Tag: London Hotels View All Tags
Tags: Hotel Rebrandings / London Hotels / Kempinksi Hotels / Luxury Hotels / → All Tags
Kempinksi Adopts The Stafford Hotel, Let's Hope It Keeps The Standard Up
Is this a sad day for independent hotels, or a good one for the future of London accommodation? The Stafford Hotel on the Strand has just joined the Kempinksi brand, becoming The Stafford London by Kempinkski.
Kempinski haven’t had a base in London since 2008, so it’s good news for them. And it should be good news for the Stafford, too – although we’ve never stayed in a Kempinski, we’ve rarely heard anything but good stuff about them.
Tags: Hotel Delays / Hotel Openings / Hotel Hype / W Hotels / London Hotels / → All Tags
Is the W London Really Running Four Months Late?
Hmm. Remember how way back last summer, W Hotels announced that their flagship London location would be opening June 1 2010?
Well, we haven’t heard anything from them recently. But the website is making us a little doubtful that this will come to pass.
Tags: Video / Hotel Video Tours / London Hotels / Marriott Hotels / New Hotels / JW Marriott Hotels / → All Tags
Inside J.W. Marriott Grosvenor House in London: This Is Luxury?
We just got back from London, and as you can see from our review of the Dean Street Townhouse, we slept around the hotels a fair bit. Our longest stop however, was at the J.W. Marriott Grosvenor House, where we spent three nights right on the edge of Hyde Park in the posh Mayfair neighborhood, on a row with other 5-star hotels like The Dorchester, The Metropolitan and The Intercontinental.
To tell the truth, the location was of course the best part about the hotel, and we would have been disappointed with the value for the money if we had paid full price ($350 a night) for the stay, but instead we scored it with our last ditch resort—a "Name Your Own Price" Priceline search that yielded us the unbeatable rate of $160 a night for this 5-star hotel in London.
So what was wrong and what was right with the place? Find out after the jump
Tags: London Hotels / Hotel Keys / JW Marriott Hotels / Marriott Hotels / Snapshot / → All Tags
This is the Weirdest Room Key We've Ever Encountered
We can't very well do a "Guess the Hotel" story with this picture, can we? Not with the name of the hotel printed right there on whatever the heck this thing that calls itself a key is.
Yes, this is a room key to the Grosvenor House J.W. Marriott Hotel in London, which was one of our stops during a lively trip to London last month. So you stick this thing into a little hole next to your room door and when the light blinks green, you remove it and open the door. It's a simple procedure really, but wouldn't room key cards be cheaper and easier? This odd thing was kind of difficult to keep track of, considering how it was too thick to fit in our wallet and didnt hook onto anything.
It's plastic; nothing too fancy, we hope. So have you seen this type of key before? And stay tuned because, on Monday, we'll have a full gallery and review of the Grosvenor House J.W. Marriott to follow.
[Photo: HotelChatter]
Tags: Hotel Closings / Hotel Renovations / Hotel News / Sheraton Hotels / London Hotels / → All Tags
What’s Up with the Hotel Formerly Known as Sheraton Belgravia?
We were sent this photo this week of the what used to be the Sheraton Belgravia - or, as our tipster puts it, “a truly godawful building in the middle of beautiful Belgravia”.
Leaving aside, for a moment, the fact that we totally agree that the building is an excrescence on the area (we actually used to live near there, and shuddered a bit every time we walked past it), we’d like to know what’s going on.
Tags: Photo Gallery / Soho House Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / London Hotels / → All Tags
Inside the Restaurant and Lobby of London's Dean Street Townhouse
Now that you've already had one a good look around our broom cupboard room at London's new Dean Street Townhouse, a member of the Soho House properties, we thought we'd share our breakfast there with you. No, you can't have half our eggs benedict, but you can see a peek at their Dean Street Kitchen restaurant, which is hopping for lunch, afternoon tea, high tea and dinner, but is quiet enough in the mornings.
Another thing that we enjoyed at the Dean Street Townhouse, aside from the huge and hugely comfortable beds, was the affordability of the room service menu and the likewise alright prices at the restaurant. We mean, if the room service fish & chips dinner was only 7.50GBP, then how much worse could it be in the restaurant? And the good news is: full breakfast for two with coffee and English breakfast tea came out to 18 GBP.
That's like the same total we'd get if we had just going around the corner to the Starbucks and gotten two venti lattes and two fruit parfaits.
Tags: Hotel Renovations / Four Seasons Hotels / London Hotels / → All Tags
Four Seasons London is Closed for 'Refurbishment' Until Late 2010
We've been a bit heavy on the London Hotel Scene this week but there's still more news happening across the pond. A tipster sent in these pics of the Four Seasons London which is undergoing a refurbishment for the rest of the year. (We love how the Brits say "refurbishment" instead of "renovation.")
