Hilton HHonors - AC in London Hilton Green Park, Kensington, Hyde Park

We are planning our first trip to London for June, 2006 and have enough HH points for 2-3 nights stay at the above listed hotels. What is the air conditioning situation in the guest rooms? I've gotten conflicting reports of this on some other forums - some say no AC, some say a "portable" AC is in the room, and some say fully AC. Since we live in Texas we are very leery of staying somewhere that AC in the guest rooms is not guaranteed, plus it will reduce street noise in the room. We are gold Hhonors so I would request an upgraded room in an email to the general manager prior to our arrival. Any advice or recommendations from previous guests at these hotels would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Texas Travelers

i stayed at the hyde park hilton a couple of years ago in a single room. i too was concerned about getting an a/c room. i did ask for and got an air conditioned room. hotel is ok. sits above a subway station that is closed now but should reopen by the time you get there. i don't think they have an executive lounge.

bearkatt,
Thanks for you information on the London Hilton Hyde Park. It sounds like I need to call the hotels directly and see if they have A/C rooms available and if they can guarantee it. The Green Park and Kensington hotels are our first and second choices of places to stay but the Hyde Park also looks like it's in a good location.

The Green Park did NOT have air conditioning when I stayed there about two years ago.

Have stayed at Hilton Kensington twice recently and have to say the AC is pretty poor (and fairly noisy too) Plus you've barely room to swing a cat in the rooms I've been in.

The Green Park did NOT have air conditioning when I stayed there about two years ago.

My experience also, and we were in a renovated room. Although, I seem to remember reading somewhere that they have portable a/c units in some of the rooms.

As someone else said, best bet is to contact hotel directly and ask.

Green Park is in a good location, but rooms can be a bit noisy and a bit on the small side (common in most of the London HHotels).

We stayed at the Green Park for 3 nights in June, 2004. We had a decent regular room the first night with no air conditioning. I had requested an upgrade and when we returned from our gallivanting the next day, we'd been relocated to one of their top rooms, on the top floor, with a sitting area, bedroom and monster bathroom. This room had air conditioning.

I've always received a portable AC unit in the room when I request it at the Green Park. They may not guarantee it, but contacting the GM in advance is a good idea.

FWIW, the Green Park is the best location and nicest of the 3, in my opinion. Nothing extraordinary though.

Thanks for all the replies to my post. The Hilton Green Park is our top choice also. For Janjanjan who received an upgraded room, are you Hhonors Gold or Diamond ? We're Gold so I hope we would have a good chance of being upgraded. Also, do Golds receive a comp continental breakfast at the Green Park? Did the portable AC units provide enough cooling that you could sleep comfortably? I imagine we won't be in our room that much during the day as we will be seeing all the sights. We just want to be able to get a good night's sleep without too much noise and without the room being too stuffy. In looking at my London guidebooks it looks like the average high in June is around 70 F. Keep the advice coming!
Texas Travelers

As a Diamond Londoner I can tell you that it is extremely unlikely that AC will be needed in June. As you say, the ave temp is a pleasent 70'F, and lower at night.

You will have a great time in London, and this is not something to worry about/influence what you want to do/where to stay.

Green Park was renovated within the last 18 months & is nicer than either the Kensington or Hyde Park. Rooms are not large, but GP is usually my preference due to location when decent rates are available. I never experienced noise from the outside, but at times when folk just let their room doors 'slam' behind them. I've only stayed there in November, so can't address the a/c issue. But as mentioned 70ish is pleasant. Cheers.

I've always received a portable AC unit in the room when I request it at the Green Park. They may not guarantee it, but contacting the GM in advance is a good idea.

FWIW, the Green Park is the best location and nicest of the 3, in my opinion. Nothing extraordinary though.

We stayed at the Green Park in 2001 during our 25th wedding anniversary trip. Temps in London that week were in the low 100's. The portable air conditioning consisted of two fans, one at either end of the room. This was before the remodel.

Of course, as always, YMMV.

Danville 1K

Stayed at the Kensington in September and it is fully air conditioned. While I was never uncomfortable, the air conditioning is no where on the same level as what you'd see in the southern US, especially Texas. One evening when I came in it was getting cool outside and it was kind of stuffy in my room; opening the window for about an hour and then closing it before I went to bed solved that problem. I had no issues with the noise level of the air conditioning system. Overall I thought the rooms I stayed in were nice -- both were on the executive level (the first night they only had a room with two twin beds so I moved on the second night to a room with a double bed for the rest of the stay) so that may have made a difference. Both rooms were on the small side, but what I expected for London. My only real complaint was in the first room, which had a bathtub/shower combination in the bathroom. You had to step way up into the bathtub, and the ceiling height was not really adequate for my 6'4" frame. The second room, which had a fairly large shower with no tub was better in that area.

I just made a 5 night reservation at the Hilton London Green Park for June, 2006 thanks to all of the good advice on this board. 2 of the nights will be a reward stay and the remaining 3 nights a paid stay. Does anyone have the email address for the hotel or GM so that I can email before our arrival to request an upgrade? The Hilton Hhonors desk did not have an email address for this property.

