Booking An Apartment When Visiting London

If you are going to visit London you obviously need somewhere to stay, and unless you have relatives here you really only have two choices. Some people would think that there is only one answer and that is to stay in a hotel, but you can also book an apartment in London. 

If you book a hotel you pretty much know what to expect. You get a hotel room, breakfast and dinner are served in the restaurant within fixed hours, a maid comes in during the morning and makes the bed, there is a minibar, and downstairs there is a large lounge and bar which you share with 100 other people. And that’s it. 

However, when you book an apartment in London you will find that the facilities provided can vary considerably. To begin with, apartments come in varying sizes: some can sleep just two people while others may sleep six or even eight. The number of bedrooms will vary and some will have an en-suite bathroom while others may have separate bathroom and toilet facilities. You should get a good sized reception room, and there may be a separate dining room. Certainly, you should get a fully fitted kitchen with a dishwasher, washing machine, and tumble dryer, but there may be a separate utility room. With some apartments in London you may even get a small garden. Whatever the size of the apartment, you should have double the space that you would get in a hotel bedroom.

Some apartments have a considerable number of extra facilities. You may get a maid service, and of course there should be high speed broadband, which in a hotel you may be charged extra for. Some apartments have TV’s in all the rooms and some have access to multiple channels in a variety of languages. Some also come with a full time concierge and on-site security, and in a small number of cases you may even have a parking space. Most will have a music system, and may have things such as an iPad dock or your own personal safe for your valuables.

If you are going to book an apartment in London you really do need to check exactly what is included.

Stay In A Luxury Apartment In Central London

London is one of the greatest cities in the world and there are so many things to do that you couldn’t possibly see them all if you stayed for a six week vacation, and most people don’t have that length of time anyway. Even if you are not on vacation, but visiting on business, you need to be at the heart of things so that you can easily get to wherever you want to go.

In common with every other major city in the world, the traffic in London is a nightmare, and if you stay in a hotel on the outskirts of the city you will waste hours getting to where you want to be. Of course, the obvious answer is to stay in a hotel in the city centre where you have easy access to everything – a lot of it within walking distance, so you don’t even need a taxi.

However, hotels in central London, by definition, are extremely expensive. They can afford to be because they think you have no choice, so within reason they can charge what they like. Not only that, you basically have to live out of a suitcase for the duration of your stay.

But there is another answer and that is to stay in one of the luxury apartments in central London. Why ever not? Luxury apartments in central London will give you around twice the space of a hotel bedroom and will cost you less. Most of them are fully serviced, which means that you don’t need to lift a finger except for cooking your own meals. Now, granted, in a hotel that is done for you - but at what cost? Add to that a couple of drinks in the bar before dinner and the words “an arm and a leg” spring to mind.

In one of the luxury apartments in central London you can buy your own food in the local markets, and there are plenty of bars and English pubs where you can get a drink for a reasonable price. Perhaps best of all, you get a home of your own for the duration of your visit.

A Mayfair Apartment Is The Ideal Place To Stay When Visiting London

If you are visiting London, whether it is on holiday or for business, there is really no point in staying anywhere other than in the heart of the city where everything is right on your doorstep. Let’s face it, London has a lot to offer, but it is choked with traffic as are all the other major cities in the world. Certainly, you can stay in the suburbs, but then you are faced with the awful commute every morning and evening to get in and out of the centre.

You don’t need a commute of an hour or two, crushed in with all those other poor people who have to get in to go to work and have no choice. What would be the point? If you are visiting on business you need to be bright and fresh in the morning to see customers or suppliers, and equally if you are visiting on holiday you are doing it for FUN, not for a battle through the crowds!

This is why so many visitors to the city are now choosing a Mayfair apartment which they can use as a base. A Mayfair apartment is actually within walking distance of many of the places that you need to visit on business or want to see while you are on vacation. In fact, you can walk to a lot of places faster than you could get there by road in a taxi, and walking doesn’t cost anything. What’s the point of sitting in a traffic jam in a taxi which is clocking up the fare by the minute?

