Last weekend Sam and I went on our very first trip away without Arthur and stayed at Richmond Hill Hotel in Richmond, London. Arthur will be 3 in December and this is the first time we’d left him with anyone overnight. We knew we’d miss him but were also so excited for a weekend of not having to parent and eating a meal in peace.
I actually WON our stay at Richmond Hill Hotel in their Christmas Advent Competition so this has been booked since January. We were planning to take Arthur and he was booked with us originally but I have been so exhausted recently we thought we’d ask my Dad if he could have Arthur overnight and thankfully he could. We dropped him off at 10am and were on our way.
We arrived at Richmond Hill Hotel at 1pm, 2 full hours before “check in time”. We were hoping to leave our car and go for a walk around Richmond whilst we waited so were surprised when they said we could check into our room early. After a little wait in the gorgeous lobby we were given our keys and directed to our Georgian Deluxe Double Room for the night.
The room was absolutely stunning. Sam and I are very used to travelling on a budget and staying at Travelodge’s (not one bad word to say about them though). But this was something else! We opened the door to the gorgeous roll top bath staring at us at the base of the bed, a super-king bed may I add, beautiful décor, a Nespresso machine (wasted on us non coffee drinkers) and a huge walk in shower in a separate bedroom. We felt like royalty.
We didn’t spend too long in our room as wanted to make the most of the area and our trip away. Richmond Park is directly opposite the hotel so we had a rainy wonder around here (catching Pokemon but probably shouldn’t say that out loud). We strolled into Richmond centre to scope out where the train station was (about a 20 minute walk from the hotel) then got a slice of pizza and a drink in Whole Foods.
After a little while we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had a review planned with Wahaca so fitted this into our weekend away (another post about that coming soon). We drove to our nearest which was Wimbledon and took around 25 minutes. When we got back to the hotel I couldn’t wait to run a bath, I’d knowingly packed bubble bath, bath bombs and face masks so I could have a proper pamper and relax. And I did exactly that, getting out of the bath at almost midnight once the water had gone cold.
I slept like a baby knowing that we didn’t have to get up in the morning with Arthur. I still woke at around 6am but managed to go back to sleep until 8am. I couldn’t believe how quiet the hotel was in the morning. Especially being in London. We must have been tucked away at the back of the hotel as we didn’t hear any outside noise, any doors slamming or children running around in the morning. We got ready leisurely and headed down to breakfast at around 9am.
Breakfast was at 144 On The Hill which is Richmond Hill Hotel’s Restaurant (open to visitors not staying at the hotel). Sam and I are big breakfast people (for completely different reasons). I love the fruit, yogurt, granola/cereal, pastries etc and Sam loved a traditional cooked breakfast. We were both please with the offerings, I even had a little bit of cooked breakfast as their vegetarian option was a leek quiche which looked too good to miss. I made myself a breakfast bowl, ate way more pastries than I should have and waddled out of the restaurant regretting my decision when I remember we had a day of walking around London ahead of us. It’s safe to say we didn’t eat for the rest of the day!
Check out was 11am so we went back to our room to grab our stuff and checked out early. The check in and check out process were both simple and staff were always polite and efficient. We could have left our car at the hotel but decided to drive to Hounslow and get the train into London from there as it made it easier to get on the M4 for our journey home. We had a fabulous stay at Richmond Hill Hotel and look forward to hopefully returning on day, maybe this time with Arthur.
Leave a Reply