Needs a little more graft to be special!
Written: May 12 '07 (Updated May 13 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent location, clean rooms and prices can be reasonable.
Cons: Hotel extras are really expensive, and the hotel is nothing special
The Bottom Line: If you can snag a good enough deal, then the Radisson Edwardian Grafton in the centre of London can offer you a good deal. Otherwise it's disappointment city!
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| cr01's Full Review: Radisson Edwardian Grafton Hotel |
I’ve been to London enough times to realise there’s not really such a thing as a bargain hotel (with the possible slight exception of The Duke of Leinster). You must compromise on quality and put up with rattling windows, small rooms and damp peeling walls, or you stay miles away from the action.
Consequently, I had a heavy heart when I started my last search for a London hotel. As it happens, on lastminute.com, I came across an apparent good deal: a mystery central four-star Edwardian hotel with a price of £65 ($125) a night over Easter weekend.
My offer turned out to be the Radisson Edwardian Grafton on Tottenham Court Road, just on the edge of the West End Theatre part of town.
Location
I thought the location was great, and it was by far the best thing about the hotel. The Radisson Edwardian Grafton is within walking distance of many of the attractions in the centre of London, and about 100 feet away from Warren Street tube station. As I was arriving from the North of England, that Warren Street is two tube stops or a straightforward 15-minute stroll from Kings Cross was particularly welcome. The Post Office tower (or I should say, the Telecom Tower these days) looms in the distance and gave me a real “London” feeling.
The hotel is just a couple of hundred yards away from the edge of the bustle of the main town, so it is busy outside but not mad. The closest place of potential disruption is some kind of strip club a couple hundred yards down the main road. My room faced into an inner courtyard. Hardly ambient, but I only had the gentle hum of the air con generators to contend with when I opened my window.
Facilities
As a four star London Hotel, the Edwardian Radisson is expensive for extras. Andymcf bought a couple of beers for us at the bar, and I think he paid in excess of $8 for a pint of larger. The bar is a standard uninspiring hotel bar, but quite large. I think the bar doubles as the dining room too.
Thankfully there are a couple of pubs close by, selling lashings of ale at more reasonable prices until after midnight. Not a bad deal when the hotel bar also surprised us by closing at 12:30am. Those into more healthy kicks will be pleased that I saw a sign for a gym at the hotel, but that’s as far as I got.
Breakfast at the hotel came in at around $30 per person (my cheap deal excluded food), but the hotel is on the upper floors above a parade of shops that includes Boots, Tescos Express and Sainsburys (major UK supermarkets). I saved around $50 for my two-night stop by simply picking up a pre-packed take out wrap from one of the shops at my feet each morning, and eating on the hoof.
Given the breakfast prices and the location, I didn’t even look at the evening meal options at the Radisson. There are five cheap curry houses within a couple hundred yards of the hotel, together with just a couple of other café type choices. If you don’t like spice, you may need to wander a little further afield.
We ate at the Agra Restaurant, just on one of the backstreets behind the hotel (it’s on Whitfield Street). The Agra started trading in 1954, so is an early pioneer of the ethnic food habit that the Brits have these days.
Roy Orbison liked the Agra so much he dropped by twice, and Mohammed Ali stopped here in 1966. On the wall, there is an ace photo of Ali towering over the slight wait staff. It must be good food, just look what it did for those guys! Actually, I don’t think I can blame the Agra as the food tasted great, obviously made from good quality ingredients, and yet very reasonably priced.
The Agra restaurant itself is nicely if simply furnished with generously spaced tables with proper cloth tablecloths. I certainly didn’t feel like I was sharing my meal with the neighbouring party, which is sometimes the case. My only tip is that medium spiced is quite mild. If you like chillies, I’m sure you could get away with asking for hot here.
The Hotel
I suppose I was most disappointed by the billing of an Edwardian Hotel. I had a real Upstairs Downstairs image in my mind. I know it was technically correct as the ornate red brick building was probably constructed around 100 years ago, but I was anticipating a little more grace and style to the hotel.
Check-in was on the ground floor in a rather dark marble crypt. The check in staff were friendly, and efficiently checked me in, even though I was an hour earlier than the advertised check in time. Although they did not guarantee it at the point of booking, the check in staff offered me a choice of smoking and non smoking rooms. I guess the tip here is to arrive early if you have a strong preference.
There are two tiny lifts to the rooms (and one of them was out of order for most of my stay). One tip is to remember your plastic door card for the lift. You need to swipe the card to get the lift to work. Don’t be a dummy like me standing in the lift for two minutes wondering why it wasn’t moving. The hotel was quiet, so the out of order lift didn’t present too much of a hassle and as I was on the third floor, stairs weren’t too inconvenient in any case.
My room was small enough to be an Edwardian servant’s quarter, and while it was very clean and furnished nicely, a bit of brown and fawn striped wallpaper, faux Edwardian plastic double glazed windows, and dark mdf furniture do not make for a good or traditional Edwardian look.
As is often the way, my room was sweltering, but the heating controls were easy to locate and use.
As the room was small, the facilities of the room looked a little crammed. The small portable TV was in an alcove and so I could only see about three quarters of the screen from either the bed or the chair. The movie pay facility was a little pointless. Fortunately, the bed was very comfortable so I had no problems in quickly dropping off to sleep both nights.
The mini bar sold things like small bottles of wine for £6 ($11). It was one of those electronic bars, so I was a little uncertain how you got to the stock at the back of the fridge. Perhaps you were just meant to drink it from the front, and get to your preferred choice eventually! The organised should note that Tescos downstairs sell soft drinks and full bottles of wine for considerably less.
The hotel provided free tea and coffee making facilities with standard quality tea and instant coffee available. An iron and ironing board was stored in the huge wardrobe, which took up about a quarter of the available space of the room (it was in another alcove).
The safe was a nice addition, and used. The hotel also has free wi fi, but I didn’t use it. Desk space in the room was very limited, and the hotel offered bigger business rooms (at a price) for those who needed to work from their room.
My bathroom had an annoying little quirk; the hand basin was so low and small and the water pressure so powerful, I ended up with a crotch soaked in cold water each time I used it. At least it woke me up, and I have to consider that it’s perhaps how the Edwardians liked it (and explains how the society managed to stay so chaste). As I tended to use the bathroom just before I had to go out onto the streets of London, I managed to end up in the lobby looking like I had exceptionally poor bladder control.
The shower was also small, and with the shower head fixed immovable to the wall, I had to run the water with the shower door open until it warmed through and I could step into it. The bathroom certainly had a swimming pool ambience to it by the time I finished, but before I used it, it was very clean and tidy.
The Radisson provides Gilchrist and Soames soap dispensers, which was very nice, and far greener than using those silly little sample bottles that some hotels supply. On the downside, it meant there were no freebies to take away.
Summing up
The Edwardian Radisson didn’t overwhelm me. Its best feature is its location, and I found it reasonable to good London price value for what I paid.
My room was clean and tidy and featured most of the things that a visitor might need. I was a little disappointed with the lack of attention to detail, and the place certainly overstates the Edwardian features. As there are so many choices in London, I don’t think the Radisson is a hotel I would rush back to, unless of course the price was right.
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cr01 asserts his right to be associated as the author of this review -2007-
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
cr01
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Member: Chris
Location: Yorkshire, England
Reviews written: 446
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