Hilton Hotels

One shot of vodka from your minibar? That'll be five pounds please!

Care to dial an 0800 number (that's "freephone" folks)? One pound fifty thank you very much!

Hello, room service? Yes, I'll have a tuna sandwich please. What, that comes with a baby's handfull of crisps too? Great! Please charge me eight pounds fifty for what I'm sure won't be a very bland snack!

Just three things I didn't do, and therefore didn't get charged for during my recent stay at the Hilton Metropole in London. I also didn't use the Playstation in my room (that would be a fiver a day... for a PSOne). What I did do though was treat myself to a couple of beefburgers obviously from a packet (frozen) for about thirteen quid. I was hungry and it was late, but you'd expect that at the very least the burgers would be homemade! (**)

Anyway, it wasn't all bad news; in fact mostly it was very good. One quick mention that it was our wedding anniversary and my wife & I were upgraded for free to an executive room with free newspapers. The health club located just a few floors downstairs was a good start to the morning (also included) and breakfast was surprisingly good for a hotel (I got my money's worth!).

Four stars from me to compliment the four from the RAC, or the AA, whoever dishes them out these days. To sum up: very clean, nice room (but the bed was a bit hard), very helpful and polite staff, but eveything not included is a blatant rip-off.

****