London
 

Looking for a large place for 10 adults. Will be traveling to London in July 2010. Is it possible to find a house or apt? Or should we all stay at the same hotel. Thanks.

At one point I was looking for the same and found a great house in Notting Hill that might suit you. I didn't end up arranging for anything like it after all, but the description and services available were quite appealing. You can see it at www.londonfamilyhouse.com or http://www.vrbo.com/37089. I think it would be unusual to find in any major city a house like this. In a house you can make your own meals etc. which is nice as a group and can save money.

Another idea would be to consider whether there is available a 5 or 6 room B&B that you could take over for the time for your whole family. I have done that with a group of girlfriends in Canada each year and it is a nice way to stay. You have the privacy of a house and your own living room etc to gather. Someone makes you breakfast, cleans the rooms everyday. But then you do have to eat other meals out.

If you don't get many responses, you may want to re-post with a title like "Looking for accommodations for 10 in London" - "London" is a pretty big topic! :)

How long is your trip? vrbo.com may be one option. It's a site that has rentals (in London, they are usually apartments) from individual owners. Lots of people successfully use it to find apartments for longer stays (usually a week or more). With ten people, though, anything will be tough - hotel rooms and apartments in London both tend to be small. So you might need two or three apartments, and I'm not sure how easy that will be to find.

Another option is londontown.com; I used their "large groups" option to book rooms for 16 this spring. We had two to a room, but were all in the same hotel with rooms close to each other (we booked the Holiday Inn Bloomsbury at Russell Square, which was great for our purposes). Londontown is a discount site, but is different from Priceline or Hotwire in that you see exactly what hotel you're getting before you book.

There are houses to let on sabbaticalhomes.com. Most rentals there are for longer periods but there are a few that will rent for a week or two. Also, even if they're hoping for a longer period, it doesn't hurt to send a message through the website and ask because sometimes they don't get the full rental period they're hoping for and there's some time in-between tenants.

Many thanks to all for your help.