Hotel recs for Central London

[Lamar Mundane]

I'll be in the King's Cross area for business in a few weeks and I will extend it over a weekend as I have never been there before. I'm looking for something reasonable and nice, but not opulent. Location is important as I'd like to see as much as I can of the city in two days. I can be away from the center of the city if close to public transport.

Suggestions for things to do are welcome as well. I'm not into the Royalty stuff, I'm more into historical sites and cool atmospheres. I like walking. Obscure museums as well.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Depending on what organizations you belong to, you might check out Club Quarters. For example, my alumni association Life membership entitles me to stay there at any of their locations for a very reasonable rate. According to their website, they do have several locations in London, with another to open next year.

I haven't had a chance to try these hotels out yet, but they look pretty good.

[Lamar Mundane]

That's almost £200 a night, although very nice. I'd like to keep it to less than half that if possible.

[Cunctator]

In July last year I stayed at Passfield Hall (part of the LSE) for almost three weeks. It was excellent accommodation and very good value. And just a short walk to Euston and King's Cross/St Pancras stations.

The availability of accommodation is dependent on the LSE's academic periods. There my be some sort of autumn break/holiday coming up. Worth a look anyway.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by Lamar Mundane

That's almost £200 a night, although very nice. I'd like to keep it to less than half that if possible.

That is steep. Even with my association password it's expensive, although not quite so much. FTR when I looked at this earlier I was looking at SF and NYC, not London.

[Novelty Bobble]

You might consider staying on the outskirts of London and taking a half-hour train ride to a central station.
Cheap hotels like Travelodge can be had £30-£40 a night if you book early enough and the train fare (complete with a London Travelcard) can be had for another £10 on top and they run every half hour or so.
It is tempting to want to be in to "London" itself but to be honest, if you aren't nipping back to your hotel during the day, somewhere on the outskirts can be just as convenient and save you an absolute fortune.
Perhaps somewhere like Windsor?
or maybe Redhill or Leatherhead?

[Lamar Mundane]

Originally Posted by Cunctator

In July last year I stayed at Passfield Hall (part of the LSE) for almost three weeks. It was excellent accommodation and very good value. And just a short walk to Euston and King's Cross/St Pancras stations.

The availability of accommodation is dependent on the LSE's academic periods. There my be some sort of autumn break/holiday coming up. Worth a look anyway.

Not available at all for the time I will be there, unfortunately.

I, as a raised Catholic, was unaware that there was a St. Pancreas. I did know of St. Paddy, Patron Saint of the Inflamed Liver, but not of St. Pancreas.

Oh, wait, Pancras. Nevermind.

[Floater]

I stayed at a Premier Inn close to Euston station a while ago and it was quite nice and a friend of mine recently found a hotel called Central Park in the Bayswater area and thought it was very good and not too expensive.

http://www.premierinn.com/en/hotel/LONEUS/london-euston

http://www.centralparklondon.co.uk/

[Hypno-Toad]

The Thanet hotel is currently 85 pounds a night for a single, 115 for a double. It's in Bloomsbury, a block east of the British Museum. It's also a block away from the Russel Square tube stop which is the next stop down from Kings Cross/St. Pancras. When I was there in 05, the proprietors were quite nice and the breakfasts were good.

[Ximenean]

Originally Posted by Novelty Bobble

You might consider staying on the outskirts of London and taking a half-hour train ride to a central station.
Cheap hotels like Travelodge can be had £30-£40 a night if you book early enough and the train fare (complete with a London Travelcard) can be had for another £10 on top and they run every half hour or so.
It is tempting to want to be in to "London" itself but to be honest, if you aren't nipping back to your hotel during the day, somewhere on the outskirts can be just as convenient and save you an absolute fortune.
Perhaps somewhere like Windsor?
or maybe Redhill or Leatherhead?

Yes, or a halfway house version of this suggestion would be to stay somewhere in the London suburbs but still on the Tube network. That way you could travel more directly to likely tourist destinations, saving time and hassle. A couple of random examples from a quick Google search: Travelodge in Whetstone, £40 per night, close to a Northern Line tube station, about 35 minutes to Leicester Square; at the other end of the scale is is the 4-star Richmond Hill Hotel, £105. Richmond is pleasant town in its own right and is only a few miles out of central London.
These are not recommendations, just indications of the sort of prices you could expect to pay.