The hotel will re-open in late 2010 and here's what guests can expect:
During our closure, all guestrooms and suites, restaurants and bars will be reconfigured and redesigned resulting in a stunning new presentation. The crown jewel will be the addition of an entirely new floor, showcasing an exquisite rooftop spa with treetop views of Hyde Park.
Our tipster says the building looks as if it has been completely gutted. Considering that it's located near the InterContinental Park Lane, the Metropolitan and the Park Lane Hilton, with The Dorchester and the JW Marriott Grosvenor House "a block or so up", this Four Seasons may have been overdue for a refurb. Fortunately for travelers, there are plenty of other options in the area.
We'll be keeping tabs on the hotel's progress and hopefully, we'll be able to get into that rooftop spa when it opens.
Tags: Video / Pitch Your Hotel / London Hotels / Jonathan Critchard / Independent Hotels / → All Tags
The Athenaeum Hotel in London Has a New Look But the WiFi is Still Free
Welcome to our regular feature, Pitch Your Hotel, where we let hoteliers, general managers and other hotel execs tell us on-camera what makes their hotels so different from all the rest. And believe us, the competition is fierce these days. So sit back, relax and listen to them explain why their hotels are worthy of your hard-earned dollars or rewards points.
Not keen on staying in cupboard room on your next trip to Londontown? Then why not go the opposite end of the spectrum by staying at The Athenaeum Hotel in London, one of London's very few privately run, independent hotels which has 34 townhouse apartments attached.
Naturally, these apartments lend themselves to famous folk on extended stays like Steven Spielberg (who turned one of the rooms into his film editing office) and Margaret Thatcher who chose to live in the Athenaeum while her house was being renovated. But these are also good choices for families who need more space during their trips.
Tags: Video / Hotel Video Tours / Soho House / Soho House Hotels / Fashion Hotels / London Hotels / New Hotels / Luxury Hotels / → All Tags
Inside The Dean Street Townhouse, The Newest Soho House Hotel
The moment that we read that the chic members-only Soho House group was opening a new hotel in London with room rates starting at 90 GBP ($143), we hustled over to their website and booked a 95 GBP ($151) run-of-house special rate, which pretty much left room choice up to the front desk. However, we did check the availability calendar again on their site a few days before arriving, and our Saturday night was indeed sold out. Thus, we're pretty sure we slept in their infamously named "Broom Cupboard" room.
The hotel, a fresh 39-room townhouse in the heart of London's Soho, is appropriately named the Dean Street Townhouse, and it delights in homey chintz and handing guests heavy-keychained door keys, just like in the olden days before programmable key cards.
After the jump, the full review of our stay in a "broom cupboard"
Tags: Celebrity Scoop / Hotel Hype / Katie Price / London Hotels / Celebrity Hotels / → All Tags
Dear Jordan, Please Don't Open a Hotel. Thanks.
Think she’ll welcome guests like this?
Ah, Jordan/Katie Price (whichever name you're inhabiting at the mo). We like you, we really do. We think you’re spunky, we love how you seem utterly indifferent to public derision, we’re glad you’ve split up with that drippy Peter Andre, and you’re clearly a phenomenal businesswoman.
And yet, we would prefer to admire your business skills from afar please. Which means sticking to your childrens books and your underwear business and not dipping a fake-tanned foot into the hotel trade, because that makes us feel a little bit sick.
Tags: Anti-View / London Hotels / Soho House Hotels / Hotel Openings / → All Tags
London's New Soho House Property Might Be Hot, But the Views are Not
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
It might be one of the hottest new hotels right now in London, and its adjoining restaurant might have celebs stopping in for dinner left and right, but the Dean Street Townhouse, of the Soho House group, doesn't boast the best views from the rooms.
We should know! We slept here on Saturday!
But what kind of hotel room is located behind us, and this horrible anti-view that's like, half-underground and half-tucked behind some other townhouse (which has an elevator)? We guess you'll just have to wait until Monday to see, while we work through a huge gallery of photos and video from our stay under the stairs at the Dean Street Townhouse.
[Photo: HotelChatter]
Tags: Hotel Openings / Park Plaza Hotels / London Hotels / → All Tags
Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Should Pretty Up London's South Bank
London’s South Bank has never been the prettiest spot but that was before the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel was ready to flaunt its hot little self. Built on the site of what was regarded by many as the ugliest building in London (the former GLC building), the new hotel soft opens next Thursday, after 10 years in the making.
From this photo and other renderings we’ve seen, the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge has all the good looks of other Park Plaza properties, including its South Bank neighbors, the Park Plaza County Hall and Park Plaza Riverbank. It has great views of the Thames, and is but a stroll away from all those British sightseeing musts like Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace.
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