lexdevil

The problem is that though there are rooms for three available, they are a different class of room, described as, "larger." Square footage is about 12% larger than the room we were assigned. I assume it's a pricier room, though one to which I would be likely to receive an upgrade. The question is whether they'll guarantee the upgrade. Do you know if your room with two beds was considered an upgrade?

ukchris

In my case it was just a choice of beds at the same rate, seems odd that you cannot choose though, I thought as a Plat you were guaranteed your room type selection. What if you were splitting a room with someone you didn't want to share a bed with?!

VickiSoCal

The problem is that size room only allows for one double bed or two singles and fire code probalby prohibits a rollaway. So even if lex gets choice of one of those, neither works.

Something wrong with the system setup- probably due to it being a new hotel. It shouldn't have shown up on a search for three.

lexdevil

Exactly. Just hope they resolve it in my favor. One might say I am out nothing if they refund points, but I may have lost the opportunity to book my second choice while relying on this booking.

SkiAdcock

Saw a blurb in one of the London papers yesterday wondering if they're running into some problems? "Soft" opening is supposed to be mid-March w/ formal launch May 5th. But a large charity event scheduled for the hotel on April 2nd was cancelled by the hotel. No word on why, but the guess is parts won't be ready yet.

Cheers.

SkiAdcock

Received an email from United that they're offering the following; presumably you have to book through the UA link or there's a code you need to plug in if you go through Marriott.

Exclusive to Mileage Plus elites – book your stay between March 14 and August 31, 2011 and you'll receive 1,873 bonus miles and breakfast for two.

Cheers.

waterbug111

On Monday, I booked 5 nights in a Barlow double at the new St. Pancras for Ł149 a night - 3/30-4/4. Seems to be an unbelievably good rate - even if only a percentage of the facilities are open - read a couple of articles that said the best "grand opening" rate was Ł188. Not sure if I will be able to go since I still haven't purchased my flight to London yet, but since I can cancel up to the day of departure, I'm taking a gamble. Will post photos and a trip report if I end up going.

(Sharon - thanks for the good wishes you made for my father's recovery in the London Marriott hotels thread - he comes home from the hospital tomorrow. Trip to St Pancras depends on his progress =)

caldrich

I just reserved the weekend of April 8-10 for 70K points - not sure of my exact plans yet, but figured I should go ahead and grab it now since I can cancel as late as April.

nobbyclark

I just tried to book for the last week in March using our corporate code and Ł236 was quoted for a Barlow double. Possible that they haven't loaded our corporate rate yet, which I hope will be a lot less than that.

GregWTravels

Photos of the new digs available on the R-Life Blog and Facebook.

Nice looking joint. No doubt the train geek in me is saying this, but the view from the "Chambers Suite bedroom" out onto the platforms is stunning.

dcpatti

Stayed here earlier this week for two nights during their sort-of-soft-opening (I say "sort of" because I'm not sure all the staff knew they were actually open).

It's a lovely hotel in most regards. The lobby/reception area is a massive space, with about 8 check-in positions but large enough for two agents to work side-by-side, so eventually I'd imagine the check-in process goes quite smoothly. The bar area, called the Booking Office (as that is where the old train station booking office was), has big glass doors that open into St Pancras, or will one day, as during our stay, they were keeping those doors locked. Everything is done in rich, dark mahogany tones, and leans towards classical design, and fairly simple/sleek, which I like; sometimes what's trendy today is tacky tomorrow but I put this in the "timeless elegance" category.

Until they begin unlocking the Booking Office doors, you can access the hotel by exiting St Pancras directly behind the Meeting Place statue (the big metal one on the top floor near the Eurostar trains) and turning right. Stay on the sidewalk and you'll be right there. Your taxi driver may not know the place is open and during our stay they were keeping the driveway blocked to cars so the valet/doorman will need to come move the cones to let the taxi in. FWIW the cab fare to Paddington (if you're going to catch the Heathrow Express) is just about the same as the tube fare for two, so you may want to cab it and save yourself from dragging bags all over town.

