Room report: Royal Garden Hotel

View of Kensington Palace from our hotel room. Copyright Gretta Schifano

The Royal Garden Hotel

The Royal Garden Hotel is a five star luxury hotel in London’s Kensington, right next to Kensington Gardens. I stayed at the hotel recently and shared a twin room with fellow blogger Grace from Eats Amazing.

MAD blog awards

We were at the hotel for the 2014 MAD (it stands for Mums and Dads) Blog Awards. We both took part in a flash mob dance (a very scary experience for me – I was hoodwinked into taking part!) during the evening awards ceremony and we had a busy afternoon rehearsing and preparing for the event. For the awards last year I stayed in a Premier Inn nearby, which was fine but this time it was great to have a luxurious room in the hotel and somewhere to get ready properly without leaving the building.

Arrival

Grace kindly booked the hotel online and emailed me the booking confirmation. The hotel was easy for me to get to. I took a bus there from Victoria Station – the bus stop’s just across the road on Kensington High Street. Check-in was from 2pm but when I arrived just after midday to drop off my luggage the very helpful lady at the front desk told me that the room was ready and I could check-in and go up there straight away.

Check-in

The check-in process was very simple, even though Grace hadn’t arrived yet. I was given a key card and a wifi code and went up in the lift to our room on the fourth floor.

Room

The room felt spacious, luxurious and welcoming and looked out across Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace, the current London home of Prince George and his parents. The furniture and decor were contemporary and soothing in shades of brown and beige. The bed linen was all white offset by a deep red throw at the foot of each bed. There was also a wardrobe with plenty of hanging space, a comfortable sofa and armchair, a low table, a desk, a minibar, a large TV and, hurrah, an alcove with tea and coffee making things – there was even some decaffeinated coffee there too. The room was air-conditioned and felt too cold when I arrived but I adjusted the control and it quickly became more comfortable.

Twin room, Royal Garden Hotel, London. Copyright Gretta Schifano

Bathroom

The en-suite bathroom was all tasteful, beige tiles and white fixtures and fluffy towels and robes and had everything that I needed. The large, walk-in power shower was great and the deliciously scented toiletries were by venerable London perfumier Penhaligon’s.

Bathroom, Royal Garden Hotel. Copyright Gretta Schifano

Breakfast

We ate a very good breakfast in the hotel’s Park Terrace Restaurant overlooking Kensington Gardens. Luckily we arrived just before breakfast service ended otherwise I may have eaten far too much. As it was I had a bowl of fresh fruit and then some scrambled eggs and mushrooms washed down with a decaff cappuccino and some grapefruit juice. And it would have been rude not to try the pastries. And the wholemeal toast with butter and marmalade was delivered to our table anyway. After all of that deliciousness I didn’t feel hungry until the evening.

Children

I think that this would be a good place for families to stay in London and I’m sure that my kids would love staying here. There are family rooms and interconnecting rooms available, cots and highchairs can be provided and there are children’s menus in the restaurant. The hotel website says that children are welcome throughout the hotel. All of the hotel staff that I met were unfailingly polite and helpful.

Location

The hotel is in a wonderful London location for visiting families. Kensington is one of the wealthiest areas in London and is home to some world-class family-friendly museums including the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. Kensington Gardens is just a minute’s walk from the hotel entrance and is a great place to take kids. Within Kensington Gardens is Kensington Palace (you can read about our recent tour of Kensington Palace here) and the Diana Memorial playground which is a fantastic, free play area with a huge pirate ship at its centre. High Street Kensington underground station is just a few minutes’ walk from the hotel.

Kensington palace. Copyright Gretta Schifano

London

If you’d like some ideas for family activities in London you can read my autumn and summer posts on things to do with kids in the city.

Verdict

I enjoyed my trip to the Royal Garden Hotel and would definitely recommend it as a great place to stay in London, with or without children. The only disappointment was that the hotel’s Health Club was closed for refurbishment when I was there – I’ll just have to go back and check it out when it reopens!

The lowdown

The twin room which I stayed in at the Royal Garden Hotel cost £230 for one night including breakfast and wifi.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Tots 100. All opinions are my own, as ever.

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