Please tell me the best hotel location in London. We will be visiting for 3 days in February and want to stay at the most convenient location. A hotel recommendation would also be tremendously appreciated. Thank you

I don't think anybody can give you a good answer until you explain a little more.
First, what are you interested in? A hotel near shopping is different from a hotel near theatres. Are you walkers or are you only concerned with being close to taxis or to the underground and/or busses?


Secondly, and most importantly how much do you want to spend? There's no point in people recommending $500 a night hotels if your budget is $100. And on the other hand if you have a higher budget and like really nice places, there's no point in talking about $100 a night budget selections.
Anything else we should know? Like the number of people?

Thank you Patrick for your advice. There will be 4 of us in our late 40's and we want a safe neighborhood, convenient to shopping and the underground without too much walking involved.
Our price range preference is $200-$250.

Somewhere near South Kensington Station; walking distance to the South Kensington Museums and to Harrods and all the surrounding shops. With the Piccadilly line you are moments away from Piccadilly Circus, Green Park, and Covent Garden too. With your budget you should be able to find a nice hotel there. I can recommend Myhotel Chelsea, in the lovely Brompton Cross area. It's a "village-like" area, with lovely shops and restaurants. I stayed in this hotel in August; about 125 pounds including tax and breakfast. Very nice rooms, great beds. I think website is www.myhotels.co.uk.

Must say I booked this through laterooms.com, but their own rates were not much different.

I've always found the advice here to be "right on spot"! Quick question regarding lodging in the Covent Garden area: is anyone familiar with the Citadines Holburn-Covent Garden property or any of the other three Citadine properties in London? I'm interested in a room for four adults for our first time trip to London together? The amenities of an apartment (such as cooking facilities) have some appeal, but are not a necessity. Thanks in advance!

Ellie, you want Knightbridge, South Kensington or Belgravia for shopping. Websites to check are londontown.com, londonnights.com and smoothhound.com

Here's a thread on the Lowndes Hotel
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34407347

Also look at the Cranley and the Basil Street Hotel (good location & prices, a bit old)

John the Citadines properties are usually VERY basic. Look for hotel reviews on tripadvisor.com

If there are four adults, you will need two rooms, unless you specifically book a quad. So is your budget figure for one quad room or two double rooms?

The best shopping at fairly normal prices is on Oxford Street, with some on Regent Street. The central spot for those is Oxford Circus. I see that the Cumberland, Mount royal, Mostyn, Savoy Court, Selfridge and Berkshire hotels lie fifty yards north of Oxford Street, and the Regent Palace (which is cheap) and the Meridien (expensve) are near the southern end of Regent Street. Knightsbridge, South Kensington and Belgravia are for expensive shopping, and the arcades off Piccadilly and in St James are for luxury shopping, or window shopping. There, for example, are shops where I buy silk ties every two years and old silver every twenty years.

The theatres are mostly in a box Pall Mall East, Strand, Aldwych, Drury Lane, Oxford Street, Regent Street. Hotels for this box are the Regent Palace, Royal Albany, Royal Horse Guards, Charing Cross Thistle, Strand Palace, and the expensive Waldorf and Savoy. Also the Hampshire, Royal Trafalgar, Hospitality Inn, Hazlitts and Mountbatten.

Tourist attractions by day mostly lie along the river: Tower, St Pauls, West End, Westminster, Victoria (for the Palace), and South Kensington. All these are on the Circle line, and the most central hotels for them are again the Regent Palace, Royal Albany, Royal Horse Guards, Charing Cross Thistle, Strand Palace, and the expensive Waldorf and Savoy. These are also hood for theatre, as I said, and are 15 minutes on the top of a bus from many shops, so I plump for them. I have on disc a folder of notes about them and some other (cheap) hotels, which I can gladly copy to you if you ask me.

All these areas are safe. In London, a hotel in an unsafe area would be bankrupt, as is the Great Northern.

Please write if I can help further. Welcome to London.

[email protected]

hi ellie,

We just got back from London and I have to say that the hotel and area we had this trip was the absolute best. Unless I change my fortunes in the near future, I will return to this area again and again.

We stayed at the Millennium Gloucester in S. Kensington. The Millennium hotel line has several hotels in the S. Kensington area. Two are right beside each other, the Millennium Baileys and the one I just mentioned. They are both right next to each other, Baileys faces Gloucester Rd and Gloucester takes up the block right behind it.

Baileys is a smaller hotel, more British and elegant, while the M. Gloucester is a larger hotel geared toward the business traveler and conferences it serves in the attached conference center.

We tried to get Baileys but they were booked, so took the Gloucester instead. While I would still like to try the Baileys, I would not sneeze at the Gloucester because the rooms are as close to American size rooms as you will find. They are roomy, nice size King sized beds in the doubles and nice bathrooms with tub and shower.

As nice as the rooms are, the are 2nd to the area in which you are staying. The gloucester rd area is great. Within the same block and within 2 blocks are the following:

A grocery store
A 24 hour convenience store
A used book store
A stationary
A chemists
A BOOTS pharmacy
A small mall for shopping
The STanhope ARms pub
Dino's Restaurant (serving full english breakfast and italian fare)
The Bombay Palace (indian fare)
A photo shop

within 10 blocks

A laundromat
A supermarket
about 40 restaurants on cromwell and gloucester

just a little further:

Exhibition rd with all the museums
Kensington Palace and Gardens and Park
Hyde Park


With all that the most precious gem of all is a tube station on the Circle, District, and Picadilly lines, The Gloucester Rd Station.

If you are staying at baileys, you walk out of the lobby, across the street and you are there. If you are staying at M. Gloucester, you walk out of the lobby, across the rd, about a 1/2 block and you are there.

The station is great to. It serves all those lines and is one connection away from most of the rest of the lines. The station itself is great, you enter the turnstyles, immediately go to a set of stairs (3 level groups) and you are on the platform. The street level is so close to the platform you can look down on it. That is the district and cirle line trains. The picadilly line is accessed thru a deep elevator.

Besides the Millennium's, I saw several other hotels in that area, some of them nicer and some of them on more of a budget.

You just can't beat this location and I will be choosing it each time. I saved a huge amount of time this trip in walking vs my trip 3 years ago. On that trip the tube station was 10 blocks away. NEVER AGAIN.

Another plus on this area is that it is served by many bus lines that go to the shopping and tourist districts.

I am not sure what airport you would arrive in, but we came into gatwick, took the gatwick express to victoria station and then took victoria circle line tube station and were at our hotel, all within 45 minutes. We each had one piece of luggage and one carry bag and had no problem.

Because we had extra luggage after shopping, we took a cab to victoria going home and it only cost 8 pds, it actually took longer than the tube, but saved our backs with the extra luggage.

Hope this helps. the millennium line of hotels runs specials all the time. Their rack rate on rooms runs 140-250 pds but you can get specials on the net for 99pds and if you want nicer they have club and executive club rooms for the amount you are stating.

Erin,
Thank you so much for your lengthy response. I was very happy to read it, since we have since booked the M. Gloucester. I read many posts here that that hotel is so convenient and based my decision on that. Your letter confirms everything I heard. Thank you for taking the time to write.