One more question - we'll be arriving at Gatwick and plan to take the express train into Victoria Station. Is a cab the best option for getting from the station to the Green Park?

Thanks again!
Texas travelers

As a Diamond Londoner I can tell you that it is extremely unlikely that AC will be needed in June. As you say, the ave temp is a pleasent 70'F, and lower at night.

You will have a great time in London, and this is not something to worry about/influence what you want to do/where to stay.

This June the temp in London was FAR higher than 70 F!! I think this year it must have been closer to 90 F on average with some absolutely scorching days....

Green Park provide Golds with FULL english buffet breakfast downstairs which is of very good quality. Golds can expect a one category upgrade from room category booked. The deluxe rooms here are very nice.

For AC and more consistent room quality, the Paddington Hilton may be an option. With 4 tube lines, Paddington Station and Heathrow Express literally out the back door of the hotel, plus grocery stores and other convenient essential needs shopping at your doorstep, this is a convenient location.

Plus, Bayswater, with some of the best food in London is a couple tube stops away, and Edgware Road is a stones throw away too (excellent Lebanese food at Maroush and Beirut Express).

We stayed at the Conrad Hilton in London on a GLON2 award and thought the quality was fantastic and we were given a beauthiful 3 room suite as HH Gold. We received free hot breakfast every morning at their restaurant overlooking the marina. They treated you like family and they had a fantastic workout facility, swimming pool and spa. We were not in downtown London. We took the #3 bus to Earl Court everyday and road the tube where ever we wanted to go. Is was so easy and convient. We did not miss the hustle and bustle of London but did enjoy walking Chelsea every morning. We saw some of the other Hiltons and were so glad we chose where we did. We made the decision based on posts in here. They had a very modern and effective personal climate control throughout the hotel and in each room. We were there in June 2005 and they did have an unusual warming trend then. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ o9

I know there's a thread on Green Park that mentions the manager's name, but can't remember which thread it is. I think I called before I went over rather than email, and he asked me to email him but of course now I can't find it. You might want to do a search just on Green Park. Think the thread was specific to that property where he's mentioned. Cheers.

First, let me say that I am new to FT and I *love* it! I've travelled for work for about 5 years now and wish I'd found this website when I got started. Hopefully my post will show up correctly....

We stayed at the Hilton Hyde Park in late 2005. We didn't necessarliy have the best experience there. Besides having a very unpleasent experience with another guest that included much profanity and death threats (a very long story), I found the hotel common space to feel cramped and small. It did not have the feeling I would expect from a Hilton Property. Our first room was actually quite nice and had recently been refurbished. After our bad experience with the other guest we got moved to another room that hadn't been refurbished. It wasn't nearly as nice and not what we would expect from a Hilton. Then again, since we'd never been to London before and I didn't know about FT at that time, I really didn't know what to expect. Among our travels through London we happened to stroll past the Hilton Waldorf in downtown. The place was a palace compared to the Hyde Park we were holed up in. If I'm ever back in London and have hhonors points to spend, you can bet I'll kick in the extra 5000 points/night to stay at the nicer property!

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I stayed at the Hyde Park yesterday and the AC was one of the things I was most impressed with. perhaps unusually as a Brit, I am an AC addict and hate to sleep in a hot room. The fan does not "blow" the AC particularly hard, but it does cool the room remarkably well, and is also extremely quiet (a drawback in my opinion, since the AC noise helps to kill background traffic noise).

As for the hotel, well it is in an area of London (Bayswater) where I have never spent much time so it was a new experience. The hotel had a lot of tourists, the rooms were small and mostly refurbished. I had an argument about being allocated a first floor room despite a high room preference in my profile which was eventually dealt with. This hotel is reasonable value for money however on balance I probably prefer the Kensington Hilton (at the budget end of the London Hilton portfolio). My other half particularly likes that property since they have a Thai TV Channel (although I am not sure she would admit this ;) ).

I just made a 5 night reservation at the Hilton London Green Park for June, 2006 thanks to all of the good advice on this board. 2 of the nights will be a reward stay and the remaining 3 nights a paid stay. Does anyone have the email address for the hotel or GM so that I can email before our arrival to request an upgrade? The Hilton Hhonors desk did not have an email address for this property.

One more question - we'll be arriving at Gatwick and plan to take the express train into Victoria Station. Is a cab the best option for getting from the station to the Green Park?

Thanks again!
Texas travelers

Try www.hilton.co.uk

deleted. duplicate post.

One more question - we'll be arriving at Gatwick and plan to take the express train into Victoria Station. Is a cab the best option for getting from the station to the Green Park?

Thanks again!
Texas travelers

If you don't have much luggage you can take the tube. It is only one stop on the Victoria Line to the Green Park Station. I don't recall the Victoria Station side but there is a flight of about 20 steps that you use to come up out of the Green Park Station. The hotel is about a block away. I have certainly used the tube before with luggage and managed it but it was just a 22 inch rollaboard and a briefcase.

Curious why questions about Green park are answered by people talking about Hyde Park. Green Park is in Mayfair. Why talk about Hyde Park?