I hope and expect not to start any more of these London lodging threads for this trip, and I appreciate so much the feedback we've gotten on all of them! Sorry for being so prolific. Hopefully the next person looking for a budget apt in London will follow my trail and get lots of useful information!
We're fiiinally getting ready to book and just thought we'd see whether anyone had any input. (BlueHour, we're already keeping in mind what you've told us about taking a leap of faith at some point!)
Our criteria again were -big bed, -near tube, -full kitchen, -preferably really cheap, -an agency or hotel that we feel we can trust.
We decided not to splurge on the Two Hyde Park apartments. We're choosing between the Clearlake Hotel,
The Vacation in Paris apartment, in Chelsea, is not the neighborhood we were looking for at all, and is not even available all the nights of our stay (we would probably splurge on something nice to make up the difference... but the move also sounds like undue hassle). It appeals to us because it's a very inexpensive choice, sounds like a nice area, and we're already dealing with Vacation in Paris for our Paris rental the previous week. (And we've found them to be very pleasant and helpful to deal with so far.)
The Clearlake gets TripAdvisor reviews as being disgustingly badly decorated, quite shabby, but reasonably clean, spacious, and comfortable. It's right near High Street Ken tube, and that's a big plus. And they're offering us a rate well below $200 a night, for a week's stay. The kitchen is bigger than at the V.I.P. apartment, and has a freezer, which the other lacks (I'm confounded by that, but I guess that's very American of me).
We're both leaning toward the Clearlake, and that's probably what we'll take. We'll certainly be interested in anything y'all might have heard, though.
I just heard that the Clearlake turns the heat off at night (I've written back to ask what time it goes off and back on). That unnerves me a bit -- we tend to get cold easily. Is that a normal thing for a hotel in London to do? This will be in February, so it might get pretty chilly, I would think, especially by the standards of Northern Californians!
It's a matter of personal taste, but I prefer the architecture in Chelsea. Streets tend to be a bit narrower so it feels more cosy. Also the area is closer to the river.
As to the heating, I would say that most people in Britain turn the heating off at night unless it is bitterly cold weather. As a wimpy Canadian used to such creature comforts as central heating, even I have come round to feeling happier with the heating off at night. If the beds have duvets I'd have said you'll be fine with the heating off. The duvets really trap your body heat and you are cosy and toasty underneath. Make sure they have additional blankets or duvets on hand in case you still feel the cold.
Beebee
Posts: 1954 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 09 September 2002
I'd have thought it was unusual for a hotel to turn the heating completely off - down possibly. I agree with Beebee - at home, most people do have their heating timers set to go off at bedtime and on again in the morning. These brick buildings, especially in terraces or semi-detached, tend to hold the heat well and the temperature doesn't plummet like it can in houses designed for warmer climes.
When our timer went a bit mad after the builders had been in recently, I woke up in middle of the night thinking I had a fever, when it was only the heating coming on at the wrong time !
Posts: 926 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 20 September 2006
Thank you, Beebee and Panda. We decided we don't want to stay there... and we don't really want to walk so far to the tube as the Chelsea Studios flat is... which has put us more or less back to the drawing board!
I can't believe how hard it has been to find something that works for us in London. The Vacation in Paris flat in Paris was pretty easy to find.
If anyone has any experience of either Great Trips Unlimited (I see a positive review from I think Ireland) or 51 Kensington Court Apartments, we'd love to hear it. What a silly saga.
The Kensington Court Apartments are in a very nice location. My friend lives down the stree so I've stayed in that area a few times and enjoyed it.
I can't keep track of all the different agencies you've posted links to so forgive me if you've looked at this one and disregarded it...back in July someone posted a thread asking about London apartments (it's a few pages back) and one person included a link to this company:
and mentioned using them. Have you checked them out? I bookmarked the site because they had an apartment in an area I liked but I haven't used them myself.
Thank you, Narcissa, we did look at the listings on that site. We also had this site recommended to us as being very reliable http://lfca.co.uk/
The Clearlake offered to let us have the heat on at night just for our room only, for an extra charge of 100 GBP for the week. We thought about it, but were deterred by their also saying that the thermostat for this room isn't working properly anyway, so we might be paying extra for nothing (as my husband says, it's nice that they're honest, but isn't there any way they could get the thermostat serviced between now and February?!).
Many people will probably be relieved to know that we won't be starting any more threads about where we should stay this trip! We finally ended up booking at 51 Kensington Court apartments. It's much more than we wanted to spend (155 pounds a night), but we're nervous first-time Europe visitors and we wanted to make sure we wouldn't have trouble with getting a deposit back, being met on time by a greeter, checkout, etc. We wanted a king-sized bed, laundry facilities, and a fully equipped kitchen (oven, dishwasher, freezer with the fridge, microwave, enough stove space to do real cooking) and we've been promised all of that, and they're quite close to High Street Ken tube stop.
Really, really appreciative of all the hand-holding and help that everyone here has given us as we evaluated different places! Big sigh of relief that the choice is made, because we dithered about this for a good long time!
Thanks, Zuriga, and we'll still be in the neighborhood of the new Whole Foods, but we won't be staying at 51 Kensington Court! I still can hardly believe this happened -- we're such jumpy first-time Europe travelers that we were splurging on Kensington Court because we thought that they were the safe choice...
When I originally called them, I was looking to rent the studio they list on their website for 140 GBP a night, but the person who took my reservation said it's only for rent as part of a larger suite, and they just "haven't updated their website" to reflect that. I found this misleading, and was sorry we ended up taking a more expensive apt as a result. So I told them in an email that I was disappointed about it... and I thought they should update their website!
Well, in reply to my email, I got a bizarre 8-paragraph tirade back from their manager, essentially firing us as guests! ("...I would suggest we refund your deposit and you seek alternative accommodation. I await your reply"). I have never heard of such a thing! It's true that I wrote to them with a complaint, so I thought perhaps she just found me very rude, but I see another person http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g186338-d224...-London_England.html complained about her being bizarrely hostile -- I discounted that review when choosing it because the person never stayed there and it could have been a misunderstanding, but now I know he was right!
Yikes!!
So, the end of it is that we're going to stay at Allen House, which has uniformly good reviews and is a huge ton more expensive than we had wanted. What a long, strange process!
Wow! You don't check Slowtrav for a couple of days and ... sagas.
I'm glad you found something you like and feel comfortable with. It looks lovely. I used to live not far from there, and I used to walk up to the park through that neighborhood with my friend to walk the dogs. That road behind the palace is a semi-private road and is one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in London. Literally.
Everything you could possibly want is on Kensington High Street. I would have no qualms about walking back from the tube at any hour. You can easily walk up Kensington Church Street to Notting Hill etc. (there is, or used to be, a great French bakery on that street) and look at the antiques stores, if that's your thing. You can practically walk from park to park in two directions. I think you'll be dazzled.
Don't for an instant play "shouldacouldawoulda". You made a really good choice and you are going to have an amazing time. Look forward. Plan your trip.
Thank you, BlueHour, you've been so sweet and supportive! Yes, we're relieved to have finally finished the search, and we feel good about Allen House so far.
Current thrill is booking a private tour with this person http://www.londonrocktours.com/ because my husband adores Jimi Hendrix and wants to see the places he lived and played in.
