Corus Hotel Hyde Park, London

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Ideally located for most of London
Disadvantages:	Limited evening eating .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Corus hotel is based at Lancaster Gate, London. Rather nicely it sits opposite Hyde Park which gives you an opportunity to spend some relaxing time of a morning or evening.

Checking in

As I arrived at my hotel (paid for by my company) I was quite pleasantly surprised, in the Lobby the walls are covered with a beige marble; this then turns to white paintwork. My initial impression was that the location was a bit fancy for a company placement. I was cheerfully greeted by Wee Wee and Wee Lee who took a lot of time and effort to explain the hotel facilities, the surrounding location and how easy it was to reach my room. This was by far the most professional reception I have ever received in a London hotel.

The Room

My room had a price tag of £89 per night which included a full English breakfast. My room number was 310 and this was located in close proximity to the elevator. On entering my room I was confronted with a room approximately 13 foot in length by about 9 foot in width. In this room I had a single bed, two telephones, storage area with hanging facility, a desk/dressing area and on suite shower/toilet.

I first was confused by the lighting, as there were 11 different light switches around the room; but during my stay I was able to establish that these switches had dual purpose for example one light had three switches.

The room was incredibly warm, so much so I nearly passed out upon entering. I opened the window and turned on the fan, but this made little difference; especially in light of the fact that the Radiator (which you as a gust have no control over) was turned on. Opening the window created further issues, the hotel is shaped rather like the letter U and my room sat on the inside of the U. With the window open I could hear peoples televisions, smell food smells emanating from the ground floor. But worse still be consistently haunted by the sound of several staff clearing there throats as they walk through the yard to storage areas; this was in turn met by the sound of often a loud bang as there saliva met with god knows what else hitting the floor. I would be tempted to say that this was done on purpose, and during my second night at around midnight I was pretty sure staff were having a spitting contest.

Room Facilities:
**************

A small television which offered 7 channels, BBC1 - Channel 5, CNN, and Eurosport. This also had some other facilities which included a hotel wake up alarm system, a choice of three pay movies during my stay these were Big Mommas House 2, Alien Autopsy (the Ant & Dec movie) and V for Vendetta. As if that were not enough the television comes equipped with a built in Playstation which plays a choice of 20 games for £4.95 an hour until 10pm then £2 per hour thereafter. Also included is a choice of 30 radio stations.

Hairdryer (self Explanitory)

An Ironing combination unit, this consists of an Iron, Trouser Press, and a Ironing board.

Kettle and tea/coffee making facilities. (these were not replenished during my stay, so come day 3 I had nothing to drink)

Shower, Toilet and Sink. On the 5th floor upwards the rooms also included a bath. The toilet has a varied flush option for those who are concerned about water preservation. In the bathroom area were a series of towels and washing aids i.e. shower gel etc.

Fan, this apparently is a super doper fan, but I found it little or no use at all, however other people whom I was placed with said the fan was pretty good; so mine may have just been defective.

Room Service gives you a choice of meals from a simple sandwich to a variety of burgers and stir fry dishes. Rather nice to see was the fact that nothing on the menu had a price tag of over £10. If you did not want a full English breakfast you could also arrange for cereals etc to be delivered to your room within a specified time frame.

The Lobby

The lobby is a long corridor with various parts jutting off. To create the concept of different rooms, The lobby was the coolest (temperature wise) area of the hotel to be, one of my work colleagues spent a lot of time down here as she was too hot in her room.

The television area offered Sky News, there was seating for around 20 people here, and also stacked in the corner were a series of books for the guests to read and a variety of the day's papers.

There were several tables and booth areas around the hotel allowing you to gather and have conversations without being overheard by others. There seemed to be quite a few informal business meetings in this area. Under the seating in the booths were a variety of plugs, so you could plug in your laptop or mobile phone. Its worth pointing out that all the chairs even the most basic were very comfortable.

