Accommodating a family of five or more in Europe on points can be daunting. Luckily, if you’re heading to London, the Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars offers one of the best values for your large family! Our family of five spent four nights at the Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars over New Year’s Eve and was thoroughly impressed. Maybe it helped that we had just arrived from a few nights at very basic Holiday Inn Express hotels in Scotland, but this Hyatt Category 5 hotel still impressed us all. 

 

Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars Location

The Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars is conveniently located in the middle of London, about a block from the Thames. The closest tube station is Blackfriars Station, which is directly across the street from the hotel’s rear entrance.

London is such a walkable city that we only took the tube once and walked almost everywhere. While there aren’t restaurants directly outside the hotel, if you walk about two blocks north, you’ll find many options, ranging from pubs to fancier restaurants. 

 

 

We were in London over New Year’s Eve and the Hyatt Regency Blackfriars was located inside the the ticketed area for all the Central London New Year’s Eve events. To our surprise, the hotel gave us free wristbands to enter the red-ticketed NYE celebration area. Unfortunately, we were too tired to venture out for the festivities, but we could see some fireworks and hear the music from our rooms. But for future reference, this would make a great hotel to stay at if you are planning to attend the New Year’s Eve celebrations. 

 

Booking a Family of Five in London Hotels

Most European hotels have a maximum occupancy rate of two adults for their standard rooms. As a family of five, we needed two rooms at this hotel. Standard rooms sleep up to two adults if you’re booking online, but if you contact the hotel to add one child under 12 and a rollaway bed for £100/night, you can add a third person. Club access rooms and suites fit up to three adults with no added fees. 

I booked a standard king room for 77,000 points total for our four nights. We had a mix of peak and off-peak award nights.

For our second room, I contacted Hyatt via chat on their website and used the Hyatt Family Plan Rate. The second room was about £700 total for our four nights. Since that discounted rate took the room cost down to only £175 per night on average, using points for the second room didn’t make sense to me. I’d personally rather save those 77k points for a future stay where they could get a higher redemption value. 

 

 

After booking our two rooms, I then applied a Club Access Award (CAA) to one room and a Suite Upgrade Award (SUA) to the other room. By adding the SUA to one of our rooms, we were then able to sleep three people in one room without any additional fees. 

 

Hyatt Regency Blackfriars Check-In

We arrived in London around 2 pm at London Kings Cross Station from Edinburgh. After a quick stop to visit Platform 9 3/4, we hopped in a black cab to the hotel. While the tube is generally a very easy way to get around London, it was New Year’s Eve and the city had already begun shutting down tube stations and streets, so taking a cab was the best way to ensure we wouldn’t get stuck.

We made it to the Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars around 3:30 pm. The cab dropped us off at the main entrance of the hotel. The front desk staff were so kind and especially cute with the girls. They gave each of them a little stocking filled with toys and candy. They also gave them other little trinkets throughout our stay. 

 

 

Only one of our two rooms was ready when we arrived. It was New Year’s Eve so we expected a slight delay, but it was not a big deal at all. We dropped our bags off into the room that was ready and then headed out to dinner. Once we returned, our second room was ready. 

 

Standard King Room at Hyatt Regency Blackfriars

To fit our family of five, I booked two rooms. Standard rooms come with one king bed or two double beds. Again, standard rooms can fit up to two adults and one child, though to add the child and a rollaway bed, there is a £100 per night fee and you have to contact the hotel to add them.

My husband and oldest stayed in this room. By European standards, the room felt very spacious. There would be plenty of space for two adults and one child with a rollaway bed in this room. 

The Hyatt Regency Blackfriars is very new and you could tell. Everything from the furniture to the bathroom was in perfect condition. This was the best bed of our trip!

 

 

There was plenty of storage space to hang all of our wet coats and dry out our wet boots. This room had two free bottles of water, one sparkling and one still. The room also came with slippers and robes for two people. 

 

 

 

Standard High Street View Suite at HR London Blackfriars

Our second room was upgraded to a suite after I applied a Suite Upgrade Award. I also emailed Pam’s upgrade template a few weeks before our trip and our oldest was delighted to find balloons and a cake for her 10th birthday. 

I also included in that email a request for connecting rooms. The hotel informed us that the suites do not connect to any rooms, but they would try their best to get our two rooms near each other. We were about three doors apart on the same floor. This worked out fine since my husband and I had no problem splitting up for the night.

 

 

The bathroom in the suite was identical to the bathroom in the standard room. It might have been a bit bigger, but other than that, there was no noticeable difference. 

The suite also had the same closet and cubby space as the standard room. Also worth noting is that the suite fits up to three adults, so adding a child or a rollaway bed incurs no additional fee.

 

Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars Club Lounge

If you have Club Access Awards (CAA), this would be a great location to use them. Between the CAA and the SUA, we had club access to both of our rooms. This club lounge, City Lounge, was located in the bar area off the main lobby.

There was a nightly cocktail hour with drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) plus canapés and small desserts served on three-tiered trays. This club lounge did not offer enough food to make a full dinner out of it, but it was a nice snack and treat before bedtime each night. 

 

Club Lounge Hours

The nightly cocktail hour is from 5 pm to 7 pm, though you can also get handmade coffees and drinks throughout the day. Having a club lounge is really handy for those extra treats and beverages.

 

Club Lounge Seating Areas

We did have trouble finding seating for all of us each night. There are only a few booths that can accommodate more than four people. But even on the busiest night of our stay—New Year’s Eve—we only had to wait maybe 15 minutes to get a table. 

 

Hyatt Regency Blackfriars Restaurants

Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars has two sit-down restaurants and two bars. As mentioned previously, one bar is used as the club lounge. The second bar, Leaf & Cane, is in the basement. We didn’t make it down there to check it out, as it was only open Tuesday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. 

The breakfast buffet, held each morning in the Chinese Cricket Club restaurant, was included with our club access. It was a great buffet! They had made-to-order coffees, made-to-order eggs, and tons of pastry, fresh fruit, meat, and cheese options.

 

 

The girls especially loved the donuts, hot chocolate, and croissants. 

 

 

On one of our days, we had early dinner and cocktails at NYnLON, the bistro-style restaurant. The food was very good, and they had a good-sized kids’ menu, too. I had steak and fries, my husband had a hamburger, and the girls had mac’ n cheese and chicken tenders. I’m pretty sure my oldest tried every type of chicken tender there was across Scotland and London. 

 

 

Bottom Line

If you are a family of five, six, or more, the Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars offers an excellent points-redemption option for families in London. We loved the location and style of the hotel. The excellent staff also made it an extra-memorable stay for our daughter’s birthday trip. If we were to come back to London with our kids again,  it would be my top choice for a hotel on points and I would certainly try to use the Hyatt Family Plan Rate for our second room again. 

 

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