The Chambers Club is their version of concierge lounge and the breakfast spread is quite nice: massive, fresh croissants and pastries, big bowls of cut fruit (all perfectly ripe, too), and you can request from a small selection of cooked-to-order egg dishes. The banquettes are leather and very comfortable. Nice thick carpeting. Very posh. We were not around in the evenings to visit the club for cocktails but based on the breakfast, I'd expect that to be a nice service as well. I really enjoyed our stops in here for coffee and light breakfast.

We had two Barlow King rooms, one on the first floor and one on the third; I'm not entirely sure what exactly we booked or if I was given any sort of Gold member benefit but considering we wanted to arrive a full day early due to a change in our travel plans, we were just happy to be there. The rooms are of a nice size, especially for an older hotel in London (and while this is a new renovation, it's still an old hotel). One room had a divan and a full bathtub; the other had a small chair and a really nice walk-in shower. Some of the room furnishings are really out of place, though, and I'm chalking that up to the general chaos of opening. Examples: my sister's room had three desk lamps and two floor lamps, plus the bedside table lamps; the desk and floor lamps were arranged in basically a row, and I don't really know why anyone would need 5 lamps along the same wall. Her room also had an oversized round table like a coffee table, and a smaller coffee table too. All that furniture really intruded on the floor space and it kind of felt like the staff had run out of places to put furniture and just stacked it all in her room.

Our room was more suitably furnished (one desk lamp, one floor lamp and so forth) but we had an unfortunate number of problems: the rooms have a little bench with built-in electric in various country configurations, so you don't need an adapter, but unfortunately the one in our room that didn't work was the one we really needed (US Grounded). Running the washroom sink on hot setting resulted in an extremely loud banging sound, over and over, to the point where we didn't want to run the hot water for fear of disturbing any neighbors. From the bedroom it sounded like someone was trapped inside the walls and begging to get out! The shower made a persistent whistle/whine when run. We reported these things to the front desk after our first night and while the noises did seem to quiet down after that, we're not sure if it's because they were actually fixed, or if some water pressure issue somewhere had sorted itself out. In general, the water pressure is nice and strong. The shower design is really well-thought-through; one of the few walk-in showers I've been in that manages not to flood the entire bathroom. An adjustable-height shower head is a nice touch, especially for my tall boyfriend who'd been banging his head on the shower in the small hotel we'd stayed in over the weekend, up in Leicester.

I haven't stayed in a Rennaissance in a while but the toiletries provided were of a higher quality than I am used to, so I'm not sure if this is unique to this hotel or if the whole chain has upgraded. Bath towels were very thick and thirsty but with two adults in the room, and my hair which is really long, we could have used a few more towels. The bathrooms have a small heat lamp under the vanity which serves as a night-light and a towel warmer and while it's possible to turn that off, we only managed to do it by luck.

My sister's view was of a brick wall. Not a brick wall across a courtyard. A brick wall built about 18 inches from the room window

We had been set to book in on Tuesday but had to change our travel plans after canceling a day trip to Bristol, and wanted to arrive Monday. Apparently Monday was the first day they were accepting guests; upon calling the hotel directly on Sunday, I got a recording "please leave a messge" which i've never heard from a large name hotel. Got the same recording Monday morning and then called Marriott reservations, who did not know the hotel was opening, and at first told us they'd have to cancel our Tuesday reservation too. After much confusion (and an extremely long hold on a US cell phone) we finally got through to the hotel front desk who explained it was soft opening day and said they could take us a day early.

So the reservation process wasn't smooth and check-in was only marginally better but we chalked that up to opening day.

The staff is very helpful and actually TOO helpful; by the end of the first night we were joking amongst ourselves about having to avoid the sentries on the way in, because someone inquired if we were guests and if they could help us, about every 20 feet. I counted 8 offers of help between the front door and the room elevators on one trip. I'm sure this will die down in time; I know the sentries posted by the front door are trying to keep looky-loos out, and I appreciate that, but it gets a little old after a while. After checking in, we were shown to our room by two staff members, who showed us the "features" of the room. While it's a gracious touch, I don't need to be shown how to work the remote control (maybe show me how to turn off that infernal night light instead). While in the Chambers Club, my sister asked where she could find the restroom and was escorted there; when she left the lav to return to the club, the staffer who had escorted her was hanging out by the ladies' room waiting to escort her back. There is a point when there's too much service, and I think they've reached that point at the St P Renaissance.

