Holiday Inn London Regent's Park

I booked this hotel through lastminute.com, which sells it as a 4 star establishment. While the hotel doesn't live to its 4 star rating, location and good value for money more than make up for it. Also noteworthy are the staff, who are very friendly and helpful. The rooms are not large and feel a bit cramped, and the bathroom is also on the small side. But the beds are confortable and for a short stay its perfectly adequate.

I received a free night's stay at this hotel for booking an air itinerary with British Airways. I was concerned by some of the TA reviews of the hotel. It turned out to be OK, though quite a letdown after my stay at the Hilton Islington, which has higher standards of comfort, modern amenities and housekeeping.

Check-in was a pleasant surprise - no wait at all, and friendly, helpful service. My request for an upper-floor room was readily accommodated. I was assigned a room on the top (6th) floor, with a north-facing view. It would have been a pleasant view, but for the major construction project across the street, which was extremely noisy. However, this wasn't the hotel's fault, and in any case, I spent very little time in the room, so the construction noise wasn't really a bother.

The hallways were narrow and a bit shabby. The room itself, while spacious enough for one, was a bit shabby too. The carpet and armchair had old stains on them, but the white bedding seemed perfectly clean. The dark furniture was a bit somber and had seen better days; the old TV had few channels and bad reception. There was storage space for an iron and ironing board, but they were nowhere in sight. The bathroom seemed well-kept, but the fixtures and tile were old, so they appeared a bit dingy. Overall, I think the housekeeping staff did a good job cleaning the room, but they didn't have great material to work with. Still, the bed was pretty comfortable and I got a decent night's sleep. The A/C worked fine, but I also used the desk fan to generate white noise, so I didn't get any unwanted noise either from within the hotel or from the street below.

My free night's stay came with a free English breakfast. The breakfast room was a pleasant surprise - bright and welcoming. It was bustling with activity, but I was seated right away. The buffet was plentifully stocked and food quality was decent, though fresh fruit would have been much appreciated.

Overall, the Holiday Inn was a perfectly decent place to stay for one night. If I got another free hotel night with my airfare in future, I wouldn't mind staying at this Holiday Inn again.

I stayed at the Holiday Inn Regents Park for free as BA was having a promotion with the purchasing of airfare from the US.

We got a standard double room during the end of September/ early October. Reception was a bit brisk - like the guy wanted to get us processed asap and be done with us. He also had a very thick french accent so when asked to repeat, he seemed bothered. I'm positive that I requested a non-smoking room but Mr. Personality at the front desk wanted to argue about it saying that I didn't. We got the non-smoking room but not without a fight.

Although this is rated as a 4* in UK terms, it definitely is not in US terms. As far as ammenities, it has pretty much everything you need but thats about it. If you are familiar with the Holiday Inns in the US, I'd imagine this would be pretty much the same - It is was it is.

Since we had the freebie room, perhaps they put us into a smaller, non updated room. Our 6th floor (top floor) room did not look like the one in the pictures but rather a much shabbier version of one. Our room was very small (even by london standards) and seemed to have too much furniture in it. A slightly moldy smell but I'll get to that later. There was barely enough room to get around the double bed but they managed to put in a desk, 2 nightstands, 1 side table and 2 chairs. We had to move a chair and the side table to a corner of the room just to maneuver into the bed.

The room was the size that if you should take a shower, it would fog up the bedroom windows located furtherst from the bathroom. We had to keep the window open as it was so stuffy in the room (and I had to get that moldy smell out) and that was the only source of ventilation. Our room was facing the street so we got plenty of road noise most of the night. Since I live in a downtown location, this was not too much of a problem for me but for those who are light sleepers - you might want to ask for an interior room.

I used my UK power conversion plug but found that when I plugged in my hairdryer, it got super hot super fast and practically had flames coming out of it within seconds. I unplugged it immediately and never used it there again for charging my phone or anything else. PS: I've used this hair dryer & adaptor at other UK locations with success. Luckily they had a hairdryer in the desk drawer.

The carpeting in the room was beyond threadbare and I was a bit grossed out walking on it in bare feet. The bathroom was very small and had a toilet that not only didn't work half the time, but it bubbled for some time after flushing. I went to use the bathroom downstairs on the ground floor once and also noticed that they had the same plumbing problems. There was mold in the shower/tub & on the bottom of the shower curtain. Water pressure was okay and the one thing that I did like was that the shower knob had a dial sort of thing with numbers so once you got the temperature you like, there was no guess work or fiddling with the dial the next time.

The bed was comfortable enough. Or maybe I was numb from the jet lag & overconsumption of beer/cocktails at the pubs. Didn't take advantage of the pillow menu as the ones that they had on there were fine.

As far as location, it was okay. Not far from 2 tube stations. The area was not one I was familiar with but seemed okay. Lots of students from the school nearby and some shops a few blocks away.

The breakfast, although quite plentiful was pretty greasy. The fried eggs looked more like they were boiled in grease as they were served nearly floating in a greasy plate under some heat lamps. Same with the bacon and the sausage. As much as I love fried food & english full breakfasts, this was pretty bad.

All in all, unless you get an extremely good price on this hotel (or for free in my case) I would recommend staying elsewhere.