Welcome to the London Hotel Guide where a selection of the best London Hotels are reviewed and links are provided to online London accommodation booking with special London hotel discounts. Compared to the rest of Britain, London hotels are expensive, but good value London hotels can be found and the range of London accommodation is very wide with London hotels to suit all budgets. Listed below are a selection of some of the best London hotels, based on personal experience and the recommendations of others. More information on hundreds of London hotels can be found at TravelNow Global Reservations who also have online booking facilities and substantial discounts on London hotels.

If you have stayed in a London hotel that you would particularly recommend, or if you have any comments on the London hotels listed below, then send us an e-mail and let us know. Also, why not bookmark this page, so that you can refer back to it if you follow any of the London hotel links.

Deluxe London Hotels:

• The Connaught Hotel at Carlos Place, Mayfair, W1 is one of the world's best luxury hotels and a grand old London institution. Owned by the Savoy group, this is one of London's most exclusive luxury hotels. Excellent staff and high quality food make this one of London's best hotels. 90 rooms, 2 lounges, cocktail bar, Grill Room and restaurant.

• Halkin Hotel, an elegant London hotel with excellent food and good facilities including fax, video and twin telephone lines in each room. Located in a residential street in the Belgravia area, this small London hotel has 41 rooms with 24 hour room service. Modern Italian food of high quality is served in the restaurant, while up-to-date financial news and information is available to business clientele from Reuters. The Halkin is a new entry in the latest (2000) edition of the Good Hotel Guide.

• Hyatt Carlton Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge is one of London's most opulent hotels. All 224 rooms are air-conditioned and other facilities include a gym and workout studio, sauna, steam room, solarium, beauty and hair salon and valeting. A tennis court is located in Cadogan Square opposite the hotel.

• The Savoy at The Strand, WC2 is also a charismatic and distinctive luxury London hotel.

• myhotel in Bloomsbury is a new addition to London's hotels, designed with the help of a leading Feng Shui expert.

• One Aldwych is a luxurious hotel with 2 restaurants; a large swimming pool; fully equipped gym and bar. The hotel has 105 bedrooms and was recently voted one of Conde Naste travellers top 21 international hotels for the 21st century. One Aldwych is also a new entry in the latest (2000) edition of the Good Hotel Guide.

• The Ritz is probably London's most famous deluxe hotel where afternoon tea is something of an institution.

  Mid-Priced London Hotels:

• Abbey Court, a small well kept town house London hotel with a large number of single rooms making it excellent for solo travellers. However this hotel has no lift and lots of stairs, so is not suitable for the infirm. All 22 rooms are en suite with whirlpool baths and marble bathrooms. This London hotel is located in a quiet street near Notting Hill Gate and is recommended in the Good Hotel Guide.

• Byron Hotel is a friendly and unpretentious London hotel with pleasant decor. The hotel is only a few minutes walk from Kensington Gardens.

• Commodore Hotel London is a good, moderately priced London hotel in quiet surroundings that is recommended in Time Out and Fodors. Facilities include a tapas bar with satellite TV and a cozy lounge. One of the best London hotels for families, with an impressive array of teddy bears and easy access to Hyde Park. 90 rooms.

• Cranley Gardens Hotel in South Kensington is a conversion of four Georgian Terraces and has 85 bedrooms.

• Eden Plaza Hotel is part of a mid-priced London hotel chain aimed at business and leisure travellers. A bistro and bar are available on the ground floor.

• Harrington Hall Hotel is an elegant, privately owned London hotel. The large bedrooms are well equipped for a London hotel in this price-range, with message telephones, mini-bar, tea and coffee and a trouser press. The hotel also has a small fitness centre and sauna as well as conference facilities and a business centre.

• Knightsbridge Green Hotel which is a well run London hotel recommended in Karen Brown's Guide and the Good Hotel Guide. Free tea and coffee is provided in the club room from 9am to 8pm. All 27 rooms are air-conditioned and double-glazed. Excellent value for money.

• Montague Hotel is a conversion of nine Georgian town houses in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum. Facilities include a spacious and comfortable lounge and a bar with a garden terrace as well as a restaurant. The bedrooms are small, but come equipped with trouser press, hairdryer, satellite television and tea and coffee making facilities.

• Sloane Hotel is another London hotel recommended by Karen Brown's Guide. A small hotel in Chelsea with a rooftop reception/dining room which gives excellent views.

