Priceline Hotel: Help with London Hotel

[Gonzo70]

I will be staying in London for a couple of night either before or after a cruise. What area do people recommend bidding on (via Priceline) in order to obtain a hotel in a fun area of London?

Thanks!

[yellowdog]

Fun for you and fun for me can be two diffrent things!

We also need to know preferred star rating for hotel, budget, dates etc

Can you please provide us with some more information so the board can help you with some suggestions :)

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.

Yellowdog.

[Gonzo70]

This would be for late May or early June of 2011 - so a ways off. I'd prefer 3-4 star hotel and are somewhat flexible with price range. We just would like an area that is safe, has some fun places within walking distance and is near some of the major tourist attractions (or at least near to public transportation that will get us easily to major tourist attractions). This will be our first time in London and we will have at most two days for sightseeing.

Thanks

[thereuare]

Since you have plenty of time, you should first figure out which attractions you want to visit, then find zones which will have you centrally located (either geographically or on a direct subway line).

When do you intend on bidding/purchasing a hotel for this trip?

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.

[Romelle]

This would be for late May or early June of 2011 - so a ways off. I'd prefer 3-4 star hotel and are somewhat flexible with price range. We just would like an area that is safe, has some fun places within walking distance and is near some of the major tourist attractions (or at least near to public transportation that will get us easily to major tourist attractions). This will be our first time in London and we will have at most two days for sightseeing.

Thanks

Do you know the EXACT departure port for your cruise ship? Southampton, Harwich, Dover, Tilbury or ?? A lot of cruises depart from Southampton. While the cruise companies are fond of calling it "London", it is actually 62 miles away and there are hotels in that area that could be a better choice. Similarly for the other places I listed, and you might have an entirely different one. I think you might want to get this sorted out before doing any bidding. There is good transport from London proper to any of the ports, but the origin of that transport might make a difference in where you stay if you choose to stay in London.

If you would click through from this site to Priceline (upper right on this page in blue), you would see a map of all the various bidding zones. You also can then bring up individual maps of the zones. You can enlarge them with the slider bar (+++ until you even get down to street names and such). After a few enlargements you will start seeing a symbol of a red circle with a blue bar through it. That is an underground stop. You will note they are pretty much all over London. The major hotels are always within walking distance of one, or at least on a connecting bus line.

If you enter "london" into the Quick Search box above, you will see a long list of bidding results that will give you some general ideas as to the possibilities. Same for going into the Hotel Reviews for the London hotels. Reading the hotel reviews will also give you an idea of areas to seek or avoid. (Hint - the alphabetic list and E for England). Start with the Copthorne Tara in Kensington as the reviews are all over the place on this one.

London Top 10 is a good place to start for compiling your list of what you want to do in those 2 or 3 days. An armload of guide books from your local library is another. You won't have enough time, so you will want to be sure you at least get your top 3 or 4. After you've figured out which things you particularly want to do, mark them on a map. If they happen to be in roughly the same area, you've just defined your Priceline bidding zone. For most people, the choices end up scattered about and a number of zones will work just fine.

For the record, I'm just a member but thought I'd help you refine your response a bit.

Romelle

(and yes, one of those Copthorne reviews is mine).

[Gonzo70]

Thanks for the advice.

I will not be bidding until approximately January, 2011 (as I will not know until then if I will be able to definitely receive the time off work). I am just now starting to research the trip - so I still have a few months to work things out.

The cruise is round trip out of Southhampton. I am aware that the port is not close to London, but my wife really wants to see some of the highlights of London, so we'd prefer a hotel in London than near the port.

[Romelle]

Thank you for the follow-up. I probably was "over-worrying" as usual, but you would be surprised how many people don't realize the distance between London and those ports.

You may have already found these, but good "chatty" sites for discussing trip options are flyertalk, lonelyplanet, fodors and cruisecritic. If you give a little thumbnail description of yourself and your interests you get even more input. Something like "50's, WWII history, flower gardens" or "bikers, sci-fi, cooking", or "???". The more specific you are, the more similar-minded people are apt to jump in and give you info.

Hope you get that time off and are back here in January.

Romelle