There's plenty to get excited about in London this week as one property opens, another offers special Christmas incentives, and the city's mass transit system becomes a different kind of tourist attraction.
New Townhouse Hotel Open in London
The Arch London has started its soft opening in preparation for a formal debut in January. Named after the nearby London landmark to the south, The property is an 82-bedroom townhouse hotel on Great Cumberland Place built inside seven Georgian Grade II listed buildings and two mews houses. The hotel is part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, a member of Pride of Britain Hotels, and part of the AB Hotels Group, a collection of three individually unique and family-owned hotels, venues and facilities in southeast England.
Set back from the hubbub of the West End, The Arch London is located in a quiet residential area just two blocks from Selfridges and Hyde Park and a 10-minute walk from the shopping areas of Marylebone High Street and Bond Street.
The Arch London’s 82 individually designed guest rooms (Standard, Superior, Deluxe, Executive) are spread over six floors and include nine suites, three of which have an outdoor terrace. For the first time in a London hotel, bathrooms will feature products from New York’s Malin + Goetz apothecary and lab. All rooms are serviced twice daily and have complimentary access to full Sky HD package with sports and movies, internet radio with over 10,000 channels, a CD/DVD player with in-house film library featuring the ‘Best Oscar’ movie from each of the last 50 years, an iPod docking station and wireless internet. Refreshments include complimentary soft drinks from the mini bar, a selection of fine Jing Teas with Jing Teaware and coffees made from a Nespresso machine.
Standard rooms start from £180 ($299) and suites from £350 ($582), but the hotel is offering an opening rate of $324 including breakfast subject to availability on the Standard, Superior, Deluxe and Executive Rooms. From April 6, 2010 standard rooms will start at £180 and the Suites from £350.
General Manager Beccy Gunn is formerly of The Franklin, The Great Eastern and Firmdale Hotels.
Visit www.thearchlondon.com.
London Hotel Offers Holiday Perks, Specials
The Radisson Edwardian Bloomsbury Street Hotel is providing stocking-stuffers as added treats for their guests. This December, the hotel's ‘Book of the Month' will be a choice of three festive classics: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The First Noel by Jan Pienkowski and A Visit from Saint Nichloas, (more famously known as The Night Before Christmas) by Clement Moore. Guests are invited to peruse or take away a complimentary copy of their favorite holiday story.
The hotel is also offering a "Shop, Sip and Celebrate" promotion. Guests can save up to 35 percent at the Radisson Edwardian Bloomsbury Street hotel or any of Radisson Edwardian's 12 hotels in London and Manchester. Rooms start at £99 ($164) for single rooms in London and £173 ($287) for a deluxe room in Manchester. Rates are based on double occupancy.
The Shop, Sip and Celebrate promotion includes:
Accommodation
Full English breakfast
Afternoon tea for two every day of your stay
10 percent of all own label goods at Hamleys
£30 off every £150 spent at Liberty
2 for 1 dining at your hotel restaurant
Collection of exclusive leisure offers at London's favorite attractions, issued as online vouchers on booking
'Tube Tour' Offers Unique Way to Explore London
Insider London's private "Tube Tour" reveals the fascinating facts and surprising stories behind the "equally loved and loathed" London Underground.
The new Underground and Tube Tour travels across 150 years of history in just two hours.
Highlights include:
* Traveling chronologically from the first ever Tube station to one of its most futuristic
Discovering how the Victorians dug all those tunnels – by hand
* The tropical insects that live only in the Underground
* The man behind the 'Mind the Gap' voice
* The sub-service lines forming the tube's visionary future
Alternatively, for a full day's excursion, check out Insider London’s Underground Epic Tube Tour. This six-hour odyssey moves both above ground and below to show remarkable sights such as its bomb shelter architecture and the scandalous figures at the Underground's headquarters.
Visit www.insider-worldwide.com/london-underground-tours.