Royal Garden Hotel

Yes this hotel is well located,the rooms are well furnished and a good size and the service often willing, but a property of this quality should not allow the breakfast service to degenerate into the circus that I experianced on a Saturday morning.

Firstly inadequate capacity.A 25 minute wait.We were directed to an ajoining lounge for coffee.No seats so stand and wait.No coffee cups so no coffee.Use the toilet?I wont go into the condition of that!

On eventually being seated the buffet was on a small table and difficult to access without dropping my meuseli down a fellow guests neck.A long wait for eggs and omelette as the hard pressed single chef struggled to cope with the demand.

All this for well over £20.

On day 2 of our stay we actually got up early to try and avoid the circus.Just what you need on a leisure weekend.Better but fundamental problems remained.

The hotel is about to embark on a refurbishement.I would suggest that before they spend a penny on the fabric they sought out the logistics and capacity of their breakfast operation.Donating space to banquetting or a signature restaurant is fine but Royal Garden dont neglect the basics!

This hotel has been our regular base for business trips over the last 25 years and more recently for private week-end breaks in London. The many visits have always been enjoyable and the recent upgrades are certainly worthy of comment.

Our latest visit was 22 October for three nights in a refurbished "Garden Room" on the 9th floor. To get the best views here always ask for a high floor. We always book a Park View room, the vista over Hyde Park and to the City are simply amazing. We found the new class of room on floors 7,8,9 were worth the extra cost. These rooms are in a more modern style and have excellent facilities. The revamped bathroom now has a separate large walk in shower but this has cut down on the original wardrobe space (no problem for short stays). The new wall panelling, wood, fabric and mirror walls provide a welcome improvement in sound insulation, this was not very good in the original rooms. Large comfortable beds and a comfortable seating area are standard as is the in-room safe. Mini Bars are well stocked and there is now in-room tea / coffee making facilities. Breakfast in the Park Terrace is excellent, a la carte service is Monday to Friday and buffet at the weekend, it does get very busy around 9 am at the weekend. The top (tenth) floor Chinese restaurant is worth a visit, food is very good if a little expensive and strangely there is no attempt to keep food warm on the table. Berties Bar and Park Terrace are both comfortable retreats with excellent service. The staff throughout the hotel are generally very polite, friendly and efficient and some have been there for many years, a good sign hopefully of a good employer!

Outside the hotel, beautiful Hyde Park offers excellent walks, Oxford street or Harrods are both about 25-30 mins brisk walk so a realistic and enjoyable alternative to the tube or taxi on a nice day. There are good restaurants along Kensington High Street, again easily within walking distance. The tube station is 5 mins.

If driving, car parking under the hotel is via a rather tight spiral ramp and costs £30 per day, the annoying new "Pay and Display" system means you have to return to the park and pay again after 2 days (on the dot!), we tried to prepay our third day 2 hours early and the machine wanted to charge £56 instead of £30. This is not the Hotel's fault the parking is a separate company but this new system is a bit of a put-off for guests who use it.

Final tip, check your bill carefully for Mini Lounge items and late charges, we have frequently found these to be wrong.

Overall this is a very good all round hotel in a great location. We will certainly keep using Royal Garden for our London visits.

We stayed in a Garden Room on the ninth floor for seven nights. The room overlooked Kensington Gardens and had views towards the London Eye and the Gherkin.

The Room was of a very high standard including a very comfortable King sized bed, large TV screen, tea/coffee making facilities, mini-bar and all the essential electronic gadgetry.

The en-suite was roomy and had quality toiletries and lovely large fluffy bath towels. The heated towel rack was a bonus.

We appreciated the fruit platter and welcoming note that we received from the Guest Relations Manager at the start of our stay.

We had dinner once in the Min Jiang Restaurant (as a special treat) on the tenth floor and enjoyed both the meal and the spectacular night view. We ventured into Bertie’s Bar on a couple of occasions after a night out and were treated to a large selection of nibbles with our drinks.

There was a large selection of good quality food for breakfast in the Park Terrace Restaurant. Even got to see some of the Aussie cricketers who were staying at the Hotel for the One Day matches.

I made two separate bookings for the seven nights in order to take advantage of the cheaper weekend rate, which had the B&B option. Check-in presented no problem as the bookings had been combined and we had the same room for the entire period.

We have now stayed four times at this Hotel and find its location beneficial. There is a bus stop right outside the Hotel and the Underground Station 100 metres away. Pubs, shops and a supermarket are conveniently located and Portobello Road is within easy walking distance.

This stay we noticed that the Hotel is now offering reasonably priced lunch and dinner options. Although we didn’t try any out, they did look attractive.

Special mention for the concierge who helped us out on a couple of occasions.