The apartment was clean, modern and luxurious. The whole building seemed very new and well appointed. The location is very convenient with 3 tube stations nearby, as well as Paddington station (Heathrow Express, Elizabeth line) around a 10-15 minute walk away. There are lots of good restaurants nearby (especially along Queensway), including a nice Malaysian café right opposite the building.
The apartment was quite warm overall, despite it being October. We could only get it to cool down with the terrace doors and bedroom windows open. It was then really quite noisy, with constant traffic and copious amounts of honking and sirens from emergency vehicles. It’s not a surprise of course, due to the central location, but it’s something to be aware of. Once the doors and windows are shut, the soundproofing is excellent, but it does get warm. There were stand fans in every room, and these were very necessary.
There were some negatives during our stay however, which we felt were fairly significant. The apartment has an alarm system, and it had been armed when we arrived. Imagine our surprise when 45 seconds after we first entered the apartment (self check-in), the alarm triggered with an ear-splitting siren. We had been given no information that there would be an alarm system, let alone that it would be armed. We had to make a couple of frantic calls to the Ivy team, by which time the security company had disarmed the system remotely. The building manager came to the apartment because of the alarm, and we had to explain the whole thing to him – fortunately he was a lovely chap.
The alarm was part of a home security system, which included cameras in every room. When we realized this, we were really quite aghast. No mention of this was made in the listing, and even if it was, it could hardly be acceptable by any stretch of the imagination. Security cameras, including in the bedrooms! We made a couple of calls to Ivy management, who seemed unaware that the owners had the cameras installed. With their agreement, it was decided that we would unplug and depower all the cameras, which included an iMac in the master bedroom. I can only hope that it was enough, with a lot of devices these days having battery backups etc.
From photos and personal effects in the apartment, it would seem that this is a lovely family occupied apartment which is occasionally rented out on Airbnb etc. I don’t know how long the cameras have been there – you don’t see them in the pictures in the listing and the previous 3 reviewers have not mentioned anything. From our point of view, the cameras really must be removed or put away if this apartment is to be rented out. It really left us feeling very uncomfortable, and it was just the thought of the hassle of finding another suitable place at the last moment which kept us there.
Overall it is a decent apartment in a good location, but the experience was marred by the not insignificant items mentioned above.