More Money Than Sense? Try the Mandarin Oriental's Obscenely Expensive Royal Wedding Package
With the Royal Wedding only two months away hotel PR machines are going into Royal Wedding Package overload. Last week we gave you the low down on the incredibly bad taste “Pretty Little Princess” package from Swissotel The Howard, and this week, we may have found something equally as ghastly, although in a different way: the obscenely priced Royal Wedding Tour from the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park.
The package takes place over five days over the wedding, from 26th April - 1st May, and boasts "access all areas". Well for a start, it's not really access all areas, because you won't get anywhere near the wedding. But we digress.
As well as your room, you get a guided itinerary with visits to Kensington Palace, Chartwell (Sir Winston Churchill‘s family home in Kent), Spencer House, Althorp (Diana's family pad in Northamptonshire) and Westminster Abbey. All these, let us remind you before you hear the price, are places that are open to the public - although, obviously, you won't be able to hit up the Abbey on April 29. But then, neither will you be able to do that with the package - you get a tour the following day, when, presumably, it'll be open to everyone again.
Of course, this isn't totally without merit for royal watchers: since most of these places are selling out working with the MO on this package, you get extras, such as a "greeting" from a random member of the Churchill family and lunch at their home, drinks at Kensington Palace, dinner at Spencer House and a lunch at Althorp hosted by a member of the Spencer family (let's hope it's the charming Earl Spencer, who is the master of making money off his sister's memory).
And, here's the kicker: on the Thursday, the night before the wedding:
Dinner will take place at the home of a member of the royal family at their private London townhouse.
Um, we're guessing most important members of the Royals have better things to do than whore themselves out to rich tourists the night before the wedding. But then, poor Fergie has been a bit cash strapped of late, and she's been NFI-d from the wedding, so you never know.
Full details of the package are here, but it also gives you exclusive use of the Institute of Contemporary Art and its rooftop terrace overlooking The Mall on the wedding day, which means you'll get unrestricted views of the wedding parade (although you could, you know, just go stand in the Mall with everyone else). And you'll also get dinner at either Bar Boulud or Heston Blumenthal's Dinner - the hottest table in London right now. Foodies may even think it’s worth paying just to get a rezzie for the restaurant. However when they see the price they’ll probably think again.
Which leads us on to the price, The Royal Wedding Tour package is priced from (drum roll please) £11,300 for one person and £18,800 for two people sharing - exclusive of 20% VAT. Yuh-huh. And these aristocrats, who are whoring themselves out for the high rollers, wonder why people think they're out of touch. We're pretty sure the Queen wouldn't approve.
Either way, if you have more money/desire to star-f*ck than sense, you know where to go.
[Photo: Mandarin Oriental]
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