Royal Albert Hall

Our family was in London for Christmas and we went to one of the Christmas concerts that are an annual event at the Royal Albert Hall. The concert itself was outstanding. The Hall is a very impressive building. But I have two words of advice: be careful where your seats are located, and never eat at the Victoria restaurant.

There is a very helpful seating plan on the Hall's website that you should consult before buying tickets. Because the Hall is so large and is circular in shape, the seats that face the stage directly are very far from the stage. All of the seats in the upper balcony (called the circle) are also very far from the stage. So if you buy seats facing the stage or anywhere in the circle, make sure to bring binoculars. The main floor (called the arena) does not slope toward the stage, so seats there do not have a good view and should be avoided. The best seats are in the stalls (which are above the arena floor), on the sides of the stage. The side seats in the stalls swivel so the strain is not bad on your neck or back.

You can only eat at the Victoria restaurant in the Hall if you have tickets for that evening's performance. You would think that they would be aware as a result that the diners need to be finished in time to get to their seats for the performance. But if you thought that, you would be wrong. We were seated for dinner at 6:10 pm before a concert that began at 7:30. We thought that would allow plenty of time and that eating at the Hall would be convenient and avoid any worry about traffic making us late getting to the Hall. They took our order promptly, but our salads did not arrive for over half an hour. At 6:55 I asked our waitress to get me the manager because we were running out of time. The manager assured me that our food would be out in 4 minutes. But we were not finally served our entrees until 7:10. When I complained, the manager was very rude. We bolted down our food and just barely made it to our seats before the concert started. All the parties in the dining room had arrived around the same time. We were shocked to see other parties being served even after we were; and there was no way they could have made it to the concert on time. When we left the restaurant, the manager actually had the unmitigated gall to say to our son that she was offended that I had complained and that she was very upset by the experience. Avoid the Victoria restaurant at all costs!