We had a number of other problems: internet stability isn't good and wi-fi wasn't available outside the lobby for a full day; fire alarms and evacuations which in and of themselves are not too bad, and happen, but the staff didn't know if they should evacuate everyone to the lobby, or fully outside, and it was general confusion; TV only got 5 stations for the first few hours which wouldn't have been a big deal if I'd not been exhausted and ready for some mindless down-time; mini-bar not stocked; most of these are definitely opening day issues. They are definitely not ready for a full scale opening: there is a large covered-in courtyard area that I think one day will be a ballroom but for now is home to stacks and stacks of wrapped or crated furniture waiting for final assembly and placing in rooms. The front desk staff is not adept at all the details of MR (I had to remind them that Internet is comped for golds). The pre-opening rates do reflect that there will be bumps, and hopefully anyone who goes will keep in mind that you're getting a nice price break, and probably shouldn't expect perfection (while my post might not sound like it, we remembered that mantra, every step of the way).

Keep an eye on Internet access charges if you are paying for the service, as you will get disconnected every so often (stability, not a timer), and it will not remember you when you reconnect. Connect through again and you'll have another Internet charge to the room. The front desk will consolidate that down, but the check-out process is not fast right now. Having to re-tally the bill doesn't help.

I think on Monday night we were the only non-Industry people in the building; there were a lot of obvious Marriott corp VIP's and local VIP's milling about. Tuesday was better but it was still easy to spot the "civilians" in the mix of a crowd of hand-picked, invited guests. I get the feeling that Marriott had not expected anyone to book on opening day, or that the bookings page went up too early, because it felt like the staff really didn't know what to make of us.

Focusing on the positives, the beds are quite comfortable and the bedding is very posh, crisp and clean; and I'd been concerned that the sounds of the trains all night might make it hard to sleep but that actually ended up being soothing background noise. We slept very well, both nights. I think the location is fantastic for my needs; I end up in the Midlands every time I go over to the UK (family is there) and catch the train up from St Pancras. Most of the close-by neighborhood is a little touristy but if you walk a few extra blocks you can find some nice shops and restaurants and pubs without breaking the wallet.

So they have some very nice spots and some very rough spots. I am hoping the rough spots are smoothed over quickly, because the hotel has the potential to be a real gem. However, I'm not sure that I would stay there again, mainly because the regular room rate is just too rich for my blood. It's worth 230 GBP a night (which is roughly the cheapest I saw advertized on the later dates I checked, but we did get a nice pre-opening sale on this trip) if they get over their opening jitters; I just don't usually pay that much for a hotel room. If I can get a good sale, i'll be happy to go back. But I might pretend I don't speak English, so people will stop trying to help me. And a very petty little whine: the generic SafeNet (or whatever) key card makes me sad. I like saving my keycards as souvenirs but this one is pretty ugly and doesn't even mention the hotel brand, let alone the name. Yeah I know that's a tiny thing but I still would have liked a key card to take home

waterbug111

Thank you, dcpatti, for such a thorough and balanced report. I read the [for the present] sole tripadvidor.com post on the SPR and that guest did not seem to share your mantra, so your post made be breath a sigh of relief. I cannot complain about my rate, after all. I will be at the SPR starting 3/30 and hope a few of the "soft opening" pains will be ironed out in the next 10 days. I'll report back!

SkiAdcock

Hey, if you're there over a weekend, please do a post in the exec lounge open/closed thread too. Thx.

Cheers.

yunicorner

Wow, what an incredible review! Thanks dcpatti! Too funny they stacked all the extra furniture in your sister's room. And I'm curious as to what your room view entailed.

waterbug111

For anyone who might be interested, USA Today online posted an article on the SPR with 29 new photos: USA_TODAY_ARTICLE

The last image is of the pool in the basement - looks a bit dark and small, but cool (not what I expected).

Mods - do you think we could update the thread title from "2009" to "2011" so it's a little more accurate?