Also a handy addition or at least I thought initially was two internet points. Here you could access the internet and receive your e-mails etc. The cost of which was 9p per minute, which I felt prior to using was pretty good. However the only site you could visit to get e-mail was a yahoo site, all the others were too well encrypted. So rather disappointingly I could not access my AOL e-mail. Further more I could not log into my bank, mystery shopper company websites or even the beloved Ciao. To me without being to enter any of these sites made the facility pointless.

The Resturaunt
Theoretically there are three restaurants; on the ground floor was an Oriental themed restaurant, the problem I found here was that most of the dishes were fish or lamb based, and I like neither; so was forced to eat Pizza each day during my stay.. Next to this was Olio an Italian/American themed bar and restaurant which offered a wider range of food at very competitive prices; the downfall here for us was that we were on an expense account and as a result we could only eat in the Oriental restaurant if you ate in Olio you had to pay by cash or credit card. Thirdly downstairs was a final eating area which was for eating Breakfast.

The Oriental themed bar offered a different breakfast option to the inclusive one that comes with your room. For an additional £3.95 you could have a variety of other breakfast choices which included cooked fish and pancakes; not together of course.

Breakfast

This was the winning ticket for me and my fellow workers. As this offers an all you can eat buffet; and although the combination of food was the same each day it was varied dramatically as I'll illustrate below.

The Cooked breakfast consists of:-

Sausages, these changed daily the first day was a very dark spicy sausage almost reminiscent of garlic sausage, the following day was a Lancashire sausage, and on the third day it was a traditional English sausage.

Bacon variations were standard, smoked and spiced.

Egg variations were scrambled, poached and fried.

Potatoes varied from traditional to spicy.

Baked Beans went from traditional to smoked, spicy.

Mushrooms went from being small button mushrooms, to massive ones that literally fill your plate, if you had more than three.

Tomatoes did not vary during my stay, or at least they did not seem to; but I never had any so cannot be sure.

On top of this you had croissants, muffins, crumpets, bagels, toast, chocolate croissants, fruit juices, varied fruit, yoghurts and of course cereal. The staff in the breakfast area actively encourage you to eat as much as you can. And after the sad demise of the restaurant in my estimation I took this offer to its extent and filled myself so much so that I really only needed one meal a day. I must also say that the food in the breakfast are was outstanding.

Concierge Facilities

Other than to obtain a map of London I never sought out any of the concierge facilities however I have listed them below:-

Dry Cleaning / Laundry Service
24-Hour Front Desk
Concierge
Porter Service (24 hour)
Currency exchange
Travel reservation service
Express Check out
Safety Deposit Boxes
Left Luggage / Storage Facilities
Post/Parcel Service

Checking Out

Checking out was very simple, I was again greeted by two staff Wee Wee and Pierre, both of them handled the checking out procedure with great efficiency. However gave no farewell come and see us again scenario. However Pierre was taken quite aback when I stated that I hoped he had an enjoyable day.

One comment I really make about the hotel its that during my stay I only met one member of staff who spoke clear English, the rest often misunderstood normal everyday conversation or were unable to get there point across to you, this could be very frustrating especially in the restaurant.

Location

I had not been to London since the bombings, and spent much of the day stranded at various points of the City uncertain what was going on. As a result I was reluctant to use the Tube, call me a wuss but I think this must be a concern for many people; because of the location of the hotel it means that if you have a map you do not need to use the Tube system.

Within a 30 minute walk or less you can access Oxford Street, Knightsbridge, Soho, Piccadilly, Chinatown, Buckingham Palace, The Museums, The riverside (including Saatchi Gallery and the Millennium Wheel), as well as three mainline stations. The biggest feature in my opinion is the closeness of Hyde Park, Kensington Park, and Green Park. All of which after a trying day of training give you a much deserved opportunity to chill out.
During my stay the nearest Tube station Lancaster Gate was closed for refurbishment, however Paddington was less than five minutes walk away.

I would recommend the Corus Hotel, as despite its several flaws its location and quality of food for breakfast make up for all other issues. On top of that it is a nice clean and well presented Hotel, and despite the fact the member's of staff have communication barriers they really do mean their best by the customer.