Royal Lancaster, London > Reviews > Stay again, not likely

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money
Quality of Rooms
Standard of Service
Quality of Food & Drink
Cleanliness

Advantages:	Hyde Park conferences
Disadvantages:	cost decor rooms and services

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

The Royal Lancaster is a Hotel that overlooks Hyde Park and is a common venue for conferences and the like. At a basic rate of about £250 a night it certainly can only be the conference centre for very major players in the business world.

I recently had the displeasure of staying there and I am only glad that someone else footed the bill. I had a basic room with twin beds and a television, a small bathroom and a minibar. There were no tea or coffee facilities and the prices in the minibar were prohibitive.

I thought never mind, after a few bevies I would be OK, but even several drinks could not numb the discomfort of both the beds in my room, and the shower was cool at 3 am when I finally staggered into my room.

The meal we had as a conference meal was pleasant enough but breakfast was a little stingy in portions and the fresh fruit had seen better days. The hotel has three restaurants each serving a speciality meal and we had the Thai in the Nipa room. As I say we did enjoy this but there is nothing else about the hotel that was memorable.

Other facilities include a gym, I did not visit this, conference facilities, Hairdressing, shopping and of course it’s location. This was unbeatable as you could get out into Hyde Park to get relief from the rather mundane furnishings and décor within the hotel.

I could not bring myself to stay here again, unless it was free. I suppose this is the price one has to pay for a desirable tourist area in London.

The staff were a mixture of nationalities and were on the whole helpful and friendly. This of course would be expected in a hotel. However, I did not even expect this from the moment I walked in to the foyer. This surely has to be a bad sign for a hotel. So my first impressions were bad and my whole stay did nothing to improve those impressions.