London Hotel Recommendations

[Cruisinthru]

My DH and I are planning a trip to Paris and London next year. We need some recommendations for hotels in London. We are LBYM kind of people. We look for comfort, cleanliness, and location. We don't look for glitz or great hordes of people like us! We want to experience the locale. We enjoy small hotels. Prices should be on the reasonable side, not exactly cheap! Does anyone have any recommendations.

 

[happy2bretired]

This is where we stayed in 2004 while in London. The room was very small but it was clean and in a very good location. We were about 3-4 block from the Tube. There was a breakfast room with a nice breakfast each morning.

http://www.dukeleinsterhotel.co.uk/

 

[Peaceful_Warrior]

I went with the Youth Hostel in both London and Paris while there - cheap, decent location, an with likeminded travelers just looking to enjoy their time.

The Paris Youth Hostel is actually pretty nice and very large. And both hostels have private rooms.

 

[DougViages]

Go to Trip Advisors!!!

The best spot for travel research and info.

Reviews of vacations, hotels, resorts, vacation and travel packages - TripAdvisor

I have used it for years, and am a frequent contributor. (Doug Viages).

You can look at hotels in all loctions and proce ranges, and see what travelers had to say.

Bon Chance!

 

[Peaceful_Warrior]

The best spot for travel research and info.

Reviews of vacations, hotels, resorts, vacation and travel packages - TripAdvisor

I second this - I've used TripAdvisor extensively and been very pleased.

 

[Moemg]

Last time we were in London we stayed at the Kensington Palace Hotel .It was a great location especially since we were there when Diana was buried .We watched the funeral from the restaurant window. The hotel was okay .Good location ,easy walk to tube ,good small restaurants close ,small rooms ,nice breakfast and as I remember a nice pub.

 

[meridiver]

Priceline works great in London

I haven't tried it for Paris, but I can tell you that the "bid for your room" function on Priceline works really well for London. The last two times we've gone (around Thanksgiving and in August) we've been able to get a room for $125/night incl. svc charges. The first time, I had to check twice, because I couldn't believe it was 125 dollars and not pounds. (We bid the room at $100-110 and they then added on all of the "extra" charges).

Both times, we stayed in the Kensington Park area, about a 5 min. walk from the Gloucester Park tube stop (one up from Kensington Park). This is a safe, relatively quiet, and upscale location and you are on the Circle and Picadilly lines tube lines. Both run right through central London (two or three stops down) and the Picadilly is the line that goes to Heathrow Airport so you don't have to transfer to a different line while schlepping your luggage (some of the underground stations don't have escalators, only stairs, so this can be a pretty big deal depending on how heavy you packed). The hotels we stayed at were big and rather soulless (a Holiday Inn and the Millennium Gloucester) but hey, for a decent, well-located room/private bath in central London at a $125/night, who cares about that. The room price did not include breakfast, but there's a fantastic French pastry shop and plenty of other little cafes right there.

 

[Moemg]

Thanks , I use Priceline all the time but I've never thought of it for London !

 

[meridiver]

We've found that it sometimes works great, other times doesn't work at all in Europe. For example, we got a good room in Zurich and one in Berlin. Didn't find anything in Rome, Venice or Oslo/Bergen, Norway. In smaller cities/towns, it doesn't work at all. I think it's a function of whether there are hotel chains catering to business travelers in the city. Anyway, it's free to try and if you do get a room, it's usually at a great price and is centrally located.

 

[tomz]

We've been to London twice. The first time we stayed near the British Museum. Nice place, but the rooms were tiny. The second time a few years ago, we stayed near Victoria Station. We liked the second place better. We found out about it on Tripadvisor. It was called Luna and Simone. Inexpensive (by London standards), but very nice and convenient to the tube, pubs, decent restaurants, the Thames, etc. DW and I loved London. If you like fresh brewed beer/ale, you will almost think you died and went to heaven. Oh yeah, they have a lot of cool places to visit too.

 

[RunningBum]

I've been 3 times. I'll second the recommendation for staying near Victoria Station for airport access (for Gatwick, anyway), access to many sites by foot, and the rest by tube, with lots of restaurants, etc nearby. I'm pretty sure I stayed at a Novotel across from the station but it appears to have changed hands.

Other times I stayed in Westminster and by the Tower Bridge, both were more expensive and the latter was inconvenient to everything but the bridge and Tower of London.

 

[jerryo]

I've used Priceline very successfully for London too, particularly during the off season.... Last time, I put in a $125 bid for 3 days at a 4* in Mayfair, knowing there was only 1 hotel in the category, and got a top floor room (at the Mayfair Holiday Inn) with a big room with great view of the Ritz and Big Ben! In the high season (June-September) it's much more difficult, but there are some nice smaller hotels in the Holand Park/Notting Hill area for $150/night or so....

 

[Cruisinthru]

Thanks for all the replies.

I always look at Tripadvisor and have had great luck with them. With one exception, and it was horrible, but I want go into that here.

I posted my inquiry here because I think most of you guys are more like me (values and expectations) than some others in the general population. I posted a similar post prior to our trip to Italy in September and received a wonderful recommendation from someone on the board. We then checked Tripadvisor and they gave it great reviews. We could not have been more happy with the hotel, location, etc.

We are still debating on which area is best for us. We don't mind walking, and don't mind the tube or buses. We want to be in a safe area, and one that we might want to walk around and actually see how the natives live!

Please keep the ideas flowing and thanks for the posts so far.