A Mayfair apartment is usually serviced, which means that you don’t have to worry about cleaning it or even making the bed in the morning. You just get up, shower, have breakfast, and then you are all set for the day. It’s just like being in your own home, but without any responsibility except doing your own cooking. In fact, you don’t even have to do that if you don’t want to, as you have world class restaurants only a few minutes’ walk away.

You Get Privacy And Space In London Serviced Apartments

London is one of the finest cities in the world, and indeed many Londoners would argue that it is by far and away the best. If you stay in the heart of London you have everything at your fingertips, except possibly an English country pub and fields full of cows. However, even right in the city centre there are several parks in which you can wander, and in Hyde Park, perhaps the best known, you can actually go horse riding if you wish.

Of course, many people who visit London, whether on business or pleasure, stay in one of the many famous – if expensive – hotels. However, more and more visitors are now looking for serviced apartments in central London. This is not just because they can be considerably cheaper than a hotel, although that is a distinct advantage, but because serviced apartments in central London provide all the amenities of a hotel except a restaurant and bar. 

So yes, you have to do your own cooking, but that is the same as you do at home so it isn’t that hard. What’s more, it gives you a much greater choice of food because you are not restricted to what the hotel offers. It also gives you two things that you won’t get in a hotel, and that is privacy along with a lot more space. 

It is estimated that serviced apartments in central London provide about twice the space that you have in a hotel room, and they are also all your own for the duration of your stay. There is just you and your family living as you do at home, but yet with a maid service, security, and everything done for you except the cooking. Furthermore, you can do your own laundry rather than having to rely on the hotel laundry, and you can relax and invite guests round for a drink or a meal.

If you really don’t want to do the cooking one evening you can simply pop out to one of the dozens of superb restaurants on your doorstep. 

Hotels In London Are Expensive Places To Stay

London is by no means the cheapest place in the world to stay. Indeed, however wealthy you may be, you would doubtless class it as expensive. That goes for pretty much every capital city, because all visitors want to stay in the city centre. The amount of land is limited which means that so is the number of buildings, and that inevitably means that property is expensive, which has the knock-on effect of pushing the price of everything else up with it.

This is the reason why hotels in London are so expensive. Yes, they offer luxury and great service, but the price of rooms is eye-watering. So is the price of everything else they offer. Almost everything is an “extra” so if you want your laundry done – which you do if you are staying for any length of time – it will cost you a small fortune. As for the bar prices, just look at the Dorchester cocktails. They do offer a huge range of different cocktails, but the minimum price is £16.00, and many are £19.00 – going up to £35.00. As for the price of a bottle of champagne, £250 – £300 is nothing. A vintage Krug Clos d’Ambonnay 1998 is £3,950. Oh, and there is a minimum charge of £30 per person after 6.00 pm.

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Stay In A Luxury Apartment When Visiting London

London is one of the most attractive and diverse cities in the world, with its’ history dating back to Roman times. There is so much to see and do that it is difficult to know where to begin listing all the reasons to come here. For many people, the first thing they want to see is the residence of the Queen and Prince Philip – Buckingham Palace. Then there is Big Ben (presently undergoing refurbishment) and the Houses of Parliament, Madame Tussauds, St, Paul’s Cathedral, and the Tower of London where you can see the ravens. There are six ravens and folklore has it that if they ever leave, the kingdom and the Tower will fall. They have a Ravenmaster who looks after them and feeds them twice a day.

 

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Some Unusual Things To Do In London

When you visit London there are dozens of things to do that just about everybody does. Visit Buckingham Palace, St.Paul’s Cathedral, and The Tower of London. Just opposite the Tower you can watch Tower Bridge being raised as large ships pass underneath. Visit all the museums. See the art galleries. Go shopping in Bond Street, Oxford Street, and in Knightsbridge. Those are the sorts of things that everyone does, and that people will tell you that you “must” do.

However, there are a lot of other things that you can do when visiting the city that most tourists never see. Everyone knows that there is an underground train service, but did you know that there is another one? It’s the Mail Rail and for eighty years it shuttled letters and parcels across the city until it was closed in 2003. However, it has now been reopened as part of the Postal Museum and you can hop on board and see a piece of history.

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