UK - London

Most recent trip December 2022

W London
Oh my how can it start worse. It’s now 6:20 and the room that we were told was guaranteed at noon is still not available. Instead they guaranteed the other room we got at noon, which is a standard room that they probably have 20 of. The suite is the only room of its type in this hotel, so what the fuck would I want to guarantee the other one for. Ridiculous.
The front desk dude had mercy on us and let us use a standard room and nap while we waited, but still no room. Other dude was granted a 4pm late check out, unbelievably after saying we could get it at noon, but even still it’s been over 2 hours since then!
While waiting, the room service order we put in on the other room hasn’t showed up for an hour, so we called and guess what, oh sir we have that order but it didn’t make it to the kitchen?! What?!?! They are buying it now but still. What. The. Fuck.
Oh man they got me good. When we finally got into our room at almost 7pm I was pretty happy. Huge room. Awesome bathroom with a cool steam shower. Loved the private screening projector. I was honestly pretty impressed. Worth the wait right? Nope, wrong. What’s behind the curtain? Literally behind the curtain is the gym. Like this room not only doesn’t have a view, it looks into the gym. So guess what, maybe that’s not so bad, but the next morning you realize those black out curtains, don’t black out the light coming from the gym. And those people that wake up at 7am to work out, yup you can hear them quite well. I mean what a joke. They got me good.
The best was tonight when two employees sat in the gym talking as loud as they could about the World Cup and other current events at 1 in the morning. Not kidding. Talking about absolutely nothing, for hours, in the gym, outside our room :)
I mean what’s more embarrassing than a guy who booked a suite months ago, and who happens to be an ambassador, to have to complain about people using the 24 hour gym late night, because it’s directly on the other side of his windows? Seriously. What’s more embarrassing than that.
For what it's worth the hotel manager did get in touch with me and refunded some things and generally was nice and understood my position. I'll check specifics on my rooms next time I guess...but they still gotta mention that your view is of a gym no? Great room but come on!

London was pretty rad this time around. Everytime I think, but maybe especially this time? It just felt good. It felt really good. We grabbed a seat right near the hotel (which was in Picadilly Circus on Leicester Square) for some fish and chips and some pints. It was spot on and just a generally generic pub, until we found ourselves sitting at the exact same pub a day later next to Harrods. There's more than 1 apparently!!! Ahhhh!!! Oh well, it was still great, and both of them were packed :)
The Imperial, part of the Greene King Pub system I guess.

Julie and I loved being right next to the start of Chinatown and we had an amazing dinner there. All of the places looked pretty rad.
Right in the thick of it we also stumbled upon this rad music pub, it started off our age and then got younger, and younger, and then holy shit it was packed. O'neill's Wardour Street was a fun fun time.
Also right down from there was Sophisticates strip bar. I gotta be honest, the girls were hands down smoke shows, but the layout was a bit off putting as there was no real stage (they kind of danced in a little circle in the middle but it wasn't so much a stage), it was set up like a cocktail lounge and the girls came around to chat with you, something that we were just not that interested in at the moment.
There were a few spots like that in this area, including a huge and famous cabaret whose name escapes me. Casinos are around here and just general fun adult times. It's a good spot.
For dinner we adored Circolo Populare. We had a great time at The Libertine but it wasn't a great spot for the kid. Perfect for martinis and flirting.
The Beast was a spectacle all around. It was like eating in the Game of Thrones and I had a blast. Candles dripping everywhere and rad steaks and the biggest king crab of your life. So much fun.
The Christmas market at Leicester Square was spot on and as charming as it gets. The Hyde Park Christmas spectacular was quite different than what I expected, which was a giant NYC style holiday market. Nope. This was a carnival, in every sense of the word. And it was a huge carnival. I can't stress the size enough. Pretty GD remarkable if you ask me. It was fun, but quaint Christmas fun it was not.
We did the obligatory trip to Harrods. Do I love that place? I'm not sure to be honest. And we did the big bus tour which was great. And we did the Tower of London (self tour).

