SW1X 7TA Travel Guide
Celebrity Scoop / Kanye West / Kim Kardashian / Celebrity Hotels / London Hotels / Renaissance Hotels / → All Tags
We Hope The Lanesborough Knows What They're Getting Themselves Into...
The other month we reported that Kanye West and a few other rappers were living it up at The Lanesborough. Little did we know that West's new main squeeze, Kim Kardashian—as well as the entire Keeping Up With The Kardashians film crew—would be following him there. And so quickly!
The Mirror reports that Kim has officially landed in London, and though Kim's hotel hasn't been confirmed, it is likely that the pair will be spending a significant amount of time at The Lanesborough, where West has booked an entire floor.
Knowing how much both Kim and Kanye love holing up for weeks at a time in the world's trendiest hotels, we shudder to think what their hotel-hopping powers combined might accomplish. A flour-bombed, hot-boxed, multifunctional naked yoga and recording studio? With any luck, yes.
Celebrity Scoop / Kanye West / St Regis Hotels / London Hotels / Bad Celebrity Behavior / → All Tags
Kanye West and Friends 'Banging it Out' at The Lanesborough
Rapper Kanye West must prefer hotels to mansions. After an extended stay at the Mercer Hotel last year, Kanye has ditched NYC for London and is now living at the swank Lanesborough Hotel where guest rooms and suites come with their very own butler.
Word is that Kanye is staying in one of the hotel's $5,000 a night suites along with fellow rappers Common, Pusha T and Big Sean. And it was Big Sean with the big mouth who told the UK's Sun newspaper that the group's loud music upset the royal family.
Kanye had rented out the top floor and we was banging that bitch out. Every room was a studio. The Royal Family below were complaining like, 'We got all this loud-ass rap music above us and weed smoke.' They paid all this money and you don't expect to get these kind of complaints.
Sweet Suites / London Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
There's Something Suite in Store at The Lanesborough, Something £14,000 Sweet
First they put Mac Minis in every room, then they partnered up with fashion brand Herve Leger for tea, and now The Lanesborough has gone all out to create a £14,000 a night suite. Yes, that’s right. £14,000.
The suite will be one of the biggest in London at a whopping 4,000 square-foot. Although it doesn’t have anything on The Corinthia Hotel’s 5,059 square-foot Royal Suite, which will actually be the largest in London when it opens next week—eeek!
Hotel High Tea / Fashion Hotels / London Hotels / Hotel Packages / → All Tags
London's Lanesborough Will Serve Tea with a Discount on High Fashion
Earlier this year, we finally made one of out hotel high tea dreams come true when we sat down and forked over $132.58 for tea for two at the famous Apsley's inside The Lanesborough. It was everything we hoped it could be, but now the London hotel is taking their tea to a whole other level by throwing in some fashion.
On November 26, The Lanesborough is hosting their first fashion-infused champagne afternoon tea, with a runway show from Hervé Léger by Max Azria and a 15% discount on the clothes if you get hungry for more than just teacakes. If you're not aware of the Hervé Léger brand, you're already most likely familiar with it. Léger is a huge favorite of starlets because their bandage dresses do wonders for highlighting your best areas and smoothing out the rest. The dresses are usually all over gossip and fashion magazines, seeing as how everyone from Beyonce to Blake Lively have closets stocked with them.
Hotel Butlers / Hotel Picnics / Hotel Amenities / London Hotels / St. Regis Hotels / Luxury Hotels / → All Tags
The Ultimate Posh Picnic: Served By a Lanesborough Butler
You think this picnic looks posh? You aint seen nothing yet
How often have you been lugging round various bags containing food, shopping and whatnot, and wished that you were rich/celebby enough to have someone to carry it for you?
Well now, for an hour or two, you can do that. The Lanesborough’s new Butler Picnic experience will treat you like a richy for one lunchtime only.
From now until August, you can have a consultation with a butler about what kind of food you want for your picnic, then set it up in Hyde Park, serve it, and deal with the mess after you’ve done your worst.
Hotel Deals / Hotel Amenities / St Regis Hotels / London Hotels / → All Tags
Weekends Are a (Relative) Steal At The Lanesborough
The best thing about business travel? How it only takes place midweek, leaving the swankster hotels to drop their prices at weekends. Like The Lanesborough, which is currently offering you a weekend in London for £255 ($414) a night – knocked down from £435.
