My room over the stars at Hotel Indigo London Leicester Square

After arriving in London Heathrow on Icelandair this week, I headed to Hotel Indigo London – 1 Leicester Square for a free night using my IHG Rewards Club Mastercard anniversary certificate. Nearly every year I have redeemed my free night for InterContinental London Park Lane, so a change of scene seemed in order. Hotel Indigo Leicester Square is a spring 2018 upscale addition to IHG hotels in London. Kimpton Fitzroy in the Bloomsbury area opens on October 24.

Hotel Indigo Leicester Square is 60,000 points per night. According to The Points Guy, Chase free nights issued by May 1, 2019 will remain uncapped, but after that date will be capped at 40,000 points hotels. So I need to be sure to redeem my next Chase free night certificate I recently received while it is good at any IHG hotel.

Leicester Square London

Leicester Square is in the heart of London’s theatre and entertainment district. Piccadilly Circus is the nearest Underground station to the hotel on the Piccadilly line with direct London Heathrow service. The hotel is midway between Leicester Square Underground Station and Piccadilly Circus Underground and directly across from Leicester Square.

Hotel Indigo Leicester Square has a theatre theme running through the hotel and its 95 rooms.

The lobby is basically only a check-in desk with one couch and a hallway to the right with two elevators.

The two room types available for my Chase anniversary free night were Theatre Room (17 sqm, no window, but big 65″ screen TV) or Queen Bed (15sqm, window).

I opted for a room with windows. Turned out to be a good choice on my part.

The British Film Institute 2018 BFI London Film Festival Oct 10-21 had their red carpet star walk directly below my second floor room.

I had my telephoto lens and could have probably snapped loads of stars, but celebrity sightings are not really my scene and the lights outside my window were quite intense with the curtains open. I looked out the window and snapped a few photos of the spectacle. The only reason I know this photo has Dakota Johnson is I recognize her Gucci dress.

Room 207

The temperature in London was a warm 22C/72F when I arrived around 3pm and the room was too warm for me. Fortunately the AC worked well and a 19C setting with maximum fan cooled the room space quickly.

My only real complaint about the room is the shower stall had a half door, but that did not seem to be the primary cause for water leaking from the edge onto the floor. Basically the floor towel soaked with water running out of the shower onto the bathroom floor.

There was also a full length mirror beside the bed that I did not capture in my room photos.

There were two bottles of water in the room. No real closet in the room, only space to hang clothes on bar rack next to coffee maker.

I was surprised, but happy to find an empty refrigerator in the room. I occupied it with a couple of bottles of beer from Whole Foods Market, the nearest regular grocery store to the hotel.

Hotel Indigo London Leicester Square 9th Floor Rooftop Bar

The highlight of the hotel is the 9th floor rooftop bar. The view is spectacular.

My trip up to the 9th floor resulted in my other complaint about the hotel. There are only two elevators and they are slow. Except for using the elevator to go up to the 9th floor, it was generally much quicker to take the stairs between my room and the ground floor.

I lucked out with great weather for my afternoon arrival in London and photos from the 9th floor bar balcony. The skies clouded up a few hours later and the next morning was a rainy day as I rode a National Express bus from London Victoria Coach Station to Luton Airport LTN for a flight to Romania.