I had the chance to stay at the Andaz, Livepool Street – the original Andaz property.

The hotel used to be the Great Eastern Hotel and is part of Liverpool Street station – which serves the South East and East Anglia regions of the UK. The terminal, originally grand, is now very modern. The hotel exterior was kept when they made it in to the Andaz.

The hotel is like many Andaz’s with a dark but highly designed Reception area, with roving staff undertaking a number of functions. My check-in was painless, my suite upgrade  Diamond Gold Passport certificate used) confirmed and I was told the times for breakfast (0730 start as it was a Saturday tomorrow).

There are three lifts handling 6 floors so one came pretty quickly. I had room 526 and had quite a long walk (for this hotel) to find my room which was at the end of the corridor.

Entering the room I found what I assume Andaz has now interpreted a ‘suite’ to mean. This is one large room broken in to areas – so 526 had a bedroom, a large closet area (above) and a large bathroom but with no doors separating the bedroom from the lobby. For me, being old fashioned, this is really just a big room rather than a suite. The web site link to the room description for an Andaz Suite is here.

The bedroom itself was large with a desk, wall mounted TV and a chaise longe under the window.

But is was DARK. Two windows – one an 18 inch porthole and the other, a standard window, provided little natural light.

I think if you were someone who wanted to sleep in and like a very dark room this might be perfect for your needs.

The bathroom, by contrast was bight and very white.

There were plenty of towel and nice plush bathrobes. As other reviews have mentioned the hotel uses a new system for handling waste water whereby it is pumped out rather than just flowing. This reduces water consumption but can make an alarming noise if you are not expecting it. There are little signs in the bathroom.

There was a seperate shower cubicle, which you can see on the right of the picture above.

The TV had a wide range of UK and overseas channels, providing something for everyone’s taste. The internet was free and there was a wide range of free drinks in the mini-bar:

There was a bottle of wine for me and some bottle of sweet and salty snacks also:

I slept well and went for breakfast in the morning. The free newspaper requested was outside my door as I had asked.

Since I was at the hotel last they have changed the location of their breakfasts – although close by the main restaurant.To access it you get off the lift at the first floor and walk along a very traditional corridor and down an original staircase to the Ground Floor.

The room is spectacular with the feeling that it has some features from the original. There was a huge range of hot and cold items.

There was plenty of food, the staff were very attentive, with refills being offered as needed. (This was two hot breakfasts in two days – very bad!)

Check-out

There was a line of people checking In and Out when I left. I had to wait about 10 minutes which is long for an Andaz. The bill balanced to the one I had under the door and so I left with no more ado.

 Summary

I think I have to redefine a Suite when it comes to Andaz now. I shouldn’t anymore expect a two room offering, but rather a larger room than normal. I know that the room I did occupy was several times larger than the basic room for which I paid. After all the upgrade certificate is a nice offering, but comes at no cost to me in terms of Gold Passport points.

The room was too dark for my taste during the day, and the lack of natural light would have prove troubling if I had stayed for longer.

However, it was a pleasant stay.