Tucked away behind London Bridge station, the London Bridge Hotel is superbly placed and provides a decent place to stay. You can't beat it for location (although currently it's fronted by the dual construction sites of the Shard and the Place) as it's literally 10 seconds walk from the main station entrance. The entrance is easy to miss as it's sandwiched between Borough bar and a Fitness First but keep a sharp eye out for the sign and obvious lobby.
The lobby is small but smartly decorated with plenty of staff on hand to help you check in and a concierge to call you a cab and attend to a multitude of minutiae that pop up on a trip. This hotel is obviously intended for business travellers and thus it's no surprise that you see mainly men in suits dashing in and out.
A central staircase and elevators will take you to your room, however a word of caution about the signs if you take the stairs. They are incredibly misleading. My brother was in room 221 and common sense and standard hotel protocol dictated that it would be on the 2nd floor. However, on the 1st floor was a sign indicating rooms 126-333 so we followed the directions through a few hallways until suddenly the signs stated that the room range was 126-138. By this time we were in a completely different section of the hotel (it's surprisingly large and must take up the whole building over the pubs, bars, and gym). Finally, after spending 10 minutes retracing our steps, we made it back to the main staircase, up to the 2nd floor, and voila, there was the room.
Once you make it to your room, you will find it to be perfectly adequate. Although a bit small for my tastes, it does have everything you need just merely in a more compact design. I will give it credit for having a better than average tv and range of channels (we could watch the football) so they've learned a bit about what the customer wants. The other major plus was that you could order PieMinister pies through room service and for 11 squids get a pie and two sides. For a decent hotel, that's a great value deal for room service.
Overall, if I was paying I'd opt for this hotel over the Hilton and the new Shangri-La in the Shard as you get the benefits of the location, a decent room, and a significantly lower (but by no means cheap) price. However, the other two are infinitely more luxurious so if on an expense account I know where I'd rather be. read more