Slough Dance Me to The Edge of Windsor...
For the past five years I have been coming to London twice a year for training on new products for our company and in those five years the majority of the stays have been at the Copthorne. It is a four star rated hotel and one of its nicest features is the proximity to Heathrow. Within 15 minutes you're there. It really is nothing to scoff at when comparing to many of the other offerings either nearby or further afield the airport.
Reception continues to be quick and efficient. Every time I've been too it seems to be at least one or two new young faces. Along with the kind and stalwart long term staffers the hotel has had a steady flow of interns and exchange students from many different countries minding reception, tending bar, and serving breaky.
The rooms are standard four star rooms. The view out the window looking into Slough is to be honest pretty dreary but in that London, comforting, homey way..... Row after row of row houses built of red fired brick. Slough of course is an industrial area and the reason our company uses this hotel is t is very close to both our headquarters in UK but also the main training center. Again proximity wins the day.
A trip into windsor to see the Castle or to have a cruise along the Mighty dark waters of the Thames or simply to stroll its banks and take in the "hoity and the toity" shopfronts restaurants and cobbled street points of history along the way is very easy to do because Windsor is so close. Even a trip into central london for a "Pub History tour" - wink, wink is very easily done since the Tube station is a short walk down the road from the Copthorne.
I like the breakfasts at the Copthorne. Choice beef and pork sausage, eggs done sunny side up, scrambled or boiled or if you like they will make for you an omelette. Fruit, ceral and yogurt table, white break, black bread, buns, croissaant and toast table, with jams and jelly. Cheese and mortadella table,
Hot buffet of the choice of eggs and sausage I just mentioned plus fried Canadian style ham-bacon, hash browns, steamed 'shrooms, fried tomatoes. Choice of three types of fresh juices every morning. Coffee and tea self served as you like, with or without milk or sugar. All in all a complete offering.
I've also had a few meals in the a la carte resaurant (same place where they serve breakfast buffet but it is transformed into a menued affair after seven. Here again they have a number of dishes from Steak and Lobster to Pasta, to Chicken to chicken salad and Greek and Garden as you like.
The Chinese restaurant on the same floor close to the lobby deserves mention as well. I don't do as well here describing the available dishes. Suffice to say, it goes beyond your typical egg roll and Peking duck for offerings. Price is reasonable in both restaurants too.
The bar food is well cooked and I would be most likely to refer to it as comfort food - that food that goes so well with a pulled cold Amsteel, or perhaps a botttle of darker London Ale, on the first night, after the 7 hour and fifteen minute journey in from Dubai.... Let's just say, cheese burger, or Fettuccini Al Fredo, or Club Sanny, and so on - you know, comfort food.
There is a nice cosy but effective and well equipped gym, a four person sauna, and a fair size swimming pool in which a lap, there and back, feels like you swam somewhere at least, down under the ground floor - not really basement but sort of.
I typically stay a week long and in the beginning, I used to use the hotel laundry service so that I could pack one less set of clothes and have a smaller bag to lug to and from, (and in case I wanted to buy and stow a spontaneous London tourist's gift or two, for my wife and child), until my company's accountants had a bright idea - that of redefining a "long trip" which directly affected my ability to any longer claim laundry expenses on my trips. And to that end, I decided, I certainly wasn't going to pay for that convenient of a convenience, heavens no, since this was no longer a "long trip". All hail the cost cutters, eh!
Over the last five years I would say that my interaction with the hotel has been on the whole quite positive, even though it is in slough - considered to be an industrial area of London.
Reception continues to be quick and efficient. Every time I've been too it seems to be at least one or two new young faces. Along with the kind and stalwart long term staffers the hotel has had a steady flow of interns and exchange students from many different countries minding reception, tending bar, and serving breaky.
The rooms are standard four star rooms. The view out the window looking into Slough is to be honest pretty dreary but in that London, comforting, homey way..... Row after row of row houses built of red fired brick. Slough of course is an industrial area and the reason our company uses this hotel is t is very close to both our headquarters in UK but also the main training center. Again proximity wins the day.
A trip into windsor to see the Castle or to have a cruise along the Mighty dark waters of the Thames or simply to stroll its banks and take in the "hoity and the toity" shopfronts restaurants and cobbled street points of history along the way is very easy to do because Windsor is so close. Even a trip into central london for a "Pub History tour" - wink, wink is very easily done since the Tube station is a short walk down the road from the Copthorne.
I like the breakfasts at the Copthorne. Choice beef and pork sausage, eggs done sunny side up, scrambled or boiled or if you like they will make for you an omelette. Fruit, ceral and yogurt table, white break, black bread, buns, croissaant and toast table, with jams and jelly. Cheese and mortadella table,
Hot buffet of the choice of eggs and sausage I just mentioned plus fried Canadian style ham-bacon, hash browns, steamed 'shrooms, fried tomatoes. Choice of three types of fresh juices every morning. Coffee and tea self served as you like, with or without milk or sugar. All in all a complete offering.
I've also had a few meals in the a la carte resaurant (same place where they serve breakfast buffet but it is transformed into a menued affair after seven. Here again they have a number of dishes from Steak and Lobster to Pasta, to Chicken to chicken salad and Greek and Garden as you like.
The Chinese restaurant on the same floor close to the lobby deserves mention as well. I don't do as well here describing the available dishes. Suffice to say, it goes beyond your typical egg roll and Peking duck for offerings. Price is reasonable in both restaurants too.
The bar food is well cooked and I would be most likely to refer to it as comfort food - that food that goes so well with a pulled cold Amsteel, or perhaps a botttle of darker London Ale, on the first night, after the 7 hour and fifteen minute journey in from Dubai.... Let's just say, cheese burger, or Fettuccini Al Fredo, or Club Sanny, and so on - you know, comfort food.
There is a nice cosy but effective and well equipped gym, a four person sauna, and a fair size swimming pool in which a lap, there and back, feels like you swam somewhere at least, down under the ground floor - not really basement but sort of.
I typically stay a week long and in the beginning, I used to use the hotel laundry service so that I could pack one less set of clothes and have a smaller bag to lug to and from, (and in case I wanted to buy and stow a spontaneous London tourist's gift or two, for my wife and child), until my company's accountants had a bright idea - that of redefining a "long trip" which directly affected my ability to any longer claim laundry expenses on my trips. And to that end, I decided, I certainly wasn't going to pay for that convenient of a convenience, heavens no, since this was no longer a "long trip". All hail the cost cutters, eh!
Over the last five years I would say that my interaction with the hotel has been on the whole quite positive, even though it is in slough - considered to be an industrial area of London.
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