Hi TPAT!

I have taken a very quick and un-thorough look through your post. Sorry, but I only have a moment. Take a look at Landmark Trust. The unit 43 Cloth Fair is available for the 16-19th. These properties are fabulous! It might give you the opportunity to stay at another favored place for your first night and have the great pleasure of staying with Landmark for the rest of the time available. I have stayed at Cloth Fair and it is terrific!

When I return I will look more carefully at the thread and try to be more "on target".

www.landmarktrust.org.uk

Your trip will be great!!!

Globus doesn't seem like a tour company that would fit with your stated tastes and preferences, but I'll be anxious to hear your report.

I agree w/ tuscanlifeedit - Globus is fairly down market --- doesn't seem to fit your criteria. Plus most tours are deadly boring for teenagers.

I havent stayed at the Premier Inn Leicester Sq but have booked it for a week so far for daughter and me and I know they have family rooms that sleep three at least...i booked one of those for one night for when OH joins us...
it is expensive but we are going in winter...we want to be able to be close to the action and i do know that area having stayed in an awful but conveniently located hostel in Soho

I like the fact that we can get the half tics in the morning ( 11am) from around our hotel i believe and then have something to do at night
i got mine through booking.com ..seven nights 882GBP for the double

This will definitely be different for us. We looked at other higher end tours but they were mostly structured every day and double the cost(not the deciding factor.)

We are all booked and this Globus tour is a good fit for us with some structure, enough free time, and a few tour days. Are the hotels perfect? No, but we'll live with it. Some friends of ours took their grandchildren on this and had a great time.

Could we do it on our own? Yes, but we feel this will be a nice way to give her a short overview of European travel. 4 days in London and 3 in Paris to hit the highlights.

To get back to the hotel part--we will be staying near The Eye at
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...n_England.html

We loved all the great suggestions of hotels in Mayfair and St. James and will keep them in mind for another trip.

I'll be posting with many more questions on our free time in London.

Check out www.londontown.com, it has some helpful guides/information. On your next trip to London, you can use it to search hotels.