TheFlyingDoctor

Part 1: The Bentley London Waldorf Astoria Collection and Le Kalon Spa

Having settled on redeeming HHonors points for a hotel, the only question was which... since pretty much all of London is category 7, it made sense to treat myself to something a bit more interesting than the station hotel, or the nearby Metropole (which I'd used before). I managed to resist the siren call of childhood games of Monopoly that steered me initially to Park Lane, opting instead for The Bentley.
At the time of booking (May), this was part of the Waldorff Astoria Collection, but it seems there was a reshuffling between then and my stay, so by then it was simply "a Hilton hotel"- clearly with riffraff like me showing up, it had to be downgraded 50,000 HHonors points secured me a queen room that would otherwise have been £191. That's 0.38p a point (so I'd have to get 4p of value per avios were I to have transfered them to BA), but of course one should consider that I could have stayed elsewhere for less. Certainly I wouldn't ordinarily drop nearly £200 on a single night at a hotel, so I can't argue that I've saved exactly that.

Since I was travelling to London the day before my flight, there was no urgency with the trains from Bristol, and so (naturally) they ran entirely without incident. By booking far in advance, I'd managed to get a ticket for a mere £10, although it did mean taking a slightly odd routing via Bristol Parkway. Since my last trip (and a few others) where I'd bemoaned the limitations of an ipod touch as a computing device, but not wanted to drag a proper laptop with me, I'd invested in an ipad, and so the two hours to London breezed by as I flitted between an ebook (Cory Doctorow's Makers, excellent and available for free), some episodes of Community, and the internet (powered by my oft-failing PAYG personal hotspot- at least it's cheap!).

Despite grey clouds spied on the train, London - or at least, the Tube - proved as stickily warm as ever. Still, from train-door to hotel-door was a mere 25 minutes, The Bentley being very conveniently located five minutes on foot from Gloucester Road underground station. The building exterior was quite understated - clearly pricey, but not opulent - but the entrance was more obviously designed to impress. Wiki reckons there's six hundred tons of marble in the Bentley, and a fair proportion of that must be found in the lobby!

The front desk was actively teeming with staff, so I didn't have to wait even though there was someone else also checking in, and at least two people were attending to my own arrival at any given time. As well as being efficient, the staff were very friendly- perhaps confusingly so... when one of them went to take my luggage I nearly mistook the gesture for her reaching for my hand! In my defense, one of her colleagues had already said he'd take my suitcase, and I did grasp what was going on before instead grasping her. But still, it wouldn't have done to out myself as an amateur at this 5-star malarkey by committing such a faux pas before we'd even got to the room. I wonder if we'd have made it to the lifts before she discreetly extracted herself, or I'd simply have been thrown out immediately!

Having narrowly avoided confirming the stereotype of the socially-oblivious mathematician, I was escorted to the room by both of the would-be suitcase carriers, and given a quick tour. The bedroom itself was a decent size for the UK- certainly a lot more space, and vastly better-styled, than the room at the last London Hilton I'd used - and they'd managed to fit (much appreciated) air conditioning without ruining the traditional look. The hallway had a small table bearing hilariously priced minibar items such as 25g packets of kettle chips for £2- fortunately there was free fruit and water set out in the bedroom (and there was also a fridge with drinks, discreetly stowed in the TV cabinet). Off the hall was storage and a sink/vanity unit, then the bathroom.
Although the room description rather implied there would be, there was no jacuzzi in the bathroom, but it did include probably at least one of those tons of marble, creating an enormous shower space. This I set to immediate use (well, once the staff had bid their farewells!) to blast away the delicate aroma of London Underground, which confirmed that the shower featured the oft-elusive combo of both properly hot water, and serious pressure. Thus scrubbed, I considered myself presentable enough for the next part of my stay. A couple of weeks before my arrival date, the concierge - well, a computer routine calling itself that, at any rate - had emailed me to notify me that it would be their pleasure to help me set up any spa appointments or dining reservations I might desire. The Bentley is home to Le Kalon, which offers a range of body treatments and a Turkish-style 'Hamman' bath, as well as housing the hotel gym. I would be even more out of my element here, but their Indian Head Massage was billed as being ideal "for people who spend lots of time in front of a computer", which neatly summarises the majority of my time. Plus it felt in keeping with the undeserved-luxury theme of my trip, so I booked a half hour session.

In the event, about 20 minutes of that was a back massage, before ending with work specifically targetting the head and neck. But that was fine by me - when not hunched up over a keyboard with hopelessly bad posture, there's a good chance I can instead be found hanging off a climbing wall, which is probably no better for my back. Net result is that my muscles are a horrendous collection of knots and lumps, and perhaps it took longer than usual to work those out. It's not a necessarily relaxing process, either! But the occasional bit of firm pressure is worth it for the end result, which is of feeling like you've just taken off a very heavy backpack after a day of wearing it. Le Kalon gets a bit of a savaging on Trip Advisor, but whilst I have no other massages to compare it to, I was more than happy with the experience. Perhaps it's better to manage expectations and just see it is as a top up to a stay at the hotel, rather than trying to make it a day-long experience?

They were happy to charge it back to my room (hooray, more HHonors points!), to which I floated back exuding a general aura of relaxation (and dare I say it, smugness). I ventured out for dinner, but wasn't in search of anything glamorous (I'm not a particularly sophisticated diner), so settled for a place in the arcade by the tube station mostly by virtue of being sensibly-priced and the first place I found. I made the schoolboy error of not specifically requesting tap water, and thus got gouged for bottled, but other than that, the meal was uneventful. On my return I grabbed a few more pictures of the hotel (which you've already seen above) , and took in another couple of ipad-powered tv shows before opting for an early night- I had a 5am start the next day to face, and was hoping that post-massage sleep would be easily found even at an unusually sensible hour.


Well, speaking of calling it a night, this seems to be turning into quite the epic, so I'll have to delay the remaining posts to later in the week... coming up next, my first taste of a BA Heathrow lounge (and their fabled bacon rolls), a Club Europe flight, and first impressions of Gibraltar!