Hotel deals, a guide

Hotel deals that are offered by the theatre breaks agencies vary through the year in a fairly regular pattern. Knowing this can help you plan your theatre break so that you get the best hotel deal possible.
I’m going to explain 5 hotel deals that you might be offered and give a rough idea of when in the year these might be available. If you can take advantage of these special hotel deals by being flexible with your days & dates you can often save quite a bit of money or get more for what you do spend.

Hotel Deals including a hotel restaurant dinner

Hotel deals are sometimes offered that include some meals, this can be as simple as a full cooked breakfast or occasionally a pre-theatre dinner the hotel restaurant. These are usually very good value and worth snapping up as they often have limited availability. These are usually offered in late spring and summer when London hotels have more free restaurant space at weekends.

For example the Friday Dinner, Theatre and Hotel Offer from Show and Stay is an excellent hotel deal. You’ve got the choice of 27 top shows and 4 great *4 hotels, all with good restaurants. It is a limited offer. You have to book tickets and have your pre-show dinner on a Friday on or before June 26th and you must book on or before May 31st 2009

Luxury upgrades

Often in the late spring and summer you can get hotel deals that allow you to upgrade from a 3* to a 4* hotel, from a 4* to a 5* or to a more luxurious room for a small amount or even for free.

For example at the moment (valid for stays up to 29th August 2009) for Friday, Saturday and Sunday overnight stays you can book the 5* Andaz Hotel by Hyatt and receive a free upgrade to a King size room. The Andaz is a mix of Victorian opulence and state-of-the-art technology. The Andaz was the old Great Eastern building near Liverpool St station and it’s been very stylishly updated.

Andaz by Hyat hotel deals

Your upgraded King room is 29-sq.-metre. It features a plush king bed, oversized work desk and bath with ecologically friendly shower, fast-fill tub and hot towel rail, air conditioning, and a gorgeous modern design. Enjoy complimentary amenities such as healthy mini-bar, local phone calls, wired and wireless Internet access, iPod dock and the luxury of yukata robes.
You might think this sort of luxury would be horribly expensive and normally you’d be right! To stay one Friday night in June at full price would cost you £270!

But book it as a hotel deal as part of a theatre break and prices start from just £92 per person including your show ticket (one night stay plus tickets for Woman in Black)
Book your 5* upgraded hotel deal.

Midweek hotel deals

These midweek discount hotel deals are usually offered in the early spring and autumn. You can sometimes save up to 50% on the price of a weekend theatre break. In general, even when there isn’t a special offer on prices tend to be cheaper for certain week nights. However, this can be because some of the leading roles are taken by understudies on a couple of the quieter nights. If this doesn’t bother you, and very often it shouldn’t as many of the understudies or ‘alternates’ are just as good as the ‘stars’, then these hotel deals can be a real bargain.

Hotel Deals with an extra night free or reduced rate.

Hotel deals like these can come up at just about any time of year. It just depends if some of the London hotels have excess capacity. They are often weekend deals giving you 3 or even 3 nights in the city and allowing you to turn a theatre break into a mini holiday in the capital. When you are booking any theatre break if you can manage an extra night or two it’s usually worth checking to see if there’s any rate reduction for extra nights, even if it’s not been advertised. You’ll usually see an option to ‘extend your stay’ once you’ve chosen your hotel.

Hotel Deals with show ticket and one night free

Hotel deals where your hotel room comes free with your ticket sound to good to be true but they are offered at some times of the year, for some shows. This can sometimes be for the less sought after shows or if it is for a popular show it might be for less popular dates and times. They are good value if you can be really flexible about what you want to see and when you want to go. Often these hotel deals peak in July and August.

Dinner and hotel deals can be well worth looking into. One of the decisions that need to be made when planning a theatre beak is when to dine on the evening of the show. Most West End musicals and plays apart from matinees start at around seven thirty and it is recommended to arrive at the theatre at least thirty minutes before the show, even if you have already collected your tickets. So this is slightly different to the normal pattern for dining out in the evening, hence the concept of the special pre-theatre or post-theatre menu. Now if you decide to choose your own restaurant it may involve two extra journeys around busy London. One way to simplify the arrangements is to dine at your hotel. That way the itinery for the first day could look something like this

• Arrive at your central London Rail Terminal eg Kings Cross or Euston
• Travel to your Hotel
• Check in and make yourself comfortable in your luxury hotel room
• at 5.30, go downstairs and enjoy fine dining in the Hotel Restaurant
• At 6.45 make your way to towards the theatre
• 7.30 – 10.00 pm Enjoy a fantastic night out at a West End Musical you’ll never forget.
• Back to the hotel bar for late evening drinks then upstairs for a comfortable nights sleep

instead of:

• arrive in London
• Travel to the Hotel
• Check in, drop off your bags then dash out again
• Wander around looking for somewhere appropriate to eat or travel half way across London
• Worry about getting to the theatre on time
• take a short but expensive cab ride just to make sure
• Enjoy the show immensely, but still feeling a bit flustered for the first five minutes.

Restaurants within Hotels

Hotel restaurants are amongst the best dining experiences even for non residents. The Savoy restaurant is famous, for example and there are many other restaurants famous in their own right which are attached to top hotels. You’ve heard of the Dorchester and Claridges? Both hotels. But that doesn’t mean ‘Dining In” is always the most expensive option, far from it. When booking a theatre breaks package, some of the hotel choices offered will include dinner on the first night as part of the deal. When there is a special offer running, that can sometimes work out equivalent to a free dinner in a fine restaurant!

Larger Hotels will have a choice of restaurants all within the same building complex. The ever popular St Giles Hotel, right on the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, has three restaurants plus bars and coffee shops, adding Italian, Chinese and Japanese cuisines to the usual fare. The Strand Palace Hotel, right in the West End near Covent Garden has both the Strand Carvery and Johnston’s Brasserie – one of the most popular restaurants for pre-theatre dinners.

During the spring season, Show and Stay have an offer for Friday night theatre breaks with up to 49% off the full price and dinner included. This is for selected four star Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels.