The Strand Palace Hotel – London

Hotel: The Strand Palace Hotel

Type: Hotel

City: London, UK

Address: 372 Strand, London, WC2R 0JJ

Website: Link.

Date Visited: November, 2017

 

General Hotel Rating:

Expedia: 88% – 4/5

TripAdvisor: 4/5 (453/1076 Hotels in London)

Booking.com: 8.1

Enuresis Friendly Rating (1 to 5): 5. See the Enuresis Friendly Rating System Explained.

 

Details of Stay and Recommendation:

I had been looking forward to my visit to London for a while; it spelled the beginning of a string  international trips for me, after sometime being limited to more local travel. I stayed at this hotel while in London for 3 nights for business.

I was given my choice of hotel in downtown London (using a budgeting system that’s rather complicated), and so I began hunting about. I stumbled across this hotel which was not only in my price range, but also had a novel website feature. I was very surprised to learn that this hotel has a live chat program on their website. I found this tool very handy – as reader and fellow travellers will know, emails sent to hotels (less so if they are accompanied with a booking reference) are too often lost in inboxes. I also liked the chat program as it provided the immediate response of a phone call, without the embarrassing need to actually verbalize my needs to a live human on the other end of the line. Also, given the time difference, typing was more practical.

I opened a chat window to ‘General Inquiries’ and sent the following message

“Management or Housekeeping, 
  
I am planning a trip to London in a short while, and am looking for accommodation. One of the guests suffers from nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting), and I was wondering whether your hotel has waterproof mattress covers on your beds or if they available for guests? 
  
Thank you very much,”

After hardly any wait at all, I was asked to repeat my request to ‘Reservations,’ and did, using the same message. Again, after not too much of a wait, and with my patience reassured with the little ‘typing’ animation, I received the following reply:

“Hello, i would need to check it with out housekeeping.”

I thanked them and waited a sort while, and the replied:

“yes, we can arrange that.”

Now I’ve had some confusion with hotels in the past. Some, who have been accommodating, misunderstood my request for a waterproof mattress cover. I’ve arrived in a number of hotel rooms only to find a children’s cot, equipped with waterproof mattress cover. And so, before booking, I asked one more clarification:

“That is excellent, thank you, and just to check, those would be for your regular sized beds? (and not just for a children’s cot).”

And the succinct response was “yes.”

With this assurance, I went ahead and booked the hotel. I attached a comment with my booking to ensure that the mattress cover was added, but the person on the other line assured me that it would be.

After checking in I checked under the sheets just to be sure, and sure enough, the mattress protection was there, without my having to ask anyone.

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in London, and made the most of my time outside of work time. Long-haul flights are always draining on me, and among other things, mess up my sleeping cycles (see my past posts on air travel 1, 2, and 3). This in turn tends to exacerbate my bedwetting. I was glad to have had the security of the backup mattress protection on all three nights, as the protection I wore to bed leaked on two of them. Three nights was not enough to really get over the jet lag unfortunately.

The housekeeping staff was excellent, and had my sheets discreetly changed on these two nights, and emptied the trash, etc. Overall this was one of the best experiences I’ve had with a hotel, helped in large part by the live chat program and discreet staff. I was happy to award this hotel a 5 ranking.

Chain and Loyalty Program?:

None.