[interface2x]

Reviews tend to be kind of mixed, but I stayed at the Imperial Hotel Russell Square and was pretty happy with it. It's about a five minute walk from the British Museum.

[Lamar Mundane]

I'm going to bump this once for the Englanders to add more info. I am finding the recommended hotels already booked for the weekend I'm there. What is going on on Oct 7-9? No EPL games are scheduled at all, and no international friendlies either.

[Novelty Bobble]

Well, I know it isn't the perfect option but Leatherhead is available for 3 nights from 7-9th for £91.25 (in total).

The train station is a couple of minutes from the hotel, takes 45 minutes or so and gets you into Waterloo or Victoria and a return plus day travelcard for the tube would be £10.40.
Or there is Caterham Whyteleaf for £120 (and the train station is over the road and times/costs are the same as Leatherhead)

Or Windsor, don't discount that, £97 for three nights, the train station again is a couple of minutes walk and takes you to Paddington or Waterloo in 30 minutes, runs every half hour and costs £12.50 return plus a travelcard for the day.

London hotels are never really cheap and the cheaper ones can easily be a good few tube stops from where you want to be, that can take an extra half-hour easily. As a seasoned London business and pleasure traveller I always look for the cheaper options just a quick train ride away and use the money we save for entertainment and meals.

(plus, somewhere like Windsor is a lovely destination in itself)

[Illuminatiprimus]

There are a ton of Premier Inns around the edges of London that will be cheaper - places like Wimbledon, Croydon, and places in east and north London. I agree with others that you really don't need to be staying right in the centre unless you're going back to your hotel frequently or you want to fall into you hotel room drunk a lot.

This is quite a good site for finding places, again it doesn't need to be right in the centre as long as you can see a tube station near it on the map.

[SciFiSam]

If there's nothing available around King's Cross itself, try places around Old St. It's a couple of stops from King's Cross on the Northern Line and has several buses that take about ten minutes to get to King's Cross (or 30 at rush hour).

Bloomsbury is the area near King's Cross that has tons of hotels. I couldn't recommend any from personal experience, but I'd be surprised if any of them were bad. (I see Hypno Toad mentioned that area).

Email me if you fancy meeting up for museuming - I'm on a challenge to visit 100 museums in a year so am visiting lots of small and unusual ones.

Bloomsbury has a ton of them - the Grant Museum of Zoology, with things like a jar of pickled moles, the Petrie Egyptian Museum, where you get closer to the artifacts than at the usual big museums, the Foundling Museum (I still haven't been, but might well have before you get here) about children who were left, and about social history, the Brunei Gallery, the Wellcome Collection, the British Library (which has a lot of rather good exhibits - it's not just a library), the Cartoon Museum and the Charles Dickens Museum are all within a few minutes' walk of the British Museum.

Originally Posted by Novelty Bobble

You might consider staying on the outskirts of London and taking a half-hour train ride to a central station.
Cheap hotels like Travelodge can be had £30-£40 a night if you book early enough and the train fare (complete with a London Travelcard) can be had for another £10 on top and they run every half hour or so.
It is tempting to want to be in to "London" itself but to be honest, if you aren't nipping back to your hotel during the day, somewhere on the outskirts can be just as convenient and save you an absolute fortune.
Perhaps somewhere like Windsor?
or maybe Redhill or Leatherhead?

God no. If it's a weekend, there's too good a chance the trains will be off for engineering works, and the cheaper hotel will be partially offset by cost of travelling in to London. If you end up having to get a bus instead of a train then that'll be a couple of hours (or more) of your short holiday taken up by travelling. Also, Windsor itself is pretty expensive.

[Novelty Bobble]

Originally Posted by SciFiSam

God no. If it's a weekend, there's too good a chance the trains will be off for engineering works, and the cheaper hotel will be partially offset by cost of travelling in to London. If you end up having to get a bus instead of a train then that'll be a couple of hours (or more) of your short holiday taken up by travelling. Also, Windsor itself is pretty expensive.

