During my London trip for the Harry Potter World Premiere earlier this month, I had the opportunity to stay at 2 different places.
One of them was The Washington Mayfair Hotel on Curzon Street, and the other was an apartment at Collingham Place, at Kensington (which we rented via roomorama.com). Both were located at fantastic areas. Sadly, I found my hotel stay to be rather lacking, although the per night price of the hotel stay was a lot more than the apartment at Kensington.
Here, I'm sharing some photos taken by my sister, with whom I stayed at the Kensington apartment. I'm also writing a review of the specific apartment I stayed at, and my experience with the property managers.
The apartment is a 3 minute walk away from Earl's Court Tube Station (even for my short Asian legs, as my BF says). Fairly easy to locate, and there are many convenience stores and supermarkets in the area. There's Sainsbury's (just round the corner, 1 minute walk away) and Waitrose (about 5 minutes walk away, near Gloucester Road Tube), both of which I love.
This area is within Zone 1 of London, which means it is really close by to all the places you might want to visit, plus a direct train ride on the Piccadilly Line to West End (Leicester Square).
There were two double beds in the apartment, one in a room, and the other in a "loft" just above the living room. I slept in the "loft" room, which is accessible through a staircase from the living room, as you can see from the photos.
The one bathroom in the apartment is shared, and not attached to the bedroom, although it really is just outside the bedroom. It has a bathtub, which was nice for a nice long bath after a long day of exploring London and returning late at night when temperature had dipped to about 10 degrees, even in the summer.
I love the little Miele kitchen that was equipped with a microwave, oven, induction stove, electric kettle, and basic cookware, drinkware (including wineglasses) and diningware. There is also a hidden fridge with a freezer, behind the door in the living room that led to the entrance of the apartment. We didn't cook any meals, but the kitchen and dining room allowed us to prepare a simple breakfast each morning, before we headed out for the day. It was nice sitting at the dining room with my sister and brother in-law, chatting over breakfast, and enjoying a glass of wine at the end of the night while watching TV in the living room together.
You can view the apartment posting on Roomorama here, and you'll find that the photos are very good and clear representations of what the apartment actually is in reality. I've uploaded my own gallery in this blog post - not much difference, is there? :) I know some websites and apartment owners (even hotels) make their property look way better than the actual conditions are, but in this case, what you see is really what you get!
I love that the apartment was really clean and well-kept, although it didn't come with any toiletries provided. We had to go out to buy some shampoo and bath gels at Sainsbury's! They did provide towels, of course.
The apartment rental rate on the website does not include the Roomorama.com admin fee, but it is still a very affordable price for London accommodation. I think the fee is calculated based on a percentage of the total rental fee, so for this apartment, we paid £50 for admin fee.
Also, you'll see on the website that for this particular property there's a £250 safety deposit (the owners tell us that it's necessary because they have experienced really bad tenants who completely trashed the apartment, and stole their TV and other electronics), and a mandatory one-time £50 cleaning fee. A bit pricey for cleaning fee, but I guess this ensures that you get the apartment in a clean condition always. I don't really want to wonder if my sheets have been changed since the last person slept in it, or if there are bed bugs in my bed. The cleaning fee should be enough to take care of all these! :P Although I would like to suggest to the owners or managers of the property to actually include the cleaning fee in the rental price, so as not to cause any unhappiness from tenants who might have missed out that clause while booking the apartment on the website.
Anyway, we got our safety deposit fully refunded after checking out, so no complaints there. My brother in-law, however, was a little baffled by all the admin work that was asked of us before we checked in. We were asked to sign a contract for rental and then scan and email it back (we didn't have to go through this during our previous stay at another apartment in London), and at one point we were also asked to provide verification for our credit card. However, this was solved by a Roomorama.com representative and we could skip that step.
The apartment's property managers (or owners?) were business-like, curt, and overall not unpleasant to deal with. It wasn't a very personable encounter, and they were not as friendly as some of the owners of B&B's that we've stayed at, but it is rather what you'd expect at hotel receptions as well.
All in all, this was a really good deal that we got through Roomorama.com - We paid £505 in total (inclusive of £50 admin and £50 cleaning fee), for 3 nights, and that worked out to be about £84 pounds per night for each room. The apartment sleeps 4 pax, so that works out to be £42 per person per night. Very reasonable indeed, for the luxuries provided in this apartment, considering my £300 per night hotel room at the Washington Mayfair in London and I must say I definitely enjoyed the stay at the apartment.
Among all the apartment options available on Roomorama.com, I'd say the price of this apartment is somewhere mid-range, and you can definitely get different apartments for different types of budgets. For example, I paid only £72 per night for 3 persons in a room, during my previous stay. So really, look at your budget and see what you can afford, and work around that to find your ideal apartment or room on Roomorama.com. :)
If you have any further questions about my experience with them, do leave me a message! I'm most happy to share more information. :)
Roomorama was featured in ST Life! today! I can't find the link to the original article, but you can read it from the forum here.
