Club Carlson members have a large selection of hotels to choose from in London. I picked the Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street as our first of three hotels for six nights in London. The hotel worked out well as a convenient location for us as tourists arriving from London Heathrow Airport – LHR on the London Underground.
There are many options for airport transportation into London from LHR. Navigating the London Underground can be challenging for a novice. Reading the London Underground map is confusing with many colored lines. London Underground operates all the way to Heathrow Airport on the Piccadilly Line. The convenience of Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street London is its proximity to Leicester Square Underground Station on the Piccadilly Line. You can board the Underground at London Heathrow and ride all the way into the city in about an hour without changing trains. Leicester Square station is less than ten minutes walk to the hotel.
Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street Hotel entrance is located directly on the roundabout at Seven Dials. The location is off the main traffic streets. There are truly seven roads intersecting at Seven Dials. Mercer Street is the road on the left side of the hotel entrance.
The location for London is great for walking around Covent Garden and Soho in the area of London’s theater district . For a tourist unfamiliar with London, here is my quick take on these three areas based on two days of wandering around the neighborhoods near the Rad Blu Mercer Street.
Covent Garden – shopping galore and this is Christmas shopping season. On Sunday night there were thousands of people on the streets in the shopping district.
Radisson Blu Mercer Street is surrounded by the theater district for plays.
Soho is a mixed bag of pubs, trendy shops and sex shops. Even if some of the shops might seem seedy, the crowds make the area safe feeling. The number of trendy boutique stores appear to be displacing the porn and massage stores of Soho. Chinatown is in the midst of all these places.
In short, Radisson Blu Mercer Street is a central location for many of the activities a tourist is likely to want in London. Park Plaza Westminster Bridge and Park Plaza County Hall are by the Thames River and convenient for London Eye, Parliament and Big Ben attractions, government and Royal sites with Buckingham Palace about a 20 minute walk.
Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street
Radisson Blu Mercer Street has seven floors. Business Class rooms on the 7th floor offer views of the surrounding area. The only room type available were two twin beds when I booked two nights for 50,000 points using the free night benefit as a Club Carlson Visa card member. At check-in, the receptionist said he was upgrading us to a larger room with a King bed on Floor 1. Turns out Floor 1 has steps to the elevators and steps in the hall, while other floors do not have steps.
A small, nicely equipped, fitness center is on the basement floor.
A large room in London might be an oxymoron.
Kelley pulled a tape measure out of her bag and said, “I thought you might need this for London.” The room is comfortably spacious and two chairs is a desirable feature.
It surprised me to measure the space as 16 ft x 14 ft with the bathroom being especially large. A room size of 224 sq. ft. sounds so small.
The hotel rate was $400 per night at the time I booked and even higher when I checked rates a couple days ago.
Room features include two complimentary bottles of water. There is an empty refrigerator holding salad and perishable food items I purchased at Whole Foods Market about ten minutes walk from the hotel. A hot water carafe and instant coffee and tea.
Between Ireland and London, I have only had instant coffee for the past six days. Starbucks are all over central London, but I refuse to pay high prices for coffee in the States, and I don’t even want to see the price of Starbucks coffee in London.
Kelley called reception to ask for a blow dryer. She was told to check the closet. Sure enough, the blow dryer was attached to the closet wall. She asked me to mention that she had to stand next to the closet door to blow dry her hair which she found a nuisance. There is a mirror on the inside closet door.
There is an extensive selection of TV channels and convenient electrical outlets above the table.
One word of warning about the Mercer Street hotel are the number of steps in the hallways with steps to the elevator and steps along the room floors.
One serious complaint about the hotel is the noise level from the street with our room on the first floor. The room windows have no soundproofing at all. It sounds like the windows are wide open with every sound from the street 15 feet below audible, including people’s footsteps, conversations, and especially trucks passing by the hotel. Fortunately there is not a steady stream of vehicle traffic and the traffic dwindles to a trickle at night. On top of that is the poor seal of the windows as I sit at the table in my sweater feeling the cold air pass through the window sill onto the back of my neck. Even cigarette smoke drifts into the room from people walking by on the sidewalk.
Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street hotel lobby.
Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street is a convenient location for travelers coming from or going to London Heathrow Airport with its close proximity to the Leicester Square Underground station on the Piccadilly Line with direct trains to the airport.
Be mindful of the steps when on Floor 1 or ask for a room on a higher floor to reduce the street noise in your room.
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