Jesmond Dene Hotel

One of the best hotels we stayed at the whole trip!
Our trip was 16 days with over 8 hotels. This was one we kept saying was great.
Here’s what made it great: right next to Euston Station, Kings Cross and Platform 9 ¾’s. Great size. Great breakfast. Great staff.
The shower is a bit small and don’t expect anything «fancy» but I would 100% stay here again. Such a great find.

It is hard to find a budget hotel is central London, and after a lot of research we picked Jesmond Deene. Overall it worked out well. It is a short walk from St. Pancreas station, which is where the Eurostar comes in from Paris, and a central hub where you can catch the tube to anywhere. Very convenient in and out! I wondered if it would be overly loud, being so close to the station, but it wasn’t bad at all. The area didn’t feel too dodgy either. The guy in reception was super friendly and helpful with recommending restaurants and the like. They served a «full English breakfast» with eggs, beans, sausage, ham, toast, and OJ coffee, chocolate or tea. You could also get cereal, a muffin and yogurt if you asked… a nice change especially if you stay a few days. The rooms were small and the place was old and creaky but I think that’s just part of staying in these converted older places! (If someone in your group can’t do steep narrow stairs make sure you ask for first floor!) The rooms seemed clean and ours had a sink which was nice since it shared a bathroom. The main drawback I found was that the bathroom, which was already shared, was SO small. Did they convert it from a broom closet?!? We had to go up a floor to get to it and there wasn’t really any place to put your stuff for the shower, the shower itself had some mildew in the top and was barely big enough to stand in-​especially after consuming the full English breakfast for a few days! Changing in the bathroom, you could either practice contortionist poses or– as another reviewer said– sound like you were getting beat up! People would forget their stuff in there or get water all over the floor. So, if this kind of thing would drive you crazy consider yourself warned! Overall for us the bathroom inconvenience balanced out with the savings and the rest of the experience which I would have given 5 stars.

We stayed at Jesmond Dene on a recent honeymoon trip to London. It seemed like a good option with its proximity to St. Pancreas station which is where we came in on the Eurostar. Jesmond is also about a mile walk from the British Museum and is walkable to other landmarks. The best way to see London is walking around to soak it in. Being so close to St. Pancreas you can get anywhere in the city in a reasonable time. The rooms were just like the virtual videos online: small! I recommend the video if you are considering Jesmond to see if it’s right for your style. You aren’t going to be in your room much at all but it’s still very small. The price at 85£ is very reasonable for the area but it shows how expensive London is. Our room didn’t even have a shower, but did have a sink. The service was really nice with recommendations included. They have a lot of travel books including Rick Steve’s if you want some tips of what to see. The breakfast was solid, but there aren’t many options so you will get tired of it after 5 straight days like we had. You can get eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, cereal, muffins and yogurt. The drink options were coffee, tea and orange juice. Overall for a budget option I highly recommend Jesmond because of the price and the location. I think you will deal with the small room and be happy you can get to the tourist attractions faster!

My family had to catch an early morning train out of King’s Cross, and after sifting through mountains of horror stories about almost every single «hotel» in the vicinity, I finally settled on this one, as reviewers’ descriptions were uniformly: «small rooms but scrupulously clean». I’m here to report that that is absolutely accurate. For the one night we stayed, we were fine. The «small triple» that we requested because it was on the ground floor (for my parents) was minuscule indeed and would have worn on our nerves had our stay been longer, but the family room for four on the top floor was spacious and airy and very comfortable for us «kids». The bathrooms in both were tiny but clean and in perfect working order.
I must give a shoutout to the manager Darren for making the difference at this place. In contrast to the other hotels I enquired at in this area, Darren responded to all email enquiries swiftly and professionally. He listened to my description of our situation and worked with us to find an arrangement that would suit within our price range. Darren even arranged to have some «to-​go» packaged breakfast items ready at checkout for us as we would have to leave too early in the morning for the sit-​down breakfast. This kind of thoughtful service and initiative is what sets the Jesmond Dene apart from the other hotels in the area. It was slightly more expensive, but more than worth it in my opinion. I would definitely recommend to it to anyone who needs to be near King’s Cross.

