Finding hotels in London has always been a bit of a problem for me.  I think this is partly because people rarely know the hotels in the places they live!  I can tell you a lot more about hotels in San Francisco than  in London or Baltimore!  But I don’t live in London any more, my fairly frequent visits to London mean that I need to know places that are comfortable, pleasant, and economical.

Holiday Inn - Brentford

As I  spend most of my time on the west side of London, the Holiday Inn in Brentford is an ideal place to stay, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for alternative to staying at Heathrow.  Heathrow hotels tend to make you feel a bit like a prisoner because you usually can’t wander out for a walk or to find a restaurant or a pub.  This happens at a lot of airport hotels, but Heathrow makes matters worse because you often have to pay to take a shuttle from the airport’s terminals to your hotel.

Click here for an authoritative guide to hotel shuttles at Heathrow and free alternatives.

Getting to the Bentford Lock Holiday Inn from Heathrow  is easy.  From the airport, take the Piccadilly Line to Boston Manor.  At Boston Manor, you take the E8 bus, which stops right outside the hotel (Commerce Road, Brentford).  This takes no more than about forty minutes door to door.

If you book through the Holiday Inn website, this hotel can be a little expensive, but I have often found wonderful bargains here by booking through Hotwire.  Go to the Hotwire site and select London airport (LHR) as your destination.  Then narrow your search to “Ealing, Hammersmith, and Brentford.”  Then select the 3.5 star hotel for that area.  I have done this four times, and this hotel has always been selected.  The price for a room for the night usually ranges from $49 to $59, and Hotwire usually adds a bit to that, but it remains a wonderful bargain!  (Don’t select a three star hotel as this will put you in the Holiday Inn Express in North Acton, an adequate and charmless hotel in a much less agreeable area.)

So, what’s so nice about it?

Tow path near Brentford Holiday Inn

• You are in a pleasant area of London off the beaten tourist track, and a nice canal with a tow path that is great for a walk.

Room - Brenford Holiday Inn

• The rooms are clean, well appointed, and bright with good space if you need to work.
• The staff are friendly.

Desserts at Bentford Holiday Inn

• The hotel’s restaurant offers nice food. (Try the Indian dinners and the buffet roast on Sundays.)
• There is free wi-fi in the lobby.  (You have to pay from the rooms.)
• There’s an excellent award-winning Irish pub next door called O’Brien’s.  Click here for O’Brien’s pub.

Bathroom - Brentford Holiday Inn

• The bathrooms are good with wonderful showers.  (I always feel a bit grubby after a long haul flight!)

I stayed at the Brentford Holiday Inn in February 2010 and again in June 2010, and I thought I should add a few comments on the restaurant as it was not quite as good in June as in February.

The Sunday roast remained a good deal at GBP 12.95, but the beef was dry and over-cooked.  The chef was unapologetic about this, but the manager took great pains to find another piece of beef and to make sure we were satisfied. The deal for the Sunday roast includes starters from a buffet, the main course, and an excellent selection of desserts.  (See the picture above.)

The Indian dinner is good value at GBP 12.95 with a good buffet of Indian dishes.  Starters are brought to your table.  Many of the people who work at this hotel are from India, and the Indian food is authentic and good.

I have not tried the breakfast (GBP 9.95) as I prefer to go to the nearby Morrisons supermarket that has excellent croissants (GBP 1.25 for a bag of six), which I eat in my room with coffee.  (Coffee facilities are provided, but it is much better if you can bring your own Bodum.)

Post Box No. 49,

Jethwai Road,

Jaisalmer – 345001,

Rajasthan,

India

The Dhola Maru, a smart hotel about 3km out of Jaisalmer, though not cheap by Indian standards, was, in my opinion, money well spent for a short, one night stay away from the ceaseless heat, dust and hustle and bustle of an Indian town. 675

A night in a room for 3 people was Rs. 1500 (just over £20). The room was spacious and clean, with wonderful air-conditioning- you know it’s doing a good job when you actually feel cold in the hottest part of India at the hottest time of year.

Complete with swimming pool, restaurant, bar, internet, laundry service, room service, doctor on call and massage parlour, the hotel offers all western comforts, but is still visually and architecturally pretty Indian.

However, there are no unique or particularly exciting characteristics to the hotel, and if you’re looking for an interesting or unique hotel, this isn’t for you. If, however, you’re looking for one night of comfort and luxury, perhaps as a break from cheaper hotels, this is a better choice for you.