In what way is Windsor any more expensive than any other place in the UK? It has the same cheap eateries as any other town. I'm a stingy northerner and I stay there with my family precisely because it is cheap.
The hotel I linked to works out at less than £35 a night, add on £12 for a return train journey and travelcard (which you would need in London anyway)

And you can easily check to see if there is any engineering work before you book (plus there are two different lines used to get into London from Windsor, so unlikely both would be delayed)

So in summary...............don't be put off by this, it is a cheap and easy option.

[Pork Rind]

I've stayed at the Myhotel Bloomsbury several times and have been pleased. I've passed along the recommendation to friends as well and have been given good feedback as well. It's very close to the British Museum, and a quick walk to most anything in the West End. For your dates, it looks like a single is ~£130/night.

[SciFiSam]

Originally Posted by Novelty Bobble

In what way is Windsor any more expensive than any other place in the UK? It has the same cheap eateries as any other town. I'm a stingy northerner and I stay there with my family precisely because it is cheap.
The hotel I linked to works out at less than £35 a night, add on £12 for a return train journey and travelcard (which you would need in London anyway)

And you can easily check to see if there is any engineering work before you book (plus there are two different lines used to get into London from Windsor, so unlikely both would be delayed)

So in summary...............don't be put off by this, it is a cheap and easy option.

Well, it has McDonald's, yeah...

It's just not very close to London. And your link says 50.20 a night. You wouldn't need a travelcard if you stayed in London.

I just can't fathom travelling several hundred miles to visit London then spending a few hours a day travelling to actually get into the city. This is a business trip, remember: the rush-hour journey to Windsor and back would be a hell of a lot more than 12 quid and would have no seats for most of the journey.

Windsor is a lovely place to visit in itself, but it's not a good suggestion for someone wanting to stay in central London.

[SciFiSam]

Originally Posted by Lamar Mundane

I'm going to bump this once for the Englanders to add more info. I am finding the recommended hotels already booked for the weekend I'm there. What is going on on Oct 7-9? No EPL games are scheduled at all, and no international friendlies either.

Premier league tickets will all be booked up by now anyway for the next couple of months. For some teams (e.g. Arsenal) you also have to pay just to get the privilege of applying for tickets.

If you want sport, you could look into first division games instead of premier league. Charlton are playing at home that weekend (they're my team) and the tickets are extremely cheap because we're a bit crap right now (went out of the premier league recently), but it's still football on an old ground with a a lot of history and there's a lot of movement between the premier league and the first division.

[Novelty Bobble]

Originally Posted by SciFiSam

Well, it has McDonald's, yeah...

It's just not very close to London. And your link says 50.20 a night. You wouldn't need a travelcard if you stayed in London.

That's dynamic pricing for you! the cheap ship has sailed. As for the travelcard, I'd recommend anyone visiting London gets one. Makes life so much easier.

I just can't fathom travelling several hundred miles to visit London then spending a few hours a day travelling to actually get into the city. This is a business trip, remember: the rush-hour journey to Windsor and back would be a hell of a lot more than 12 quid and would have no seats for most of the journey.

Ah, and there is the rub, my understanding was that the OP was looking for somewhere over the weekend. If the same hotel is needed for the business and leisure section then yes, Windsor becomes impractical for the reasons you stated.

Windsor is a lovely place to visit in itself, but it's not a good suggestion for someone wanting to stay in central London.

Well, obviously not if the person absolutely wants to be located in central London. But if a leisure traveller wants cheap lodging and quick access to central London then I'd recommend it. (though your points about rush hour journeys are correct)

[SciFiSam]

Originally Posted by Novelty Bobble

That's dynamic pricing for you! the cheap ship has sailed. As for the travelcard, I'd recommend anyone visiting London gets one. Makes life so much easier.



Ah, and there is the rub, my understanding was that the OP was looking for somewhere over the weekend. If the same hotel is needed for the business and leisure section then yes, Windsor becomes impractical for the reasons you stated.



Well, obviously not if the person absolutely wants to be located in central London. But if a leisure traveller wants cheap lodging and quick access to central London then I'd recommend it. (though your points about rush hour journeys are correct)

Visitors should get an oystercard these days, not a travelcard. Does Oyster go as far out as Windsor these days? It goes out a long way in the opposite direction.

We'll just agree to disagree about how convenient Windsor is.