mialow

Hello,
I'm interested in staying at the Drury Lane Moat House in August. I went to their website but there's not a lot of info about the room (A/C?) and there's only a couple of postings about it here. How far is it from the Covent Garden tube, what's the area around there like? I'd be grateful for any comment regarding the hotel and surrounding area.

Bettyjane1

My husband and I stayed at this hotel over a year ago. We just loved the location. It's probably a five to seven minute walk to the Covent Garden tube. This proved highly convenient when it was time to go back to Heathrow, as the Tube takes you directly into the airport. No taxi!
The hotel itself was just fine, although from the outside, it's not a traditional looking one, if that matters to you. The rooms were very comfortable, and a nice size, which I didn't expect, hearing so many remarks about how tiny London hotel rooms are. I'm afraid I can't recall if it had A/C as we didn't need it in May.
Our bathroom was modern and clean. In fact, housekeeping was first rate; tea making in the room, hair dryer, iron if you needed.
Our buffet breakfast was the highlight. Always attended to by the staff, so you never had picked-over anything. There is a restaurant there as well, but in that neighborhood, you'd be crazy to even bother. A great neighborhood for eating, bookhunting and people watching. Leicester Square street entertainers I believe are licensed, so you're really being entertained, rather than intruded upon.There is a real buzz to the area that makes you feel like your where the action is, but in the best possible way.
We got in late morning on our first day and they couldn't check us in early, as the previous guest was still there, but after leaving our luggage, we were thrilled to find the British Museum was merely two blocks away and just felt so lucky to be in London again.
In fact, my husband was so enamored of the experience, that when he booked our trip through GoToday.com again (we highly recommend them), he pushed it into November, since Drury Lane Moat House wasn't available in October.

mialow

Thank you so much for the informative comments. I was hesitant about this hotel since there was not a lot of info about it but I figured it was worth a try since it's in a convenient location. Do you remember whether the hotel was in a quiet area or was it very noisy?

Bettyjane1

Hi again,
I definitely recall it not being noisy. It's really a block or so up from the main areas of pedestrian interest. (i.e. Covent Garden, Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square) And it's certainly not on a bustling-with-city-traffic street. This site had better info than the others I looked over.
www.londonnights.com/london-hotels-drury.htm

drmike

We stayed at the Drury Lane Moat House in June 2002 and, while we really liked the location and the room was really big (it was a triple), it was not air conditioned. It was not a big problem in June but it might be a consideration in August. We did open the windows at night and it was somewhat noisy.

mialow

You're correct. Not all the rooms are air conditioned. I just got an e-mail from their reservation desk and it's only their Crown rooms have A/C and some of them are non-smoking.

drmike

According to the hotel description at passportplanet.com, their rooms are air-conditioned. Thanks for clarifying the point. I knew our room did not have air-conditioning last summer.