The complimentary breakfast consisted of a self-service spread of toast, cereal, mango, papaya, boiled eggs and tea, as well as a choice between omelette or fried egg served at the table.

I left the hotel feeling a great deal cleaner and cooler than I had in a long time, but at the same time, longing to get back to the business, excitement and fun of real India. My one night experience of western comfort was quite sufficient- enough to refresh me and make me appreciate normal Indian life even more, however exasperating the dirt and heat can get.

The Cozy Guest House

Navechokiya Road,

Brahm Puri,

Chuna Ki Choki,

Jodhpur

0091 291 2612066

www.cozyguesthouse.com

Hidden away behind Mehrangarh Fort, in a steep little street in the old part of the city of Jaipur, the Cozy Guest House is a delightful little travellers’ retreat, full of charm and originality. Its prices are very reasonable, ranging from Rs. 200 to Rs. 850 per room.

The double room I comfortably shared with 2 friends was Rs. 550 (less than £10), and came with a private bathroom and air-conditioning. I was very torn when deciding between rooms, as they vary quite a lot, and are all quaint in their own way. I would say it’s definitely worth looking at all available rooms before deciding which to take.

The hotel offers internet access at a reasonable Rs. 30 per hour, though it doesn’t allow you to upload anything to the internet so there are no USB sockets- something I found highly irritating.

This hotel is definitely not for anyone physically challenged in any way as there are a good few steep roads to get to the hotel, and, even once you are there, there are lots of steep little staircases inside. Tuc tucs can’t get directly to the door of the hotel, so they leave you on a flatter road just down the hill. It’s not far up, but the road is quite steep, which is a bit of a pain if you have a lot of baggage.

A highlight of the hotel is its rooftop terrace, which offers wonderful views over the old city and to the stunning Mehrangarh fort.

There is also a good restaurant on the rooftop terrace-

the menu was vegetarian (typical for Rajasthan), and served snacky western food such as omelettes, pizzas, eggs on toast etc., as well as more traditional Rajasthani food. I chose a dish of aloo palak, a delightful spicy mix of potato and spinach. This combined with a plain roti, and a bottle of mineral water cost me Rs.75, a good price for a simple but enjoyable meal. I rather splashed out on breakfast, with a bowl of muesli and mixed fruit with milk for Rs. 50, which was expensive as most non-typically Indian choices in restaurants are.

A nice feature of the hotel is the interesting wall paintings dotted round everywhere from the rooms to the corridors, to the restaurant to the entrance.

Staff were friendly and welcoming as well as highly patient when we took a while deciding how many of our group would be stayng at the hotel. There is a nice family atmosphere. I would highly recommend this charming, good value little hotel.

When people travel long distance, they often focus on the price of the air fare, but the biggest cost item in travel is very frequently the hotel where you stay.

I have had quite good luck using Hotwire (www.hotwire.com), but I do think there are limitations to this service.

Here’s how it works.  You choose the category of hotel where you’d like to stay (by stars) and you choose the city and the area.  Hotwire offers you a price and a list of hotels (without names) with the desired category and area.  It won’t show the name of the hotel until you have committed to the deal and paid with your credit card.  You pay in advance and your reservation is not refundable.

If your stay is a repetition of a previous trip, it is sometimes easy to guess which hotel they are going to put you in.  Also, you can sometimes do some clever detective work entering key words into Google.

The advantage is that you can get some excellent rates at some nice hotels, but, like everything else, there are a few catches and pitfalls.  Here are a few tips to using Hotwire effectively.

1.  Forget about upgrades, points, and any loyalty plan, such as Hilton Honors.  Your deal is with Hotwire, and you will typically be given the least desirable room in the hotel.

2.  This is the big catch!  If you fail to show up on the appointed day, your entire reservation will be canceled.  (Yes, you did read that right!).  For example, you cannot travel on the day you thought you could and you show up a day late at the hotel.  The desk will tell you that there is no reservation for you.  This nearly happened to me during the snow in Washington in February.  I had booked two rooms for five nights, and many flights were canceled because of the snow.  The hotel offered no help whatsoever, and Hotwire said that they might be able to work something out because of the exceptional circumstances.  But, in the future, I am going to make a reservation for the first night and for subsequent nights separately.

