We had travelled to London on work and stayed on for the weekend to enjoy more of the city. Club Quarters St Pauls have reduced rates on weekends as it is primarily a business hotel.
The location is excellent. 5 min walk from St Pauls Underground station and 2 min walk from the National rail station. If you don't have much luggage, you can take the picadilly line from the iarport and change for the central line at Holborn. (there are steps to climb, so you won't be able to do it if you have too much luggage)
If you get a room facing the road, you will have a wonderful side view of St Pauls Cathedral. Since this is the financial district, it quietens down by evening and its not too busy or noisy. On Sunday morning, we heard 2 rounds of a half an hour symphony of the church bells. The first around 9am and the 2nd around 11:30am.
There is so much to see around this area and everything is walking distance- Millenium Bridge, Shakespeares globe, Tate modern, Gaugin, London school for boys. There are at least 15 more historical churches within a 15 minute walking radius. We even walked upto Trafalgar and the London eye and back. There's a new mall thats opened up just next door, if you want to shop.
There are plenty of restaurants around this area. Sadly, majority of them aren't open on the weekend. However, the St Paul's restaurant - Cote Brasserie is open 7 days a week and provides good food at good rates. If you want a larger choice and lower rates, step into the Marks & Spencer food store next door. The range is from scones to sushi and they have a wonderful choice of meal packages (large sandwich + dessert + drink for 2 people under 6 pounds)
The biggest advantage of the club quarters are their room sizes. This is the 3rd hotel we have stayed at in London and we found this to have the largest rooms (we took a standard double). There is a large desk in each room which made it easy for us to work with our multiple cameras and laptops. (other hotels, we had to use the bed to spread out our equipment)
Free wifi and wired access in every room. 3 workstations in the club room downstairs with internet that are free to use and a printer to take free printouts - really helpful for boarding passes and online bookings of attractions.
Every floor has a water dispenser serving distilled chilled water and sealed half litre bottles to take away water, even when you leave the hotel.
Every room has a kettle and facilities for brewing tea and coffee. The guest supplies room on every floor, has extra blankets, tea, coffee and other necessities. You just open the closet and take what you need.
The club room also has a coffee machine which brews fresh cappucinos, lattes, espressos and other types of coffee. Magazines and newspapers are available here for reading. The rooms all have a few books on London.
Good quality soap, shampoo, bath gel were provided in each room. Club quarters are designed in a way that makes the traveller self sufficient and least dependent on service staff.
If you book a longer stay, you can request for a fridge and microwave in your room. They supposedly even have studio apartment set ups with a kitchenette, but we didn't get a chance to take a look.
Keycards give access to the lift, so secuirty is very high.
Although check in is supposed to be at 3pm and check out is supposed to be at 12noon, when we checked in at 11:45am our room was already available, so they showed us straight in. We checked out at 9am and used their locker facilities for our luggage. After sightseeing, we came back to the hotel by 4pm. Used the washrooms in the basement, repacked in the club room and had a cup of coffee before our taxi came to pick us up at 5pm.
The location is excellent. 5 min walk from St Pauls Underground station and 2 min walk from the National rail station. If you don't have much luggage, you can take the picadilly line from the iarport and change for the central line at Holborn. (there are steps to climb, so you won't be able to do it if you have too much luggage)
If you get a room facing the road, you will have a wonderful side view of St Pauls Cathedral. Since this is the financial district, it quietens down by evening and its not too busy or noisy. On Sunday morning, we heard 2 rounds of a half an hour symphony of the church bells. The first around 9am and the 2nd around 11:30am.
There is so much to see around this area and everything is walking distance- Millenium Bridge, Shakespeares globe, Tate modern, Gaugin, London school for boys. There are at least 15 more historical churches within a 15 minute walking radius. We even walked upto Trafalgar and the London eye and back. There's a new mall thats opened up just next door, if you want to shop.
There are plenty of restaurants around this area. Sadly, majority of them aren't open on the weekend. However, the St Paul's restaurant - Cote Brasserie is open 7 days a week and provides good food at good rates. If you want a larger choice and lower rates, step into the Marks & Spencer food store next door. The range is from scones to sushi and they have a wonderful choice of meal packages (large sandwich + dessert + drink for 2 people under 6 pounds)
The biggest advantage of the club quarters are their room sizes. This is the 3rd hotel we have stayed at in London and we found this to have the largest rooms (we took a standard double). There is a large desk in each room which made it easy for us to work with our multiple cameras and laptops. (other hotels, we had to use the bed to spread out our equipment)
Free wifi and wired access in every room. 3 workstations in the club room downstairs with internet that are free to use and a printer to take free printouts - really helpful for boarding passes and online bookings of attractions.
Every floor has a water dispenser serving distilled chilled water and sealed half litre bottles to take away water, even when you leave the hotel.
Every room has a kettle and facilities for brewing tea and coffee. The guest supplies room on every floor, has extra blankets, tea, coffee and other necessities. You just open the closet and take what you need.
The club room also has a coffee machine which brews fresh cappucinos, lattes, espressos and other types of coffee. Magazines and newspapers are available here for reading. The rooms all have a few books on London.
Good quality soap, shampoo, bath gel were provided in each room. Club quarters are designed in a way that makes the traveller self sufficient and least dependent on service staff.
If you book a longer stay, you can request for a fridge and microwave in your room. They supposedly even have studio apartment set ups with a kitchenette, but we didn't get a chance to take a look.
Keycards give access to the lift, so secuirty is very high.
Although check in is supposed to be at 3pm and check out is supposed to be at 12noon, when we checked in at 11:45am our room was already available, so they showed us straight in. We checked out at 9am and used their locker facilities for our luggage. After sightseeing, we came back to the hotel by 4pm. Used the washrooms in the basement, repacked in the club room and had a cup of coffee before our taxi came to pick us up at 5pm.
Also published on TripAdvisor.com
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