The Viking Cruises included hotel for the first few days of this itinerary in London was the London Hilton on Park Lane. The hotel was fairly swanky with multiple on site eateries. Our flight, having traveled overnight, got into London around 8AM. We had requested an early check in pre-trip by contacting the hotel directly and was basically told the old parental response "We'll see." After waiting in line to check in, we were given the standard answer of check in not being until mid afternoon but they would let us know if rooms were ready sooner. We found a lounge area to hang out after leaving our number with the front desk to be texted. While we waited through the morning and almost all the afternoon, we got back in line a couple more times to ask questions about the hotel that we couldn't find online. By late afternoon, an hour or so after check in time, we got a message from the front desk asking us to come see them. Turns out it was just to tell us that they are still working on the rooms but it would be about another 20 minutes. Supposedly, the room we were originally assigned wasn't ready but a different room would be ready in 20 minutes.
That 20 minutes turned into another hour when finally a manager started going around to the large amount of people waiting in the lobby to ask what is going on. We told him about how we've been waiting since 8AM and he went off to ask about it. He had the same "ready in 20 minutes" answer but was merely apologetic when we told him we'd just heard that answer an hour ago. At some point, the Director of Rooms became aware of the situation and she tried to call housekeeping in front of us to see if the room was ready yet. The housekeeping department never answered her call. To make it right, she got us a room on the hotel's Executive Rooms level so we could use the Executive Lounge for drinks, evening snacks, and a light breakfast versus joining the masses at one of the hotel's restaurants for the Viking included breakfast buffet. Despite the nicer room, I had the most trouble using a tub/shower combo that didn't seem to drain. Had to leave the dirty water sitting in the bathtub as we had to leave for the included tour with Viking. Came back at the end of the day to a room that was almost entirely cleaned by housekeeping except that they left the bathtub as I left it. We were exhausted and had no desire to wait most likely hours for someone to come fix it. Thankfully we could wait to shower again once we were on the ship a couple days later.
As per our past Viking included hotel stays, there was a desk set up in the lobby and manned during certain hours for you to check in and ask questions. At check in on arrival day (which thankfully had no tours scheduled), the desk was open from 7:30AM to 7:00PM. On the other days, it was open for 1-2 hours in the early morning and then again in the late afternoon/early evening as our Tour Director, Dee Taylor, would go out with one of the buses during the tours and then spend time behind the desk before and after. Upon check-in we received Vox boxes to use on the land tours, new earbuds, and a schedule with our bus' meeting times highlighted. Times were staggered by 10 or 15 minute intervals to keep the crowds four buses can bring from being in the same spot all at once. Buses 1 & 2 had their Welcome Briefing this first night at 5PM. During the briefing, the schedule for the land tours was gone over as well as the process for getting everyone on to the Eurostar for the included trip to meet the ship in Paris. An optional walking tour was announced and Dee had everyone who wanted to sign up for that or had food allergies come see her after she took questions from the group as a whole.
We had dinner in the Revery Bar the first night around 9PM once we finally had the chance to drop our luggage in the room and freshen up. I had the Revery Burger with a side of Triple-Cooked Chips while Dad had the Chicken Club Sandwich that came with an order of the Triple-Cooked Chips.
A side note: Sickness when you're in a group of the same people for days on end is easy to spread. To keep things organized from a logistics and operations perspective, Viking assigned us and about 45 others to travel on Bus #1 for the duration of our time in London. All buses and all passengers went to the same locations and the same tours but to keep counts organized, they had us report to the same bus numbers each day. Works great from the perspective of meeting, chatting, and getting to know the same people. However, we had someone who got sick with a horrible cold/respiratory infection on day 1. They showed up for the first tour after getting some medicine from a chemist the day before. They took over the front seat and proceeded to cough repeatedly and severely. We all had to use the railing in front of their seat to get on and off the bus so it wasn't long until multiple people including myself caught their infection. A lot of people felt very miserable on such a busy port extensive cruise with long all day tours. Definitely come prepared with your own supply of OTC meds and take the time to skip a tour and rest if you're feeling sick. In this instance, sharing is not caring!
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