Solid hotel, but…
1) They don’t let you check out on Sundays. I had to pay for Sunday night even though I didn’t stay.
2) They put me in the bedroom next to the breakfast room. I was woken up every day at 7 am. They warned me ahead of time, but it sucks that they had to put one bedroom so close to the breakfast room.
3) Bathroom is shared by a lot of people and down the hall. As far as I know, I didn’t get a discount for this.
4) I think they charged me a lot compared to other hotels in the area.
5) They charged me an extra fee of 3% for using my credit card, without telling me this would be the case at booking time.
Other than that, the room was nice and comfy, wifi was good, breakfast was excellent, staff were helpful, and the location was superb.

I’m a fan of what this place is– a small boutique hotel in a convenient (if not formerly seedy) part of town.
This was our first choice from day one. We first tried booking this place 3 months before our trip but got a response that they were full. Admittedly we didn’t think we had a chance, as we started our search quite late and the Jesmond Dene is a really popular place. To our surprise they called us back a week after we first got rejected and told us they had a vacancy but it was a triple room instead of the private double we had wanted. The price difference was an extra 30 quid a night, but we had heard such good things about it that we took the room anyway.
We had a load of luggage with us when we arrived in London from Manchester. The walk from Kings Cross to Jesmond Dene was really easy despite our luggage — less than 10 minutes. We spent more time waiting to cross the street than we did walking. As an interesting tidbit there are a bunch of other little hotels around this area.
Checkin was easy, and Darrin offered his services for whatever we needed. He was aware of how we had requested a private double instead of the triple, and actually gave us the vacant family room (which had tons of space and four beds) as a sign of goodwill. The room was huge. Our suitcases took up two of the beds. There was a ghetto-​rigged deskfan tied to the ceiling which served as a ceiling fan. The room also had a sink and a door with which we could access the outside, but shared a bathroom with everyone else in the basement. Beds were clean and didn’t have dusty linens.
The common bathroom was not small– it was in fact pretty large by European standards. Powerful toilet (often an overlooked luxury), powerful pressure from the showerhead, and I never had to wait in line as there weren’t many others staying in the basement.
They cleaned our rooms three times when we were there. They were pretty nice and arranged our shoes and folded our clothes and put them in a stack since we had left in rather a hurry that morning. No mints on the pillows but hey I don’t enjoy mints.
The breakfast is excellent. Full english breakfast. One of my favorite meals in the world. Can’t get better than that.
If we’re ever in need of a hotel in London again we will look to stay here. This place was great and CHEAP! by London standards.

The Jesmond Dene became our first home here in London. Searching for our flat we turned to the Jesmond Dene after a disastrous week at the Excelsior in the the same area. Above everything it that a fantastic staff. From the people at the front desk, to the bag handlers/​handy people, to the housekeepers, everyone was incredibly friendly. It was kind of hard to leave when we did.
We stayed mostly in a Double with no bathroom. The room was pretty nice. Big TV, room for all our bags, and most importantly very clean despite what I can do to a room. The shared bathroom wasn’t the best. Clean, but it felt like I was in airplane or even more so a cruise ship restroom. Unless you usually live a bathroom, it’s such a minor hiccup in an otherwise fantastic establishment.
They were also incredibly accommodating when we had to extend our stay. We also spent one night in an en suite room and it seem like an upgrade over the already great service.
Felt pretty safe in the nearby area as well and you are 40 yards from Kings Cross which connects to pretty much everything.
I almost forgot about the breakfast. A true English experience that they will customize for you if you don’t like bacon or want just eggs.
I love Jesmond Dene.

I’ve been making jokes for the last couple of years about the size of my bathroom in this hotel: the simple fact being that if you tried to change clothes in it, it sounded like you were getting beat up in there. In juxtaposition to that fact, this is actually a comfortable boutique hotel, and we did enjoy our stay, if we did find our room a little cramped (you could lie on the bed sideways and touch both walls… there’s a photo I need to dig up).
Regardless, this was home base for my most recent trip to London, and provided easy access to the King’s Cross tube station, several generic (and certainly some decent local) dining options, and was walking distance to a number of pubs. Then again, I guess that’s London for ya. If you travel with heavy luggage, note that you’ll need to lug it up a slender, winding set of stairs, but once you’re in the room, amenities are comfortable and fairly modern. The staff here was super helpful, and if we had to do it over again? I’d definitely stay here again.