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Tune Hotels is a budget 'no frills' hotel chain from Asia and Tune Hotel Paddington is their third opening in London. (The first was Tune Westminster and the second was Tune Liverpool Street. There's also Tune Canary Wharf.)

Tune offer the real essentials – a good bed and a powerful shower – and you can buy the add-ons, if needed. This keeps the rates exceptionally low and double rooms without windows start from £19 a night, with windows from only £25 a night.

In a city well known for costly hotel accommodation Tune is worth knowing about.

Location
Tune Paddington opened in June 2012 and is an excellent location when traveling in from Heathrow. (See: How do I get to London from Heathrow Airport?) The hotel is 300 metres from Edgware Road underground station and within five minutes walk of Paddington station.

Address: 41-47 Praed Street, Paddington, W2 1NR

Facilities
The hotel has 137 double, twin and accessible en-suite bedrooms, along with a coffee shop area offering an array of light refreshments. Non-residents can use the coffee shop and it's well-priced too. All this goes to show they are listening to guest feedback from their other London hotels: Westminster has drinks vending machines, Liverpool Street has drinks and snacks available from Reception and now, here in Paddington, there's a dedicated seating area and a café counter.

Pay For Extras
Your room is perfectly functional without paying any more but the key add-on to note is towel rental (including hand soap and mini shampoo) for £1.50.

Other add-ons include wifi, hairdryer, safe and TV.

 

The Room
It's clear immediately that the room is bigger than the other London Tune hotels. I counted nearly ten steps from the door to the bed and the space either side of the bed has also increased. Twin rooms are even larger than double rooms.

All those same clever design features are here to optimize space: white walls, glass bedside tables (not cabinets), a large mirror above the bed up to the ceiling, storage space for suitcases under the bed, curved bathroom wall, etc, plus the green feature wall with a large flower outline. It feels as big as any other hotel room but at excellent value.

The en-suite bathroom is small but well-designed with more shelf space than most hotel rooms. There is better positioning of the room mirror (compared to Tune Liverpool Street) so you're not able to see the toilet in reflection from the bed, and the bathroom door has proper frosted glass so no 'body outlines' can be seen from the other side when you step out of the shower. I would prefer the toilet roll holder to not be directly under the towel hook as a wet towel would dampen the toilet roll.

There isn't a closed wardrobe but the open 'wardrobe' has four coat hangers provided and a shelf above and below the hanging space as well as a mirror above and below too.

I would still like a coat hook on the door, or where wall space allows, for a long coat and I do miss having a chair in the room to throw clothes over but we used the vanity unit shelves.

Do note, rooms do not have telephones so walk down to Reception for assistance. Reception is staffed 24 hours a day so security here is good.

 

Nearby
There is a 24 hour Tesco Express right opposite the hotel and the entrance to the Paddington canal basin is just behind the supermarket making it a good choice for a picnic lunch on a warm day. (If you're here on a Friday, do go and watch the Rolling Bridge and you might like to consider the Little Venice to Camden canal walk too).

There is also a Post Office opposite which can help with Currency Exchange.

Praed Street is also the location of a busy hospital so you may hear ambulance sirens so I'd recommend not sleeping with the window open but use the air-conditioning (free in every room) for 'white noise'. Also, consider asking for a room at the back of the hotel.

A short walk up Edgware Road is Mandalay, an excellent, low-price Burmese restaurant. It's small so call ahead, if possible.

 

My Stay
I stayed during soft opening and the hotel was already popular. I overheard a guest booking for 20 nights, as well as many others for weekend breaks. At check out I spoke to some other guests and all were happy and asked about bookings for the future.

I'd probably ask to be at the back of the building for future stays but the street sounds quietened down later in the evening so would be fine if you were out for the evening anyway.

Tune Paddington is clearly as good as many London 3 star hotels and the 5 star bed was good for me and my daughter as we both slept well. This is why Tune Hotels in London continues to be at the top of the list for my Top 10 Cheap Hotels in London.

 

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As is common in the travel industry, the writer was provided with complimentary services for review purposes. While it has not influenced this review, About.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest. For more information, see our Ethics Policy.