Need Hotel Recommendation

Hi all,

We are booked on Princess out of Southampton for the 14 day cruise departing on June 1, 2019. We want to arrive a few days early to do some sightseeing in London before we depart on the cruise. Can anyone recommend an area of town and a few names of places they stayed that were close to transportation and were moderately priced? I've looked on Travelocity and Expedia for hotels but not sure which area I should choose. According to my TA we shouldn't stay near the airport as there's nothing to see. Thanks in advance to all responses

London is hugh I think something like 50 square miles... when we went we stay at a Hilton...found one with reasonable prices for Hilton... were in a neighborhood area... simply took taxi to sites. worked out well for us, 20 years ago... so can't say actually where in London.

After that we have just stayed at the airport ... when going on ships out of Dover or Southampton... makes it easy... London proper once was enough for us.

another thought you might look for Marriott hotels in London, think Marriott is big in England, we usually stay at a Marriott at the airport. Marriott might be more reasonable than Hilton. You can check out areas on you tube as well... to get more of a feel for the area.

YOu can also ask on the European boards here for ideas.

Take a look at the Britain Ports of Call Board and post your questions there: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=233. You'll get more/additional replies.

So you are looking in London? or in Southampton? And be warned, your post will probably get moved to a "departures" section.

True, in the Heathrow area, there is nothing to see or do. Transportation from Heathrow to any part of London is easy on the tube and transportation around the city is relatively easy. You can buy an oyster card at Heathrow station and then can "load" it with a transportation card that is good in particular zones for a day, week or month. These cards are good on all tube rides within your selected zones and all bus transportation. The tourist zones would be 1 and 2.

Hotels--the farther you get from central London, the less "American" and the less costly the hotels get. When we were moving to London and needed a place while hunting for living quarters, we stayed at a chain called Premier Inn (also known as the purple palace). It is nothing fancy, but resembles a Holiday Inn Express or similar. They are located all over the city. We chose one near the school daughter would be attending. On the other hand, we stayed at more typically British places and sometimes got good values. We stayed at a Crystal (it's a chain) hotel near the Earl's Court tube stop...seems we got an amazing price as I've never seen that price when I looked it up again. This was a typically British hotel--clean and old fashioned, although it did have a "lift." (elevator). Beware, not all do if you go with the small British variety. We also found a "serviced apartment" operated by Best Western for a one week stay--having a small kitchen was nice. This was very modern and typical US. Most of the time, if you stay at an "American name" hotel, you're going to pay for it....like Hilton, Hyatt, etc. It will be cheaper and more interesting to stay at a British name and/or chain. Think about what you want. Do you care that you are in a place with a big atrium and fancy lighting and 3 restaurants in the hotel? Or do you want a clean room, possibly breakfast served at the hotel, and a great pub down the street for dinner? All the moderate or cheap places we stayed had complimentary wifi.

As to areas of the city, think about where you want to go and what you want to see, but also stay in zone 1 or 2. 2 will be less costly. We searched places like hotel.com and trivago, looking for places that met our requirements at a reasonable price...and we usually found some good values. I was not interested in paying a small fortune for hotel rooms....but also wanted to be convenient to the places we needed to be. There are many small bed and breakfast establishments, but quality will vary.

Absolutely central is zone 1 near Victoria. Another big area is around Sloan Square. Again, zone 2 will usually be cheaper than zone 1. If you are interested in theatre at night, Leicester Square area/West End (which isn't very far west). This is not a bad idea as it would be very easy for you to get "home" after a production. Also, same day tickets can be a huge bargain. Many theatres use the TKTS booth to sell day of tickets, but some use their own box office or a different service. You have to go to the theatre web site to see how it is done for the show you want to see. We would often get excellent seats for 20 or 25 GDP per seat.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

We stayed in the Kensington area at the Ashburn Hotel, The Tube is short 500' walk, Breakfast included, Prosecco every evening in the lounge, boutique type of hotel and we walked or took the Tube everywhere. Taxi and bus stop right outside of hotel. Felt very secure, the giant Holiday Inn is across the street.

I like the Victoria area as well as Kensington. Doubletree Victoria is fine and a good location. Easy access to tube and also buses. We enjoy taking the bus to see more of London above ground. You can walk to Buckingham Palace. Easy bus to Westminster abbey as well as Tower of London. You can take national express bus from lhr to Victoria coach station for very cheap and walk to dbltree if you have light luggage. You can Also take it to SH.

LHR is almost an hour away form London.

A big thank you to everybody who took the time to give me some advice. I see I have a lot of work ahead of me. I'm just glad I have awhile before I need these rooms. It looks like June is a busy time of year because quite a few of the places I checked out were already sold out. I'll keep looking

Your travel agent is right, stay in downtown London. We cruised in June and stayed by Marble Arch and loved the location. On a prior trip we stayed in Victoria, very convenient especially if you are using ship transfer to get to Southampton for the cruise.

We used Air BNB to find our wonderful rental flat. It was much less than a comparable quality hotel, and we had a kitchen and laundry, and of course way more room. Good luck and have fun planning!

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I’ve stayed at a little B&B called the Lime Tree. It is between Victoria and Sloan Square. Great place!

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Prior to our cruise in June, we stayed at Novotel London Paddington. It is close to Paddington Station, where we were able to take the tube, as well as catch the train to Windsor Castle. When we were in London in 2017, we stayed at the Megaro Hotel. It was across the street from King's Cross tube station, as well as the St. Pancras train station. Both hotel locations were convenient for us, but the King's Cross area seemed to be a short tube ride away from everything.

We will be there in April 2019 and I'm looking at London house hotel. It seems to be in a nice location and close to Paddington station for the Heathrow express.

I have stayed at Premier Inn Waterloo 2x. The staff is very friendly and helpful, each day they helped us bus/tube routes. There is a restaurant and bar on premises. Walking distance to, HOHO bus, regular bus, tube, Waterloo train station, London Eye, Thamas river, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben.

I have used http://www.justairports.com (car service) to/from LHR/ London hotel.

www.internationalfriends.co.uk goes on embankment and disembarkment days.