Previous…

Holy Shit. Flying out of Reagan can suck quite a bit if you get there at the wrong time…or with very little time. No valet like at Dulles (which is actually a lot more practical and less douchy than it sounds). Long lines can also be a bitch. Flying first class can remedy many of these problems but in this particular case, we went to the wrong line, a packed little side counter we thought would be more convenient. Guy walks up and asks if you’ve paid for your bags yet, you obviously say, “I have to pay even in first class?” right? Well this doesn’t sound so good when the line is packed with miserable people who are now thinking what a douchy mcdoucherson.

Anyway, there are storms. Major storms. And headed straight at our layover point, NYC. Where unbelievably I have booked us into LGA and out of JFK (could only find the LGA flight in and since we were on British Airways first on the way out, I wanted the major lounge action at JFK, one of their non London major hubs…and this is the type of lounge where sitting next to Tom Cruise would not be out of the ordinary…). So the plane is delayed. Oh my. We may miss this beautiful flight, leaving from this beautiful lounge, on this beautiful plane, I made sure it was their most updated action. We booked a car to make sure our transition was smooth as possible upon arrival… So when we land we have about 80 minutes. Just enough time. We call the car. “Do you have your bags yet sir?” “Well no I…” “Call back when you have them sir…click.” Ok fuck. Fuck you fucker. We go to get our bags. They take forever…65 minutes. Pushing it but possible. We call the company. “No problem sir, he’ll be there in 10 minutes.” Wait WHAT!? We need him now. I tell him to shove his crappy car up his ass and we can get a cab.

Walking to the cab line I start to realize how dumb I am. It’s Friday night at LGA…and it’s obviously going to take an hour. And suddenly I hear an angel. “Do you guys need a ride?” says this petite, pretty New York woman. We race to her car and hop in. We tell her to vamanos! While driving she graciously and edge-of-our-seat dangerously checks the status of the flight. My angel! The flight is delayed! But not by much. We race towards Kennedy. We have a plan. I will run to the counter to tell them we are here. My companion will take care of paying the angel. I race off. Signs point down the hall…more signs point down the hall. I know if I can get to the first class counter they will take care of us…while giving me a hand job and dumping champagne in my mouth. Guess what, the counter is closed. I begrudgingly but anxiously race to the lowly business class counter. No hand job here, but probably still some champage. Guess what, the counter is closed. It’s economy or nothing. I race around the corner and find my girl…”come on” I shout! We can just barely make it…wait…WHERE ARE THE BAGS! “I thought you had them???” she says, as a look of dread comes over our faces. The bags, in the trunk of our angel’s car, are driving away. I run as fast as I can down the airport road…HHHEEEEEYYYYYY I yell to no one in particular. Just another crazy drunk New Yorker to everyone else. Nobody stops. I’m not sure anyone even turned their head. We are screwed. Like royal screwed. Like let’s mainline vodka and call it a day screwed. Wait, she says. I have her number. HUH, WHAT. You have the cab drivers number?!? How is that a thing? It’s like a miracle. It’s like a real, god involved, Christmas miracle. She calls. “Yes, I can come right back, but I’ve gotten quite far at this point” says the most beautiful voice in my imagination (yet that little devil charged us 20 bucks just to return the bags, ha! Oh new York).

She’s on her way, I race to the counter. I’m the only one there, but I see a woman. “Can you please help me? I am desperate.” She has a kind heart, and perhaps more importantly, sees the “British Airways First” ticket. I tell her our bags are on the way. Her face shows how strange I sound but my encouragement seals the deal. When the bags arrive we are whisked away to the front of the security line. We run to the gate and holy moly! They haven’t even started boarding yet. Another delay. Bars are found. Vodka is drunk. High fives are aplenty. We board and are escorted to an amazing section of only 14 seats in the nose of a 747. These seats are better than hotel rooms. Top notch everything. We drink, we dine, we nap. Breakfast greets our approach to Heathrow and we are on our way…now…London.

