This review is about my Christmas party experience at the Strand Palace Hotel.
This year, I was in charge of organising our office Christmas party, and, being based in South East London, the department tends to head to Bromley or Greenwich for a meal. But this year we decided to go all out, and go 'up west', and so I came across the Strand Palace hotel on my googlequest and we decided to go posh as well.
The booking process was slightly tiresome, seeing as the particular member of staff we made our booking through was somewhat challenged in the brains department. The initial booking process was easy. We booked ourselves in for the three-course carvery meal, and then Channy and I (the office babies) were sent scuttling around collecting everybody's cash (£33 per head). All was sent in when a couple of weeks later, the girl calls me back and asked for our deposit. I told her that my colleague had sent it, which caused much confusion, until she realised that we were in fact only booking one party. I do have to question why on earth she thought that the same department in the same hospital would be booking two separate Christmas parties on the same date, in the same hotel? Bless her cottonwool brains. Enough of my moaning about the staff.
After some thought, 6 of us decided to book in to stay the night in the hotel, as getting home after 1am would be an absolute mission, and extremely cold. So we had 3 in one room, one in the other, and two in another. It annoyed me slightly that we were placed on the seventh, fifth, and third floors respectively, when we could have been closer, but we did book separately so I won't pick too many holes here. The prices were £60 for a single room and £90 for a double, £135 for a triple. This was though a special deal only available for a limited time. I believe this offer is finished now, and so you will need to visit the website to look for the current prices, but they do run offers throughout the year.
The hotel itself is situated on the Strand, as the name might suggest. For those of you that don't know London, this is the street on which Charing Cross Station is, along with many theatres, and it backs onto Covent Garden. The hotel is placed on a corner and Art Deco style building, and has a great big blue light stating the name, it cannot be missed, just turn out of Charing Cross Station to the right, walk 5 minutes down past the Adelphi, et voila!
The lobby of the hotel is also fairly grand. Decorated in cream, black and brown, with luxurious leather sofas in front of the reception desk. There is a Residents Bar, a restaurant, a bar/brassierie, and a concierge service, along with a left luggage spot. The staff at reception were quite proper, but friendly and helpful.
Our room for three was on the fifth floor and I have to say, I was a bit disappointed when we arrived, as it looked like any old Travelodge room. I am not sure what I was expecting, but as a four star hotel I wanted something a bit grander for my money. Nevertheless, there were three beds, an en suite bathroom, a large wardrobe, tea and coffee making facilities, and a telly. A hairdryer was in the drawer, I took mine anyway, because I am fussy. However, there were a few faults with the room. Firstly, the remote control did not work, there was no light above the full length mirror in the cupboard which meant we dressed virtually in the dark, and worst of all no steal-able toiletries! The view from our window was also not great. As we were on an interior facing wall, all there was to look down on was the boiler house below.
Us three ladies got ready in our room, and then ventured down to the restaurant for a nosh. We of course, being fashionably late, missed the table kerfuffle. The restaurant had been set up so that there were 9 of us on each table, and we were separated by a large pillar, hardly desirable. After some arguing with my colleague, they relented and moved one table so we had an L formation.
I wasn't too impressed with the food either. My salmon that I asked for to start looked like it had come out of a tin, and tasted like cat food. A colleague had asked for hers without the sauce (us ladies must watch the calories!), but of course it came with, and the staff were reluctant to change it. The main course, was a carvery affair, e.g. we all trooped up and stood in line to get our food. I don't really like the carvery set up at all as its much like a school canteen, but I suppose it is an effective way of doling out the food to large numbers of people (there were several parties in the same room). I found the main course horrible, not too keen on turkey, I went for the gammon, which wasn't bad, but the Yorkshire pudding was dry, and the potatoes uncooked. Pudding for me was a mini chirstmas pudding, was OK, but nothing out of the ordinary, and I couldn't help but eye up the cheesecake that most of my colleagues had ordered. Wine came with the meal, and so was planted on the tables, but with 18 party people (they don't all get out much), it went quickly, and we ended up having to buy more.
After the meal, a few of us progressed to the dancefloor to work it all back off again, while the others (men and old folk) stayed behind to ponder life. The music was spot on though, a bit of modern stuff, a bit of cheese and some oldies. We were particularly loving the Ricky Martin bit, and Channy and I were literally doing salsa to it, on the empty dancefloor (neither of us had done salsa before in our lives). The dancefloor was small, as it was just a side room of the restaurant, but with the number of people flaking out and leaving early from other parties, it was fine for us. We danced for most of the night, while others chatted in the restaurant, which was being cleared away for the following morning. However, no pressure was put on us to move elsewhere.
At one am the disco finished, but the party was far from over. We made our way to the heaving residents bar, (so called, because its only for residents, doh!) and continued to drink and talk until closing time at 3am, at which time, we moved on out to the lobby after collected various bottles, openers and drinking materials from our rooms. We stayed here until half past four and there was no pressure from staff for us to go away, which I liked, because we felt more at home.
We trotted to bed, and munched on Doritos and Haribo (purchased ourselves, no mini bar either!) for an hour also, talking about boys and watching Sunset Beach.
At half eight we rose, or rather fell out of bed, stuck our tired legs in our jeans and trundled down for our Full English, which I must say was pretty good, especially compared to the night before. My one complaint here is that the juice was served in too smaller glass, and so I had to drink four to sate my self-inflicted vitamin C deficiency! Bigger glasses please, Strand!
Checkout time was 12 noon, by which time my tiredness had faded, and off we all went, going our separate ways back to the real world.
The hotel has a conference and banquesting centre, although we did not see this. Looking at the webite now I can see that there are two rather posh looking suites and club rooms. The standard room in the photo does look a lot grander than it is, don't they always
All in all, I had a good time, although this may be more to do with company than with the hotel. The staff were polite (if not all there) and the rooms were clean, that's pretty much all I can say for my stay. I was expecting a little more grandiose and I was disappointed not to get it.
If you want to see for yourself, the reservations line is 0207 379 4737,or you can book online at www.strandpalacehotel.co.uk. Just don't expect anything frivolous. I have said 'no to 'recommend to potential buyers' because there are better, cheaper places out there.
Strand Palace, London
The Strand Palace is situated in the heart of Theatreland and adjoins Covent Garden with
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The London Eye, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace all just a short stroll.The hotel is a 3 minute walk from Embankment, Charing Cross & Covent Garden tube sta...
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