it is not a bad place to stay, I am on a tight calorie budget, otherwise I would eat more of the buffet breakfast, it is good. I am not sure if Wifi is included if you are not a Hilton Honorary member.

The service at this Hampton was the worst of more than 75 Hampton Inn’s I have stayed at. The facilities were the third worst, after two properties in the US, one of which has since been forced to leave the Hampton brand.
The hotel staff knew nothing of the area, they were not able to provide a luggage rack.
The Air Conditioner was so loud, I thought it was water running the whole night.
The «Fast High Speed Internet» clocked in at 0.39 Mbps downlink on average for 8 nights, 0.12 Mega bits per second (i.e. 15 kbps) uplink average over 8 nights. Needing access at the close of the US stock market, meant I had to go back to the office for real time data because the data could not be downloaded in time.
Because of limited seating at breakfast, they recommend coming down to breakfast between 0700 and 0830 to ensure you have a seat.
I enquired about the «Hampton guarantee» which I have only twice pressed in my more than 850 stays, and they were unable to contact their general manager for 36 hours to see if they could resolve the issue.
Of the 850 hotels I have stayed at, I would rate it in the bottom 10% based on service and staff. The only saving grace was the new construction, otherwise it would be in the bottom 15 of 850.
Bottom line, stay here if no other property is available, you don’t need internet for anything other than e-​mail (i.e. no maps, no facebook, no images, no video) and you need to be near Waterloo train station.
When I asked about a fix for the internet speed, they said «The fiber had been nicked, so the network is slow.» When I told them I am an IT engineer and a nicked fiber would mean there was no data transmission, because light would not be able to travel through an occluded fiber, they said they had contacted BT, but BT takes months for service. As an IT engineer, I have a contract with BT and know the quality of service and the response time in the contract is not «An average 0.4 Mbps, and response time of several months.» The properties suggestion was to use the Travelodge next door for it’s free 30 minutes of WiFi.
I recommend the Le Meridien Picadilly, Sheraton Park Tower or other Hilton’s (Metropole, Kensington, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square). For the £40 to £80 more, their service is worthwhile.
Two weeks later, I still have not heard back from the general manager about the poor service.