On the weekend the present Mr Tart and myself went to a ball in London. The original plan had been to stay on a friend's sofa but we decided that we wanted to make a proper weekend of it. After a donation from my aunt to 'make sure we had a good time' we decided to stay in a hotel. We had a budget of £100, so after a lot of Internet searching for a bargain I found the Paddington Court Best WesternShaftesbury Hotel.
BOOKING:
I booked into the hotel through their website, www.shaftesburyhotel.co.uk. The hotel is one of a chain of Shaftesbuy Best Western hotels. They have a few in Paddington and around the Hyde Park area and some others in central London. The website is laid out in a standard way, you can look at the various hotels individually or can do a search for the dates you want to stay. You can search just by dates for all of the hotels or you can search for a specific hotel. I searched all the available hotels for the night I wanted. It then brings up all the hotels available and the rooms available in each hotel. There are different types of room available from single to luxurious doubles. Even though I put 2 people in the search box it still brought up results showing single rooms - which then said 'exceeds maximum number of people underneath - well why put the result there then!!??
Be really sure you want to book before
you choose your specific hotel and go through to the booking page as if you go through and then decide to book later the price shoots up. I firstly wanted to book a hotel in Piccadilly but decided to check with Mr Tart first. When I went back to book it the price had gone up by £60!
Once I'd chosen the room at the Paddington Court I went through to the booking page and input my details. Remember that the price on the main page needs to have VAT added to it. They asked me if I wanted to join their Premier Club, which meant free room upgrades and was free to join so I said yes please! They sent me through confirmation e-mails for the booking and for joining the Premier Club and they sent an e-mail with details about the local area which although I didn't use I thought was a nice touch.
I looked around other sites for the same hotel I was getting quotes for over £300 - even on the sites which claimed to give a big discount. The hotel's own website claimed the prices quoted were giving you discounts of hundreds of pounds so it is definitely worth checking around the net for the best deal. We paid £92 for our room including breakfast which I thought was quite good value for London.
LOCATION:
The Paddington Court is located on Devonshire Terrace near Paddington Station. It was about a 5 minute easy walk to the station, which has main line connections and is on the Bakerloo, Circle, District and Hammersmith and City lines on the Underground. Bus routes 7, 15, 23, 27, 36, 46, 332 go the closet to the hotel.
RECEPTION:
There was a doorman outside reception which I think is always a good sign. The reception looked very clean and modern and there were seats for while you waited. The reception area was quite small but it wasn't busy and we were dealt with straight away, although it would be a tight squeeze if it was busy. Checking in was quick and painless. We were told our room had been upgraded to a clubroom. I didn't see the other rooms so not sure how much of an upgrade this was but I'll take what I can get!
THE ROOM:
We made our way to our room which was on the ground floor. There seemed to be steps up and down everywhere and although there was a lift you had to go upstairs from the reception to get to it so I think the hotel is fairly unfriendly for disabled guests (although they may have had rooms that could be accessed more easily).
The room had a key card entry and was one of these rooms where the lights didn't work unless you put your key inside the slot just inside the room. I do think this is a good feature and stops a lot of waste. My first impression was that the room was small but it did look quite luxurious and well decorated.
The décor was quite dark. The furniture was dark wood and the colour scheme was a dark purple and dark green mix. It did look a lot better than the standard magnolia décor of most hotel rooms I've stayed in. In the room was a double bed which took up most of the room, 2 bedside tables, a dressing table and wardrobe. In the corner were 2 cupboards, one of which had a mini-fridge in (which was empty for your own use) and the other had a microwave, plates and glasses. Mounted on the wall was a large plasma screenTV! Even Mr Tart - who gets annoyed because I watch so much TV - got excited by this gadget!
The bathroom was absolutely tiny. There was no bath, only a very small shower, which wouldn't be great for you if you have a larger frame! The sink was one of those modern bowl sinks which looked great but which was also completely impractical because you can't keep anything on the side! In the bathroom they provided plenty of towels along with soap, a shower cap, shampoo, shower get and massage cream (!). The shower was fine, although you had to wait a while for it to go hot.
The bed was really comfortable. I had plenty of pillows and covers and I definitely had a good night's sleep and felt refreshed the next morning despite rolling in in the early hours! The room also had an iron and ironing board, a hairdryer and tea and coffee facilities - complete with biscuits (always important!). The view from the room was not exactly spectacular - we looked out onto another part of the building and you couldn't even really see the sky. However, this didn't really matter to us and was even a benefit as it meant we had no street noise to wake us.
The only thing really wrong with the room was the temperature. The room was very hot and this was October (although it was a really warm day). There was an air-conditioning unit in the room but it didn't seem very effective. We had 2 windows open as well but found that after 2 showers and me drying my hair we were both sweating away!
OTHER FACILITIES:
There was a nice bar in the hotel which we walked through although we didn't stop for a drink. The décor was modern, there was a TV and free newspapers in the bar as well. Downstairs there was a fitness room. This was something that Mr Tart was excited about, although in the end we didn't have time to use it. It was a bit disappointing when we saw it, it was very small and only contained 2 running machines and an exercise ball. I would have expected more of a variety of machines and wouldn't have used the room as the running machine is my least favourite piece of equipment. It was better than nothing though.
Breakfast on the Sunday morning was served until 10.30am. We had a full English included in the price of our room. In reception breakfast was advertised as costing nearly £12 each, which I wouldn't have paid for but I think the price for it included in our room was reasonable. The breakfast selection was pretty good. There were cereals (mainly well known brands), cold meat and cheese, yoghurt, some fruit, breads, croissants and danishes. For the English breakfast there was bacon, sausages, scrambled and boiled eggs, hash browns, tomatoes and mushrooms. There was a good selection of sauces and the drinks available were tea, coffee and lots of fruit juices. The breakfast was good although the cooked was a little cold. I also took some pain au chocolat for my lunch (naughty I know!).
CONCLUSION:
I was really happy with our stay in the Paddington Court hotel. The price was reasonable for the location, the hotel was very comfortable and well equipped. I had a really good night's sleep. The room was a bit hot but this wasn't the biggest problem. The room was also small but we were quite happy with it. I would definitely recommend this as a place in London and would stay there again for the price.
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Oct 17th, 2008
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