This page provides some suggestions of hotels and hostels to stay in, and also some useful links for accommodation and travel information.
Recommended places to stay
Here is a list of hotels which are in or near the Regent's Park area, from most to least expensive. Please be aware that we have not stayed at any of these hotels ourselves - we are basing our recommendations on a combination of location, price and reviews on sites such as Trip Advisor.
Prices are based on us getting quotes for a two night stay (2-4 September 2005) online, done in February 2005. Information about each hotel is available by clicking on its name, which will take you to its website, including online booking facilities.
Meliá White House
Albany Street
Regent's Park
London
NW1 3UP
Tel: (+44) (0)20 7391 3000
Nearest tube station: Great Portland StreetWe've been in the lobby of this hotel, and it's so posh we don't think you could even call it a lobby - maybe a foyer. Seriously, we thought we'd walked into a James Bond film or something. So, if the entrance is anything to go by, this hotel is the one to go for if you really want to splash out and get proper luxury!
- Single room: From £102 per night
- Double room: From £102 per night
Holiday Inn London - Regent's Park
Carburton Street
London
W1W 5EE
Tel: +44 (0)870 400 9111
Nearest tube station: Great Portland StreetThis hotel's lobby wasn't quite as posh, but it did look very stylish, and this hotel has a very good rating on Trip Advisor.
- Single room: From £73 per night
- Double room: From £73 per night
Ashlee House (Hostel)
261-265 Grays Inn Road
London
WC1X 8QT
Tel: +44 (0)20 7833 9400
Nearest tube station: King's Cross St. PancrasWe've actually seen a room in this hostel - it was small, but the staff were friendly and it seemed clean, so if all you need is a place to rest your head it should be fine! If you want to stay here, it's well worth getting a group of people to book together, as you can then book a larger room or dorm together, and should get a 10% discount. There are only three or four small (single to triple) private rooms.
- Single room: £36 per night
- Twin room: £48 per night
- Triple room: £66 per night
- 4-6 Bed room (per person): £19 per night
- 8-10 Bed room (per person): £17 per night
- Dorm room (per person): £15 per night
If you would like to find other guests to share a room with, either browse our guest list and view guests' contact information by clicking on their names, or e-mail us (happycouple [at] zoolyweds [dot] co [dot] uk) and we'll put a list of people seeking room-mates on this page!
Sources of accommodation information
If you'd like to read reviews of our recommended hotels, get a better idea of their location or choose your own accommodation, this section provides some links to useful sites.
Trip Advisor
This site contains customer reviews for most London hotels, and can display them by popularity or hotel name. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to search by hotel name or by location within London.
BUG Europe
This site, aimed at backpackers, has reviews of London hostels among other things.
Streetmap
Very useful for finding out where things are, particularly by using its postcode search.
Expedia
A hotel-booking website, searchable by London areas (Marylebone and parts of Westminster are most convenient). Write down hotel details rather than saving links to Favourites/Bookmarks as the links will expire after a short time!
Hotel Connect
Another hotel-booking website, probably with a different range of hotels to choose from.
Octopus Travel
One more hotel-booking website - this one seemed to have a few more different hotels, but beware of hotels coming up in a London search that are actually miles away!
Sources of travel information
TfL Journey Planner
Once you know where you're staying, use this excellent journey planner (run by Transport for London) to find out how to get there, and to the zoo if you're not taking the Wedding Coach. It will search across all forms of public transport in London, including tube, bus and train. You can search for the zoo by using 'NW1 4RY' in the postcode search, or 'London Zoo' in the places of interest search.
National Rail journey planner
If you're coming into London by train, use this planner to find out which London station you'll arrive at, as the TfL planner only supports a few starting locations outside London. You can also find out how much train tickets will cost.
Airlines
If you're coming from far enough away to consider flying, some airline websites are listed below. All the London airports have train links into central London, and most also have coach services into London.
-
easyJet
(Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow to London)
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BMI
(Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds to London)
-
Ryanair
(Glasgow to London)
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British Airways
(Virtually anywhere you can think of to London)
-
Coaches
If you are broke and don't mind spending up to 12 hours travelling, here's a couple of coach sites:
Megabus
(Extremely cheap, but we've found them prone to delays)
National Express
(More reliable, but also usually more expensive. Having said that, they now seem to offer a cheap 'funfare' deal in direct competition with Megabus!)
Driving
To be frank, we find driving in central London pretty difficult and scary, so we'd only advise it for people much braver than us! Instead, we would recommend using public transport or the wedding coach if at all possible. If you are brave enough to attempt driving to the zoo, we can book you a parking space there for the duration of our wedding (costing £8) but any other parking will be down to you. Try using the directions feature on Multimap to plan your route, although we have had problems with it forgetting roads exist and suggesting bizarre routes! The zoo's postcode is NW1 4RY.
