| Hotel Rating: |      | | Satisfaction: |      | | Reviews: 6 | Photos: 8 | | Bryanston Street Marble Arch |
 | London Thistle Marble Arch Reviews | 1 - 6 of 6 |  |
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 | Thistle Marble Arch: A Rollicking Place
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by gilabrand The Marble Arch is not an intimate little mom & pop hotel. With 692 rooms, it is a big, bustling place with people coming and going from all over the world. The lobby, a glitsy Art Deco affair, is always teeming. Nevertheless, the service was good and the rooms were quite spacious. The linens and blankets were not luxurious - we are not great fans of scratchy wool - but everything was perfectly clean.
The location is excellent, across the street from Hyde Park, where all the double decker bus tours start. The underground is two steps away (the station is Marble Arch & Bond Street). The hotel is right on the corner of Oxford Street where all the famous shops and department stores are located. We were there in January when the winter sales were on and the stores were packed with bargain hunters (I didn't think it was so cheap, but everyone else did - they were practically mauling one another to get at the merchandise). The buffet breakfast was very rich and varied -more like dinner than breakfast, with all the sausages, potatoes, baked beans and other odd things eaten in England in the morning, but there was also plenty for vegetarians like us to choose from. The hotel has a convenient room for storing your luggage so you can go out for some last minute shopping while waiting for your taxi to the airport.
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 | Thistle Marble Arch: Hit and miss
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 My room at the Thistle Marble Arch by YPie It all started so well. At reception I was told I had a "very nice room", a deluxe room in fact. As I'd got a super cheap deal in the first place I was more than happy with this. It was only later that I realised instead of my double, no smoking room I'd got a twin smoking deluxe room, but none of the other features of the upgrade. So although the room was huge, and had a sofa and a MASSIVE bathroom, apart from that I really just got a bathrobe and a steam shower (where the steam bit didn't work). There was also a stereo, although it had seen better days. I was just a bit spoiled after the previous night in the Grange City I think. The whole hotel was a lot more impersonal. Queues for the lift, queues at check in/check out (with different queues for different groups of people). Lots of people from the cruise ship market. The website I booked through said that the hotel had a gym. This may be true, but I didn't see any sign of it. To be fair, there seemed to be a lack of signs in the hotel, and I had very little info in my room about the facilities, so I may have just missed it. It's a good job I did so much walking I didn't need to work out anyway! The location is busy, right on Oxford Street at Marble Arch. The entrance is round the back of the hotel, and a lot of the rooms look onto an inner space rather than out onto the main road. There is an NCP car park next door, you get a discount if you're staying in the hotel, but I would imagine it's still fairly pricey. Reception is on the first floor. There is an escalator up from ground level, but it only goes up so you have to take the stairs down. So try not to take too much luggage unless you can persuade the porter to do it!
The location's good, and it can be cheap for a 4* hotel in London, if you get a good deal. I paid £55, but the price subsequently the price went up and it was more expensive than other, better, hotels so shop around. Theme: HotelPhone: 44-870-333-9116
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