We stayed in a club room at the Strand Palace which was excellent and is so ideally situated for theatres and buses. Bus passes are a boon in London. We saw 'Oliver', 'Dirty Dancing' and Swan Lake. The highlight for us was the visit to the Houses of Parliament. I also was able to meet my oldest friend for lunch at one of the Inns of Court. We were very disappointed with the backstage tour at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane - the one at the Royal Opera House is far more informative and better organised. 'Oliver' - Front row centre dress circle seats which were excellent. The children and 'Dodger in particular' were excellent. Not carried away with Jodie Prenger - felt she over-acted. Staging, costumes and lighting were excellent.

The view and the noise from the hotel bedroom was very, very disappointing. The room was in need of an upgrade (unfortunately one of the ones that haven't been done yet) and what made it worse was the the 2 false fire alarms. One at 8.30pm Thursday night and one at 3.15am Saturday morning. On a positive note the breakfast was to die for every morning. The location was central to Covent Garden which is a wonderful and very busy place with some very excellent pubs. Using the Underground is very easy and there are some beautiful art deco stations, one of them being Covent Garden.

We had a great time in London, visiting sights and generally walking in the parks and visiting sights. We also went to see "Carousel" at that the Savoy Theatre, not to be missed it was excellent, the cast excelled themselves, the thunes were memorable, we couldn't have asked for more.

Hotel noisy outside at night --on front of Strand!! even though asked for a quiet room. Well located to get round centre of London on foot.