London is huge, and the airport ain’t so close. One of the advantages though is that you get to ride in a fabulous London black cab. These cabs are great. As far as roominess is concerned maybe the best in the world (except maybe in the crappy Bahamas where there was apparently a deal on old limos so you ride around in those all day like normal cabs, but they are shit, London Blackcabs are nice). Anyway, 100 euros to get to the hotel which is in the city center. I am appalled. Most expensive airport ride in the world (until you hit Narita!). BUT, the driver was super nice and we discussed all sorts of stuff including certain sites as we supposedly went through side streets because of the traffic on the main highway. We did see some but it was still probably bullshit.

If you can see an English world cup soccer match while visiting London I would highly recommend it…just make sure you aren’t in a room full of Italians and assume that their cheers are for Britain…cause they ain’t, and you suck. Cool place we found though, sports bar and night club. Full on dirty dancing during halftime.

Obviously I love bars and restaurants, but seeing old school British pubs never stops amazing me. They’re like the oldest places for imbibing in the world, and they wear it well. One of the spots we went to (you know nothing John Snow) still maintained separate areas for classes like they used to do in olden times (separate for gender and social/financial standing).

Lots of pubs, fish and chips, meat pie, and room temperature beer (though the alcohol can be quite low). We were warned on many occasion of the high alcohol content in our beer. Watch out yank, that’s got 5% in it. Well keep the other 95 then ya limey.

I like London. I think staying next to Trafalgar square was good for us, and our hotel made it even better.

Notes to self:

-Our second night we did a huge steak dinner. Not totally English obviously but their specialty was Belgian beef. We had a great time, but yeah, that’s not a thing.
-Talking about Uber was tons of fun. They just had a strike and the cabbies were somewhat up in arms. It was a lovely discussion.
-Tower of London was fantastic (didn’t see the crown jewels but who gives a shit). This place has tons of little nooks and crannies and even a basement torture display, which was small and cramped but still kind of cool. Kind of terrifying to be honest.
-Gonna need to do the eye next time in London. The lines looked super long but I’m sure it’s worth it.
-We did the big bus tour here. Pretty helpful.
-While the Chunnel train is fast, you have to stop thinking that it’s nice. It’s fine, but it is definitely not nice.

-The tea at Apero was a joke and a complete waste of money, 500 monies to be exact.
-The Christmas lights bus tour was also a complete joke and a total waste of time.

-Can’t remember where I stayed in 2001…

W London - Nov 2023, Dec 2024

See above for our first experience…

The W London part deux.

I booked a marvelous suite this time and they upgraded us to a WOW gaming suite. The gaming part is like a video desk area to play video games so it was a sidebar for us (kid is still 6), but the room itself was excellent. Huge bathroom plus an extra toilet room. View of Leicester square and the Christmas market. Huge living area with couch etc. it was spot on.
Room service crushed and the mini bar came in handy. They do not do adult ppv but I was just super glad to not be looking at the gym :)
The bartenders at the W were d bags but the bar is cool and was helpful.

Circolo flooded so that rez got canceled. We substituted with a pub that night and Chinese the next night. Overall, though nothing went totally right, the Peter Pan pantomime was fun and we made the best of everything.

St Martins Lane Hotel London - Jun 2014

Oh man I liked this hotel. Wonderful lobby…reminded me of Sobe. We definitely took some drunk pics amongst their whimsical shit. Speaking of which their hotel restaurant was Asia De Cuba, one of my early NYC haunts (which does have an offshoot bar that is shotgun style and is pretty cool, though we felt they closed a little early one night!). Staff was great. Location was one block from Trafalgar square. The room had a decent view of some of the London landmarks, but it was a city height hotel, so you are only seeing the tops of stuff. Room was a standard layout but it was spacious with a nice bathroom. The style was that solid white action that Philippe Starck loves. Floor to ceiling windows and cool lighting effects were also nice touches. The do have minibars plus pay per view and room service, but I’m not sure about the 24 hour action of either of those. It was pretty perfect for our needs at that moment. Morgans Group…gotta love it.

Notes

-Concierge was super helpful, and the all of the staff was really really nice.