Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?

Yes. Very nice refurbished property with very attractive bar and restaurants. I do feel like I got a little runaround with the room upgrade, but I’m still happy overall.

- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?

Booked a Royal Park Executive Room at $424 per night (£180+17.5% VAT). I used the BOGO cert from my RA package to get the second night for free. I booked this category based on the upgrade policy posted on the IC London thread, wanting to be upgraded to a Suite. When I arrived the front desk told me I had been upgraded to a 1-bedroom Suite on the 6th floor! I was taken up to the room by a Butler. The room was not a 1-bedroom Suite, rather it was more of a Studio Suite, so I asked the Butler what type of room it was and even he called it a 1-bedroom Suite, so I think they have their room terms wrong or something. Whatever, I wasn’t about to complain as I got a Suite. The only negative is that the Suite looked into the Courtyard, there was basically no “Royal Park” view. I got a little down and was about to call back and ask for a Suite with a “view”, but then I had a look in the minibar and that perked me right up. I decided then to just be happy with my room as it was and not be a “complainer”.


- How are the rooms?

Nice new room, everything it was fully refurbished. A good amount of room between the bed and the couch/sitting area on the other side of the room. We were in London to watch Wimbledon and had some friends staying at Le Meridien Piccadilly. We had them over and demolished that minibar 2 nights in a row. There were 3 comfortable chairs and a 2-person couch so it was definitely roomy enough. The bed was comfortable. There was one B&O TV that swiveled around so it could be seen from the couch as well as the bed. There was also a nice Bose Wave Radio. There were heated towel racks in the bathroom and lots of large sized bottles (100ml/3.4 oz……………….I know because I kept since they were the perfect sized bottles to transport liquids/sunscreen in in the future) of Elemis because it was a Suite, but that’s where the positives of the bathroom ended. It was one of the tiniest bathrooms I’d ever been in. Tub/shower combo. Almost no room for the toilet, etc.



- How is the exec. lounge?

No access to Exec Lounge for RAs!!! But on the TV it mentioned that people staying in Suites got access to the Exec Lounge so I decided to wing it and attempt to crash the Exec Lounge the morning of my checkout. I was gonna tell them that my TV said I could have Lounge access. I successfully got in the Lounge, all the door person asked for was my room number which he inputted into the computer and said “OK”. I was expecting a possible charge which I was not gonna pay, but after we had a quick breakfast (which was pretty good, but I’m not sure it’s worth dropping $200 for Exec Lounge access for), I walked out of the Lounge and checked out with the same guy that let me in and there was no charge. There was a LARGE minibar charge (afterall, those 4 bottles of Pommery Pop Champers were $32 each and we easily devoured all of them and much more). But luckily the guy was able to take off all the minibar charges without much problem. There was still a £21 tax that we couldn’t figure out what it was, but he promised to remove it and I just trusted him since I was in a hurry.

- What was good and what was bad?

The rooms were nice. It was certainly nice to have a large enough room (with a good sized sitting area) in London where normal rooms are notoriously small. That was especially true this time since I had a few friends over each night and we imbibed in (I mean killed) the minibar. It was nice that they refilled everything in the minibar the second day. They must’ve thought I was an alcaholic or something.

The bad was the tiny bathroom, the fact that they gave me a Studio Suite and called it a 1-bedroom Suite, and the “No Exec Lounge” policy (even though I was able to break in for a brief 10 minutes on my last morning). ^


- Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?

Using the BOGO cert definitely made it a pretty decent value, and the fact that weekend rates are cheaper than weekday rates made it even a better value. I actually paid for the cheap Sat night and got Sunday night free even though the rate goes up on Sunday nights. ^ I love those BOGO certs!!! I would return, but probably only using a BOGO cert or pts. There are other hotels in London that I can get a better value at IMHO. If RAs got Exec Lounge access, then I would definitely stay here again as the Exec Lounge was quite nice for the brief time I tried it.