3.  Do comparison shopping.  Hotwire is not always the cheapest solution.  I have sometimes found that they cannot get you a very good price if you try to book too far in advance probably because they are in the business of clearing out a chain’s unsold inventory.

4.  If you want to have a clue about the hotel you are going to get, Hotwire seems to do a lot of business with Holiday Inn, including its other brands (Crowne Plaza and Intercontinental).

5.  Remember your stay does not include breakfast.  At certain hotels, particularly airports, there may be no other choice than to eat the over-priced hotel breakfast.

Here are a couple of examples that I have had from Hotwire.

• I booked a four-star hotel during the busy and very expensive holiday season in New York, and I got the Intercontinental for about $160.
• I booked a 3.5-star hotel in the Ealing, Brentford and Hammersmith area of London in February.  I got the Holiday Inn in Brentford, which was wonderful for $55.

So, I recommend it, but would certainly not recommend using Hotwire for every stay.  Besides, they tend to operate only in very popular areas.

The Waldorf=Astoria
301 Park Avenue
New York, New York U.S.A.10022
212-355-3000
212-872-7272 fax
Waldorf_Astoria@hilton.com

There is something very special about staying at Waldorf=Astoria Hotel in New York. This hotel has so much history behind it, and the list of famous guests is amazing. The present hotel is now managed by the Hilton and is considered the flagship of its luxury brand, the Waldorf=Astoria collection.

The building is lovely and well kept although there were a few signs of shabbiness in the room suggesting a renovation may be needed.

My verdict on the hotel is that it has many of the attributes of a first-rate luxury hotel, but some of the staff seem to have missed the training.  Sometimes they will give you the idea that no request is too much trouble, that they are willing to stretch to accommodate you if your plans are a little different from normal, and that your stay should be remembered as a special occasion. Others seem not to care at all. With this uneven service, I would rather stay at a Ritz Carlton instead where the service is unfailing.

Our reservation was handled quite nicely, and we were welcomed very courteously although we were told that check-in time was 3:00, and we had arrived at about noon. I still find it curious that a hotel of this size cannot stretch a point for a Gold member in the Hilton HHonors plan!

It also is a little disappointing that although we had a “standby” certificate for a Towers room, which gives you access to an Executive Lounge and a separate exclusive entrance. They said that there were rooms available in the Towers, but we would have to pay an extra $100 a night. What do these certificates mean? What time do you have to arrive on a freezing cold weekend to make sure you get the standby? Anyway, we were given an outstanding room as you can see in the pictures but not the one on the eStandby certificate.

This is the second time I have had an eStandby upgrade from a hotel in the Hilton group, and it is the second time that it has done nothing for me.  As this link suggests, the eStandby upgrades are intended to increase revenue rather than build customer loyalty.  This will be a discussion in a futrue article.

HHonors members with Gold status also supposed to get breakfast, and we were given coupons to use the Starbucks, which is on the premises. So, in the morning, we went down to Starbucks.  Well, Starbucks is Starbucks, and there was none of the attention or welcome that one would expect in a first class hotel.  The coupon offered us a pastry, a juice, and a drink (coffee, etc.). The surly server announced that he was out of pastries but I could have one of the (inferior) croissants if I wanted. I asked for a porcelain (as opposed to a paper cup), and was told that it would be possible only if I bought one of the cups he had for sale. Hardly the gracious living experience one would expect from staying at a hotel of this caliber!

We had to go back to the desk for a second coupon for our second night. When I talked about how disappointed I was with our Starbucks experience, a delightful person gave us coupons for Oscar’s, one of the cafes in the hotel that has a breakfast buffet. She acted in the way you expect in the best hotels.

Another rough edge happened when we came back to the hotel at about six in the evening on the second night. We were planning to see a show and had a couple of hours to rest before leaving the hotel. The room was in exactly the same state as we had left it in the morning. I phoned housekeeping, and there was no apology or anything. Rather, the person handling the call positioned my call as a routine request to have the room serviced. The person responsible for doing this appeared promptly and she serviced the room beautifully but this left us with nowhere to go while she was working except the crowded and bustling main lobby. We asked an employee if we could use the Executive Lounge while we waited for our room to be fixed and he pointed at some chairs and said we could sit there. Then he pulled out a handkerchief and noisily blew his nose!

