Holiday Inn London - Kensington Forum

Stayed here for 2 nights on business.

Pros - very clean, excellent breakfast, very conveniently located only a minute or two from Gloucester Rd underground station (excellent links to Central London, Kensington etc.), streets around hotel seemed very safe, and there's a good selection of shops and restaurants in the immediate area, an excellent breakfast (plenty of choice, and is cooked for you rather than self-service from a breakfast buffet but is served quickly).

Cons - noise from the trains and traffic, although this was far less noticable between midnight and 6am.

LOCATION

A block from Gloucester Road Tube which is conveniently on the Piccadilly, District & Circle lines. There is also a Boots Pharmacy (best sandwiches!) and Waitrose in the mall attached to the station. There is also a Burger King/KFC and small Tesco Express across the road. We ate on evening once at the Garfunkels pub in the mall, it was typical chain restaurant food but fast with good service. Average price. There are other real pubs in the area as well. We did not do much walking as our plans were on Oxford St. and in Covent Garden but there is lots to do in the area.

To find the hotel, turn left out of the station an walk to the end of the block where you will see the hulking Holiday Inn, turn left again and go up the block to enter the hotel. Other reviewers are right, the entrance is in a bizarre location but once you figure it out, it's fine.

CHECKIN

Superfast with presentation of Priority Club card. No mention of Priceline. And much to our surprise they gave us our room at 9am on a Monday which we were so thankful for as we needed a nap from our flight and were expecting to have to wait until the afternoon.

ROOM

Room 713 facing central London. Non-smoking as requested. Well maintained. Looked much better than I was expecting from other reviews. Bathroom looked new & was clean. Water pressure was GREAT!!! which seemed to be a problem in most other reviews. Bed was ok, a little hard for my taste as were the pillows; nice comforter. However, they have a pillow menu so I suppose I could have requested a softer one. Fridge does not cool at all so just forget about it, groceries so close you can pop out to get anything you need! Quiet at night, some noise from hallway early morning but actually did not prevent us from sleeping until 10-11 each morning. Modern A/C in room easy to control and worked very well. TV good with usual UK hotel channels and a bunch of foreign language channels. Did not use any other facilities or order room service.

One complaint was that toilet blocked once on 1st day and it took 3 calls to housekeeping to get someone to fix it (albeit I was inpatient, I think it took about 20-25min total).

CHECKOUT

Very fast, no erroneous charges.

We spent two nights at the Kensington Forum in August, precruise. We booked through our cruise line. We had a wonderful time and will, in fact, be staying there again next September, precruise again.

This was our first trip to London and we found the location to be excellent. Within easy walking distance to Harrod's, Hyde Park and Kensington Palace. And the hotel is only two short blocks away from the Gloucester tube station. Ask the concierge for a map of the Tube stations - we found the concierge desk to be most helpful.

We arrived from the States in the early morning and were allowed up to our room right off when we checked in. The room was immaculate, and perfect. Loved the huge deep tub - it was a Godsend for a good hot soak after a day of walking the streets of London.

Daily breakfast is included on the 4th floor. And we had dinner in the pub downstairs once...excellent fish and chips. There are many restaurants in the neighborhood if you want more variety.

I've stayed in Holiday Inn's in the States, this facility was more upscale - I guess it would have to be considering where it's located, in the very lovely neighborhood of Kensington.

Lovely hotel, terrific location, wonderful helpful staff, immaculately clean rooms.