Travelling to a show? Hotel recommendations.

It's a fair distance, but if the weather's OK the walk will take you past a number of London's major sights - walk down Charing Cross Road to Trafalgar Square, then down Whitehall to Parliament Square, then along Victoria Street. Give yourself plenty of time to meander, stop for a coffee, go in the National Gallery or Westminster Abbey (or both), make it part of the day rather than just a walk from A to B. If the weather is less cooperative, pick up the number 24 bus, which goes down Tottenham Court Road and then follows exactly the same route (or if you just want to get to Victoria, you can also catch the number 390 bus on Tottenham Court Road - it also goes to Victoria, but via Oxford Street, Marble Arch, and Hyde Park Corner).

You'll have to use contactless or an Oyster card, because you can't pay cash fares for buses in London; the bus fare is a flat £1.50; and if you only use buses the cap is £4.50 (meaning however many buses you take in the course of a day you won't be charged more than that).

Quicker - the tube. From that hotel, start at Tottenham Court Road and it's one change either way: Central Line to Oxford Circus (one stop) then Victoria Line to Victoria (two stops), or Northern Line to Embankment (three stops) then District/Circle Line to Victoria (three stops). Using Oyster or contactless, the tube fare is £2.40, and if you stay within zones one and two there's a daily cap of £7.00 (again, meaning however much you use the tube/trains/buses you won't be charged any more than that). Buying a paper travelcard from a ticket machine is almost twice as expensive, and single cash fares on the tube are (deliberately) punitive (within zone one a single journey would be £4.90).

Enjoy your trip.

tfl.gov.uk for tube and bus maps. I like the bus personally as you will see so much more and there is the advantage of an actual person driving in case of problems (although it's hit and miss you'll get a helpful one).

I wouldn't book hotels this early, they will all be at advance full price still. I never book hotels until a few days before when they start panic discounting to fill their rooms.

I never book my actual travel or hotels until 2 - 3 days before I'm due to leave x

Has anybody stayed at The County Hotel? Price and location are good

Have you seen the prices for hotels in London over the next few months?

Lastminute.com used to do these secret hotel.deals where you didn't know where you were staying until you booked but with a bit of research you could figure out which hotmit was. There were some great 5 star offers. Not sure if that's back up and running yet.

Looking for any new insights - new hotels in West End - and how Elizabeth Line affects travel into the West End

Recent reviews suggest that david’s recommendation above might need a bit of further research before booking too - albeit that some of the problems seem to be connected with building works so may be temporary. 

Was going to pop down to see Guys and Dolls, possibly Newsies and (finally) Cabaret towards the end of April. Got tix lined up (didn’t actually buy them, thank God) and then went to look at hotel prices. 



Absolutely CRAZY. Probably double what I last paid even for Premier Inn. It’s way more short notice than I would normally plan a trip so shoot me for that but effin’ hell how is anybody supposed to have a spontaneous Theatre weekend with this daylight robbery going on? 
Then you’ve got Avanti West Cost who have somehow managed to get a franchise extension despite not actually running a service for the last year… it’s just becoming unfeasible. 

Needless to say, trip aborted. I feel very fortunate to have plenty of regional theatre close by and very sorry for millions of folks who don’t. 

Yes I noticed the same when planning a trip in June for Aspects and Brokeback Mountain. Resorted to a new travelodge in Peckham in the end which opens in May so is cheaper at the moment.