Is it risky booking London hotel rooms the day before?

thor

This summer I am planning to spend a few days in London but have never stayed in a hotel before so am looking for a bit of advice.
The weather will be the main determinant of when I go so pre booking a room weeks or months before seems a little risky. I don't want to travel to London to find that it will be raining every day. So given that I will be looking for hotels in Neasdon/Wembley area can I risk booking a room the day before leaving or is it likely that there will be no rooms available. I am hoping I can but as I will be targeting cheaper hotels such as premier inn or travelodge, I am not too confident.

p00hsticks

I can't comment on the availability but you will almost certainly pay considerably more booking the day before, especially from the likes of Travelodge.

Limiting your location to one particular areas obviously also means there is more likelihood of not bein able to find rooms available at short notice.

What are you intending to do when you get there ? If it's general site seeing there are plenty of things to do if it's raining (Museums etc) so a bit of rain isn't the disaster it might be in some other places.

susancs

For the budget hotels such as Premier Inn and Travelodge London hotels you get the cheapest rates when you book in advance. Nearer the time you will pay considerably more. The cheapest rates are the saver rates which are non refundable but you can pay more and book the flexible rate which allows cancellation. The flexible rate would still be better than booking last minute. Summer time in London is peak season so you will aslo be more limited in you choice of hotels (even more so if you plan to go in the school holidays as already a lot of the cheaper rates for certain days have beeen booked up). In regard to Wembley area if there is an event in Wembley Stadium it will be expensive to stay there and may be booked up.

I noticed that Premier Inn London Edgware hotel has £29 rooms in July. It is about 5-10 minutes walk to the tube station (Northern line) For eg the Northern line goes direct to Leicester Square in 30 mins approx, Camden town for the markets in 25 mins, Waterloo (for London Eye, Big Ben , House Of Parliment in about 35 minutes. You also only a 15 minute bus journey from there to the free RAF museum in Hendon. You could use www.tfl.gov.uk journey planner to plan your journeys in advance.

paddyrg

I always book late in the day, the choice is more limited and prices may be higher - or lower. If you're looking for just one night, unsold rooms may be discounted the day before. During the night of the Olympic opening ceremony I paid £68 for a 4* room at Tower Bridge (similar rooms were £150+ by that time), booked and paid on my phone using Trivago (sometimes rates between discounters vary, only one was offering £68, the rest were still £140+ for the same room). If you want flexibility you have to be brave, or rich.

richardw

In that part of London you're also up against avoiding events at Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena and Fountain Studios.

If you can pay £100 per night or more, your last minute opportunities widen.

thor

It looks like pre-booking is the way to go(probably a month or two before). If saver rates are cheap enough then I might just sacrifice my fee if the weather is wet rather than going for more expensive room booking. I really hate the rain and will not go despite the Natural History Museum being my no 1 attraction. I do plan on seeing the usual tourist hotspots such as Big Ben, Buck Palace though and wet weather literally puts a dampener on all that.