The pod room at Nell Gwynn House was very basic and not really as anticipated. Firstly, the the porters are wonderful. 5 stars to them and them alone. They checked my bags in at 8am, found me on the day's list, and said my room would be ready at 3pm. ...but then...
The host company is very clearly renting through various sites as well as their own. The building is an aparthotel/serviced apartments/pod rooms (simple hotel-style rooms). The emailed around midday to say they were cancelling our 3 night booking due to error. And that they'd contacted AirBnb urgently to find us another spot and AirBnb would be in touch. After 45m of panic and not hearing anything, I called AirBnb who had yet to be notified and, in fact, could NOT rebook us elsewhere. It was a busy London weekend and there were no rooms from them or any hotel in suitable distance to our conference.
Nearly another hour goes by and a new email: they did, in fact, have a room. A different one. But a room. Huzzah! Crisis averted. But it wasn't quite as anticipated.
The first thing I noticed upon entering Pod room 70 was the huge iron-shaped melt on the carpet. The carpet was cleanish, but the vacuum must not be very strong. The room was simple and the furnishings were fine, if worn. The toilet and shower had some sort of water pump that made a terrifying noise, so I'm pretty sure we woke the neighbours flushing at night. The shower was a good power shower, but the cubicle had a fair amount of black mildew. The sheets had a big "King Size Sheet" sticker tape stuck to them (which I noticed with my feet). The mattress was not the best.
Basically the pod room was a well-worn budget accommodation which was not really what we were anticipating. The locks were also not deadbolts, which was especially concerning as the back door on the stairs was constantly propped open by the construction crews working on the outside of the building.
This review is long because this booking was a lot of "not as expected." We would consider using Nell Gwynn House again if other options weren't available, but maybe not a Pod room.