Novotel Hotel St Pancras London (review, video & photos)
I stayed at this hotel, which is a short walk from Kings Cross and St Pancras (the new Eurostar terminal) the night before catching an early train to Paris. I got the room by using Airmiles and so do not pay anything for it. I would have been less than happy if I had.
Perhaps as the room was bought using an Airmiles redemption, we got a less than ideal room. The room was on the 4th floor and so the noise from the main road was fairly relentless and pretty annoying. Although it is not very loud it is of the type that, even with earplugs, disrupts your sleep. The check-in desk staff were off-hand and unwelcoming, so typical in these hotels with very transient traffic as they do not care and know people staying are only there as it helps for catching trains early in the morning, or for people getting on late at night.
The hotel lobby, as many people who review the hotel will say, looks good and modern. This is not bad since I think the hotel used to be a rather dire office block when I first moved to London about 20 years ago. The bedrooms are neat enough, and effort has been made to given them a modern look. The roof is quite low and although a good size the overall effect is a bit stark. The beds are not very comfortable and I suspect that they are heading towards replacement. My bed was somewhat lumpy and dipped in the middle. The TV is flat screen and the channels do not correspond to what the listing says on the interface on the TV, which seems sloppy considering they are satellite channels and clearly at some point someone changed them and has not put them back.
The bathroom looked good and was a good size, though the shower foam and shampoo was pretty harsh! The food in the lobby restaurant was so-so.
Overall the hotel is fine as a quick stop over. But make sure you ask for either as high floor room if you are facing the main road – or for a room facing away from the main road. If you get this, then the hotel will be great for that 1 night stopover as very handy for the station.
See a video of my room:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGL-KbhTszg
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