• White House Hotel is a large hotel near Regents Park with an elegant marble-floored foyer and a pleasant basement wine bar as well as a cocktail bar with evening pianist. The hotel also has a staffed business centre. 584 bedrooms.

  Budget London Hotels:

• Hamilton House is a good budget London hotel, in Victoria. Rooms are en-suite and have televisions and telephones.

• La Gaffe - a small, comfortable Hotel in an 18th Century Hampstead Cottage. Hampstead is one of London's 'villages', an attractive, up-market residential area with pleasant pubs, restaurants and easy access to Hampstead Heath, a huge park with good views of the city. La Gaffe has been run by the same friendly, family proprietors for 36 years - Bernard and Androulla Stella. Breakfast is served in the coffee bar while in good weather, tea is served on the roof garden. All 16 rooms are en suite and an Italian restaurant is downstairs. Central London is 20 minutes away from the nearby underground station.

• Comfort Inn Hyde Park is one of a number of good quality budget hotels in London run by the Comfort Inn chain. The other hotels are Comfort Inn Kensington, Comfort Inn Westminster, and another option in Hampstead - Comfort Inn Hampstead.

For information on more London hotels in all categories, or to make a London hotel reservation online, TravelNow Global Hotel Reservations is recommended. They offer a free search facility and will also find you the cheapest flights and car rental rates for your trip via the SABRE computer reservations system (a huge database used by travel agents worldwide).

A good source of information on group travel arrangements for meetings; seminars and conventions is the BellWether Group who offer a free meeting planning and travel arrangement service for groups.

A recommended guidebook on British hotels is Karen Brown's 99 England, Wales and Scotland : Charming Hotels & Itineraries - she also has an informative web site.

London Bed and Breakfast:

If you don't mind staying in the suburbs, Hampstead Village Guesthouse is a pleasant Bed & Breakfast in the attractive Hampstead suburb (about 20 minutes by tube from central London). The address is: 2 Kemplay Road, Hampstead, London, NW3. Tel: 0171 435-8679 Fax: 0171 794-0254. Non-smoking. Another suburban B&B is Highfield Guest House, 12 Dowanhill Road, Catford, SE6 Tel: 0181-698 8038, winner of the 1998 London Tourist Board's Best B&B award. Frequent trains leave nearby Hither Green station for central London. For Bed and Breakfasts in central London see the list of budget hotels above. Alternatively; for Bed & Breakfast accommodation in the homes of Londoners try 'Home to Home' on 0181-566-7976 (Telephone or fax).

Self Catering London Apartments:

If you prefer the freedom of choice offered by the self-catering option, Aston's Budget Studios and Aston's Luxury Apartments are good choices. If these are fully booked, there is information on several other good London apartments at TravelNow Reservations.

London Hostels and other accommodation:

The cheapest YHA Hostel in London is Hampstead Heath in a pleasant London suburb. Not exactly central then, but a decent hostel in a good area. More central YHA hostels are located at Carter Lane (City of London Hostel) near St Pauls Cathedral and Holland House in Kensington as well as in Oxford Street. See the YHA page for details of other London YHA hostels.
Independent hostels can also be good - try the Palace Court Hotel, 64 Princes Square, W2 (Tel: 0171-727-4412) or the International Students House, 229 Great Portland Street, W1. (Tel: 0171-631-3223)

Another good option is to stay in a University Hall of Residence, as these are usually open from July to Sept for visitors. Passfield Hall in Bloomsbury (1-7 Endsleigh Place) has a good central location near Euston Station. For details contact the London School of Economics - (Tel: 0171-955-7575/Fax: 0171-955-7676). You could also try City University Vacation Accommodation.

London Hotel Areas:

Chelsea and Kensington are trendy, up-market areas of central London and Kensington is particularly convenient for museums and shopping. Marble Arch is less trendy but convenient for Hyde Park and the shops at the west end of Oxford street, including Selfridges and Marks and Spencer. The West End is the most central London location and theatres, pubs and restaurants are all literally on your doorstep. However West End Hotels tend to be more expensive to reflect this convenience. Bloomsbury is another good central location, near the West End and the British Museum, with hotels to suit all budgets. Hampstead is an up-market North London suburb that retains a 'village' atmosphere and is about twenty minutes by tube from central London.

