I'm hesitant to say because it might brand me as an unreasonable complainer!

My company's London office is at Canary Wharf. Normally I stay at the Marriott West India Quay. On this particular visit they were full so I opted for the County Hall as it is near a Jubilee Line station (Waterloo). The folks at the West India Quay Marriott have always been top notch.

I took a red eye and got to the hotel at about 9 a.m. Obviously, I didn't necessarily expect to have a room available that early but I asked anyway and sure enough they didn't. I finished my check in and gave them my cell phone number so that they could call me when the room was ready.

I strolled around town and checked in every two hours or so. I wasn't rude, I just asked if they had a room ready. They said that 'my' room wasn't ready. I told them that surely there was more than one room of my type. They said there was but they wouldn't change me to a room that was already clean because I was checked into a specific room.

Long story short, 'my' room wasn't ready until 3:30, 6.5 hours after checking in. They knew I was tired and that I wanted the first available room but they didn't care a lick. I fell asleep on one of the chairs right in front of the reception desk for about an hour. They knew I was tired and that I was waiting. When the room was finally ready they didn't even express any apologies for my having to wait so long.

Well, screw them.

fwiw, when I switched to the Hilton they didn't have a room available at Noon but called to check with housekeeping and were able to get me a room within 45 minutes, and they apologized for the wait.