Not only do you get a room with that, but the rate includes an in-room laptop, mobile phone to use inside the hotel, and 24-hour butler service. Book a facial (£85), and they’ll even throw in a free back massage.
The package has a minimum two night stay, and counts for Friday and Saturday arrivals until the end of August. Cos September’s when the business lot come back, see.
[Photo: Sameold2008]
Hotel Amenities / Hotel WiFi / St. Regis Hotels / London Hotels / Hotel Services / → All Tags
The Lanesborough Offers Complimentary In-Room Laptops
PC people, rejoice: we know we've sort of got it bad for iMacs in hotels (yeah, yeah, we know; we're those Mac people), but now we've got hot news for the PC folks who get psyched when they hear the Windows startup sound: The Lanesborough (a St. Regis Hotel in London) has announced that they're placing Sony VAIO Laptops in all guestrooms, and they're free for guests to use.
According to the press release, there are actually other hotels in London that "charge as much as £200 for Laptop rentals" (um, ew), but The Lanesborough is fo' sho' the first London hotel to give them to you for free.
Oh, and yes: WiFi is also free (woulda been a pretty lame-o sneaky trick if it wasn't, huh?)
Room rates at the Lanesborough start at £355, or $582. Other free amenity goodies included with that room rate: unlimited movies on demand, fresh fruit and mineral water, tea and coffee on arrival and with wake-up calls, and a "digital music library with extensive playlist."
Deal or No Deal / London Hotels / Hotel Packages / → All Tags
Rates Are Rosey at The Lanesborough For the Chelsea Flower Show
It's nearly time for the oh-so-English Chelsea Flower Show, "the ultimate event in the gardening calendar" as it so thrillingly self-defines. Lordy. How can we wait until May 19th, when it starts? And how will we survive when, four days later, it's all over?
Luckily, a couple of hotels in London are determined to assuage our pain and make the whole shebang a little more interesting. For the duration of the show (May 19-23), The Lanesborough is offering a "floral breakfast" complete with edible flowers, and "floral techniques" on offer throughout the premises (don't they usually have flowers and stuff anyway?). More excitingly, they're offering a special rate of £255 per night (minimum stay two nights, Friday to Sunday only, breakfast and VAT not included). At first we thought that was expensive. Then we looked up prices. That weekend, rooms start at £475. We soon shut up.
Meanwhile, just up Park Lane, Grosvenor House is offering two nights in a deluxe room, with breakfast, two tickets to the Flower Show and a rose-themed afternoon tea for two (to celebrate its 80th birthday, the hotel has created a rose which will be unveiled at the show). Rooms start from £605, including VAT, for the two nights. But seeing as you can get a room for £209 per night, that doesn't look like such a good deal to us. We'd go with the Lanesborough (if we weren’t skint and posing ourselves a totally academic question).
Celebrity Scoop / Michael Jackson / London Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Jetlagged Jacko Is Alienating London’s Hotels
So Michael Jackson left London yesterday after coming over for a week to announce his world tour. Seeing as that only took a mere three minutes, he had to find other things to do. Like seeing a West End version of Oliver!, and, um, getting drunk and going crazy, if the News of the World is to be believed.
It reports that staff at The Lanesborough, where he’d been holed up, thought he looked “off his face” (hur hur) in the early hours of last Wednesday, the day he had arrived in London. He was, apparently, lurching round the lobby, asking for DVDs to watch and had to be led back to his £7500-a-night suite by a security team.
Hotel High Tea / Tea Sommeliers / London Hotels / Karl Kessab / Interviews / → All Tags
Talking with The Top Tea Sommelier at the Lanesborough London
For all of you Hotel High Tea lovers we present you with a special afternoon treat....
Basking in the glow of his second win for "Top London Afternoon Tea," Lanesborough Hotel Tea Sommelier Karl Kessab lets us in on his small slice of heaven and secrets of success. Yes, there is such a thing as a tea sommelier and it's kind of a big deal.
From the start of our transatlantic chat with Karl, "England's First Tea Sommelier," it is apparent that here is a man who loves his job. Ruling over Apsleys with its glass roof and fresh décor, Karl admits that here tea appreciation is the "same concept as wine, but without the alcohol."
Serving 80 to 100 patrons daily, of whom about half are British, the Lanesborough must manage a balance between the traditional and modern. "Upkeep is harder in this manner," says Karl of his constant monitoring of tea auctions, seasonal offerings and palate trends.
