London’s summer this year has been absolutely brutal! At the beginning of August, with temperatures heading towards 37°C yet again, I wasted no time booking a hotel escape after experiencing the heatwave a few weeks earlier. Given the hotel promotions and credit card offers available at the time, I settled on Hilton and booked the Hilton London Bankside.
I’d actually stayed here once before, about ten years ago, when the hotel had been open for less than a year. The experience wasn’t particularly impressive back then, so I thought it was time to see whether things had improved.
On a side note, this was also my first time booking through Gondola, and things got off to a slightly awkward start. A technical issue with the integration between Gondola and Hilton meant my first booking didn’t go through. They did, however, offer me $50 in compensation. Once the booking was successfully made, it appeared in the Hilton app within a few hours, and the subsequent stay and points credit all worked as expected, just like a booking made directly through Hilton.
Back to the hotel itself. It’s located on London’s South Bank, with Southwark and Blackfriars being the nearest Tube stations. The surroundings are lovely: close to the Thames, yet surprisingly quiet. One of the reasons I chose it was that I could easily walk to and from work.
To meet the spending requirement on my credit card, I booked a King Deluxe Room, the third room category up from the bottom. On the day, I was upgraded to a King Executive Premium Room. Hilton Bankside has a bewildering number of room categories, so I couldn’t be bothered to work out exactly how many levels I’d jumped!
The hotel originally had seven floors, but two new floors, the eighth and ninth, have recently been added. Rooms on the ninth floor only started opening gradually quite recently, and construction work is still ongoing. Meanwhile, the older floors are also being refurbished. Renovating a hotel just ten years after opening makes me think the owners aren’t exactly short of money!
If your room category includes the word “Premium”, it means you’ve been allocated one of the new rooms. Let’s take a look at my Executive Premium Room on the top floor. I suspect not many guests have stayed here yet.
Everything feels brand new. It’s not particularly luxurious, but the overall finish is good, and I quite like the distinctive design of the headboard and TV frame. Considering this is only a four-star hotel, the room hardware is pretty impressive.
The shower controls, on the other hand, are bizarre. I spent ages trying to get the shower working without any success, so I eventually called reception. The staff member gave me instructions straight away, clearly very familiar with the problem. I guess I’m not the first guest to struggle with it!
One major improvement over the old rooms is the floor-to-ceiling windows, which are now completely transparent rather than frosted. London’s eastern skyline is quite impressive, but unfortunately, even from the ninth floor, the view was rather limited. I could just about make out St Paul’s Cathedral.
Now, let’s head down for breakfast!
The buffet was perfectly decent but nothing particularly special. One nice touch was the selection of Asian cuisine, including plain rice congee and spring rolls!
That’s a pretty rare sight at breakfast in the UK. There were indeed plenty of Asian guests around the restaurant that morning.
Another advantage of the hotel is its Executive Lounge, conveniently located next to the restaurant on the ground floor.
The decor is rather nice, with a modern business-hotel feel and an attractive colour scheme. The lounge is fairly spacious, although I’ve heard it can get very busy at weekends.
Happy hour runs from 6 pm to 8 pm. The hot food selection was limited to two main dishes: lamb tagine and vegetable tagine, served with couscous. I only tried the lamb tagine, which was very tasty.
There were also snacks such as cheese, crackers and cold cuts. Wine and spirits were served by dedicated staff, which was a nice touch.
Finally, let’s take a look at the gym and swimming pool.
Compared with my stay ten years ago, this visit was a huge improvement. Hilton London Bankside gets a solid thumbs-up from me. The location, room facilities and Executive Lounge are all impressive, and it’s often possible to book it for a little over £100 per night. For London, that’s pretty good value!
I’ve put some of my family in here a few years ago, they really liked it. How would you get a 100£ a night booking? Through point bookings? The new rooms look great, id def. wouldnt mind a stay sometime.