I stay in Marriott Hotels regularly and have been doing so for the past ten years or so. They are always my preference and the Regents Park Marriott Hotel is always the Marriott that I prefer to stay in when I stay in a hotel in London. I have stayed in there quite a few times (not sure exactly how many) but up until this weekend I had never stayed in there with my family. I have stayed there for business, I have stayed there with friends when we wanted a big night out in London and now I've also stayed there with my family for a family weekend (including children) in London. Every time I had a wonderful stay in a lovely but unfortunately I don't think that it's the most family friendly place, especially when you compare it to other Marriotts (particularly the Swansea and Swindon Marriott's).

All Marriott rooms are pretty much the same. You get the double beds (no singles in a marriott unless you want an extra bed in the room), the satelite television, ensuite bathroom and tea and coffee making facilities. In addition to that we had bathrobes and slippers which I always really like. I know that it's probably silly thing to get excited about but I prefer to use bathrobes to towels when I have a bath so I was really pleased that we got that.
I was also impressed by the selection of free toiletries which has expanded a lot since the first time I stayed in the hotel. As well as shampoo, conditioner and shower gel you now get bath salts, an emery board, body lotion and mouthwash. I generally bring my own stuff but I think it's a nice touch and it's always good when you can go to a hotel without having to worry about packing things like shampoo and conditioner.
The bedroom itself was lovely. We had two very comfortable double beds. All the pillows, matress and duvets are feather, which made it very comfortable (and if you have allergies you should be okay as they are allergy treated).
The room was pretty much perfect. It was clean, it was comfortable and it had all of the little extra's that make staying at the Marriott so much more enjoyable than staying in other hotels.
Unfortunately there were two problems with our room. The first was the noise. You could hear all the noise from outside and you could hear all the noise from the corridor, even small noises like people opening their bedroom doors.
The second was that due to maintenance the balcony doors didn't open. I don't like going out on balconies anyway but I do like to have some fresh air in a room.

We upgraded for this weekend and I would say that it is definitely worth doing, as long as you don't have children with you.
The executive lounge gives you a range of free soft drinks, snacks and hot drinks from 6am until midnight. Breakfast is served in there (but you'll have to go to the restaurant if you want a hot breakfast) and at dinner time there are canapes and deserts.
The canapes were amazing. As well as a selection of cheese and crackers there was salmon. I didn't have to have any dinner the night that we had canapes because they were just so filling.
Another great thing about it is that there's free costa coffee. I love costa coffee and although it wasn't as good as it is in the coffee shops (you get it yourself out of a machine) it was still great.
The lounge has very comfortable seating as well as a wide screen television, a selection of papers and free internet access on a computer that's provided for guest use.
I really enjoyed using the executive lounge and found it to be a very comfortable and pleasant experience.
However, children under the age of sixteen are not allowed in the lounge so do be aware of this if you are travelling as a family, especially if you plan to have breakfast in there.

I have enjoyed both dinner and breakfast in the restaurant but consider the food served in the evening to be incredibly over priced. I did have a good steak there but it wasn't any better than other restaurants that charge £12 rather than £20+. I guess you expect things to be overpriced in hotels, especially in London.
The breakfast is good with a good variety of hot food and continental breakfast. The service was excellent, although there was a queue to be seated but I don't think that can be helped.
I really like the look of the restaurant in this hotel. It has a really spacious feel so that you don't feel like you're sitting on top of the people at the next table and it's really light too. I thought the chandeliers were particularly nice.

I was not at all impressed with the leisure club.
I can't really comment on the gym because I've never used it (although it did look good and had a good range of machines) but the swimming pool was a really let down.
First of all the stairs leading to it were closed for maintenance so you had to walk through the leisure club reception which was freezing, then there was the pool itself which was a good size but it's one of those pools that gets gradually deeper and unfortunately starts out so shallow that you can't swim in it, so it's not good if you want to swim lengths. There was no children's pool. Children can of course use the bigger pool and they do have a shallow end but I think it's preferable to have a seperate pool for the children. As I've mentioned, this isn't the most family friendly marriott and the leisure club is a big contributing factor to this. They even have times when children are not allowed in the pool.
There was also no jacuzi that I could see.
The changing rooms were awful. They were dark and cold but did have all of the essentials like lockers and hairdryers.
The leisure club reception was unmanned when we got there and we waited for a while before realising that we could probably just let ourselves in (they had towels and a code to the changings rooms left on the desk). I thought that this was really poor service. It was our first time using the leisure club there and it would have been nice to have someone point us in the right direction.

The staff were very friendly and very helpful. Whenever I walked past a member of staff they would always smile and ask how I was, I thought that this was a nice touch.
I called the guest assistance number a couple of times and didn't get any answer which was very frustrating but when I did get through to them they were very helpful and very polite.

There are no stairs in the hotel, except for the emergency exit. I found this to be very frustrating because the lifts took ages to arrive, especially in the mornings when people were checking out and everyone was rushing to get into the lift.