Hotel Chains in London :

Many people prefer to opt for one of the well known international hotel chains when staying in a new city and London has many to choose from. The most popular of these are listed below and all of them have rooms available at a substantial discount when booked through TravelNow Global Reservations - click on the relevant hotel for more details.

• Best Western Hotels: Best Western Hotels in London include the Best Western Raglan Hall, in the suburb of Highgate; Best Western Phoenix, within walking distance of Hyde Park and Oxford Street; Best Western Bryanston Court, near Marble Arch and Oxford Street; Best Western Mostyn, also near Marble Arch; Best Western Hogarth, in Kensington; Best Western Great Northern near Kings Cross Station and Best Western Mornington, near Hyde Park.

• Forte Posthouse Hotels: Forte hotels in London include the Forte Posthouse Hampstead, Forte Posthouse Regents Park, Forte Posthouse Kensington, Forte Posthouse Bloomsbury, Forte Posthouse Cumberland on the corner of Oxford Street and Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park, Forte Posthouse St Georges adjacent to All Souls Church and close to the BBC's Broadcasting House in a central but quiet location at the north end of Regent Street; Forte Posthouse Cavendish near Picadilly Circus, Forte Posthouse Strand Palace in Covent Garden and Forte Posthouse Le Meridien Piccadilly in the West End.

• Hilton Hotels: Hilton Hotels in London include the Hilton International London Regents Park, Hilton International London Mews in fashionable Mayfair, a 72-room London Hotel that occupies the site of the area's oldest house, The Cottage, built in 1618; Hilton International London Kensington a large 5 star hotel in Kensington; Hilton International London Langham in London's West End and the London Hilton Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park which was recently voted number one Business hotel in the UK by Business Traveler Magazine.
  The Hilton London Kensington is currently running an excellent room only offer at a substantial discount through TravelNow, for details click here.

• Marriott Hotels: Marriott Hotels in London include the Marriott Hotel London Grosvenor Street in London's West End; Marriott Hotel London Marble Arch; Marriott Hotel London County Hall opposite the Houses of Parliament and the Marriott Hotel London Regents Park.

• Radisson Hotels: Radisson Hotels in London include the Radisson Hotel London Savoy Court at Marble Arch; Radisson Hotel London Kenilworth in Bloomsbury and the Radisson Hotel London Vanderbilt in Kensington.

• Sheraton Hotels: Sheraton Hotels in central London are the Park Lane Sheraton, a five star hotel overlooking Green Park; the Sheraton Belgravia Hotel, near Hyde Park and a few minutes walk from Harrods; as well as Sheraton Park Tower in Knightsbridge, also near Harrods. Sheraton also have two London Hotels near Heathrow airport - Sheraton Heathrow and Sheraton Skyline.

A personal travel agency on the web:

Making travel reservations on the Internet is now easier than ever! Since launching TravelNow in March 1995 as the first independent hotel reservation service on the Internet, over six million users have taken advantage of their service. TravelNow was recently voted the easiest and most comprehensive hotel reservation site on the Internet. They innovated the first real-time availability and pricing engine, added truly interactive maps (US only) and offer negotiated rates for customers through TravelNow Prefered Rates. In addition to the 40,000 hotels in 5,000 cities and 140 countries, they also have rooms available when everyone else is sold out. TravelNow constantly search for hotels and consolidators that offer steep discounts on hotel rooms - discounts of up to 65% on over 700 hotels in almost every major city, and up to 40% on over 7000 hotels around the world. For foreign travel, TravelNow offers a convenient currency converter so you can see at a glance, for example, what a hotel room rate that is quoted in British pounds will cost you in American dollars. TravelNow's extremely user-friendly website also offers an Information Center for help in using the site and answers to any other questions you may have about their services. Please remember that all the information you submit to TravelNow including your credit card data, is completely secure and carried out on their secure server.

To discover first-hand how TravelNow can be your own personal travel agent at home and at your fingertips, visit the TravelNow Home Page. They also offer Car Rental where you can compare prices from over 60 companies to find the best deal and book online as well as discounted Airline Ticket Reservations to help you find the cheapest flight. TravelNow was reviewed in the April 1999 edition of The Wall Street Journal article "The Negotiator" who said "With 35,000 hotels in it's database and an ability to update availability instantly, TravelNow.com offers the most hassle-free reservations systems online...Better yet, once you reserve a room, agents are at your beck and call 24 hours a day on a toll free number. Lost reservations? TravelNow.com will find you another hotel and even pay the difference if it costs more."

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