Breakfast at Oscar’s was second rate, and I would have been seriously disappointed if I had paid the regular price of $38 for it. Again, there was nothing wrong with it,but I expect a hotel of this caliber to enhance the breakfast with a few treats that are commonly found in the best hotels (smoked salmon, mozzarella and tomatoes, beautiful displays of fruit, a variety of special cheeses, for example.)  The service was excellent, though.

We had a drink at Sir Harry’s.  Sir Harry’s is the bar at Waldorf=Astoria. As one might expect, it has a good range of sparkiling wines at Champagnes at high prices. It also offers a “house” sparkling wine, a Cava from Freixenet at $15 a glass. It offers draft Budweiser or Stella Artois at $9 a glass.

We stayed recently another hotel in the Hilton group, the Conrad in Singapore.  Everything about that stay was impeccable, and I’ll write about it in another posting. But it made me wonder.  What would an Asian visitor have thought if he/she was used to the kind of service offered by hotels like the Conrad in Singapore?

I would be very interested to hear from readers.  Did your experience at the Waldorf=Astoria meet your expectations?  Or did it have some surprising disappointments?

I am always shocked by how much it costs to be in London these days. With the dollar worth just a little more than fifty cents, everything seems to be so expensive. Even beer does not seem to be the bargain it was just a few years ago.

I was recently planning a trip, and wanted to stay the last night near an airport so I went to Orbitz to check out the price of the airport Hilton in Paris and the price of the airport Hilton in London. The result was not exactly surprising — London was much more expensive than Paris. The Hilton at Heathrow was $363 a night, and the one at the airport in Paris was $202. (I was booking for the night of 3rd March, 2007)

But the surprising thing about this exercise was when I decided to compare the rates offered by Orbitz with the rates at the Hilton site. The Paris airport Hilton was only $130, and the London Hilton was $372.

One other tip — look carefully at the rates. Hilton quotes the prices in pounds and euros. Getting that wrong could turn out to be an expensive mistake!

Finally, if you are staying at a Hilton, make sure you get points and miles. You don’t get many miles if you are staying just a night, but it can be a clever way of breathing new life into miles on an airline you don’t use anymore. (Miles expire after a certain period if there is no activity in the account.)

The lobby at the Hampton Inn. Breakfast is served here.

Hampton Inn
22211 Three Notch Road
Lexington Park, Maryland
United States 20653

Tel: +1-301-863-3200
Fax: +1-301-863-7865

For a Google map, click here

There is an old principle in writing about hotels, planes, and restaurants. Don’t judge them by how they perform when things are going well. Reserve judgement until things go wrong. I remember trying to take an old TWA flight from JFK to Madrid shortly before TWA disappeared. The flight couldn’t leave, and we were told to go away and come back in 24 hours. Accommodation? Find your own. Can you guarantee us a seat on tomorrow’s flight? I can’t even guarantee we will be here tomorrow. Shortly after that TWA disappeared. And I was glad!

Anyway, we arrived late at the Hampton Inn in Lexington Park to check into our room, and we were told we had the last room. When we went upstairs, we found the key would not work so the very nice person at the desk came to help. Even his new key would not work so he went to get a “hard” key, a metal one that you use the old fashioned way. As he tried to turn the key, a sad voice from behind the door politely asked if there was any reason why we trying to get into his room.

The desk clerk immediately apologized profusely, and we went downstairs. The first thing he did was to phone the sad man and tell him that there would be no charge for the night. Then he found us a room and said there would be no charge for us either.

I was so pleased that they seemed so anxious to please, and the next day the new person on duty at the desk apologized too and freely admitted that it was her fault.

In every other way, the stay was excellent. This hotel is well appointed with a very comfortable bed, a good large bathroom. Breakfast in the morning is included, and it was quite nice with good coffee.

As I have mentioned before, I really like Hampton Inns, and this was a great example of them going out of their way to please.

I only wish they would not use stryrofoam so much for breakfast!

Our room for the night, if we had not been given the free room, would have been about $95.

We stopped for drinks at the very well appointed Westin Hotel in Hilton Head. It was delightful watching the sun go down as we had drinks by the pool. (Be prepared for plastic cups, though!.)

As we drank, we decided that renting in our apartment (See my notes on Sunset Rentals) was a much better way to stay in Hilton Head than to stay at a hotel.

But having drinks by the pool was a lot of fun, and the nachos were great. The restaurants in the hotel looked wonderful too, and we meant to return for dinner but never did.

For people who compile lists of the world’s best loos (bathrooms), this was top class with nice soap from Molton Brown!