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MAY FAIR
I was staying at the luxurious May Fair Hotel, which was opened in 1927 by King George V. The hotel is in the heart of the exclusive May Fair district and is just a block or two from Green Park (and the Green Park tube station), Bond Street (where the expensive shops are) and a couple of grocery stores including Marks and Spencer. A brisk 10-minute walk away is Piccadilly and Leicester Square, where you can score half-price theatre tickets, and Chinatown.

MAY FAIR HOTEL
When my taxi pulled up to the May Fair Hotel, I had a funny feeling that I'd already stayed there before. I thought I'd been there in 1998 with my mom, when we took our first trip to Europe together. But walking into the lobby, it looked completely different so I couldn't be entirely sure. There was a long line at the front desk (and Italian group had arrived just a few minutes ahead of me) but the agents worked quickly and my wait time was just four minutes. The woman checking me in was Eastern European and had a thick accent. I asked her if this hotel used to be the InterContinental Hotel and she confirmed that it had been but that Radisson had taken it over four years ago. I had no idea that a Radisson hotel could be so nice but I suppose that's what you get when you pump $140 million into a refurbishment.

MY ROOM
The new contemporary interior has creations from some of the world's top design houses including chandeliers by Baccarat, sofas and chairs by Fendi and paintings from St. Petersburg. The hotel has 295 rooms. I was in a junior suite that featured a croc skin (I'm hoping it was faux) bench and framed the mirror and the bed. The bathroom had white marble and a black granite floor. I was shocked and stoked that they had free wireless Internet, a couple of bottles of water and an outlet for U.S. plugs. The bed sheets felt starchy at first but once I was underneath, they were quite comfy. What I didn't care for were the bulky pillows and the hallway traffic noise, including the ‘ding' from the elevator. They also had one of those evil mini bars where even just taking something out to admire or fantasize about it automatically gets charged to your bill. Yikes! That's one of the disadvantages of technology. But the worst was when I received a 7am wake-up call when I asked for 10am call ... and they didn't even apologize.

MARIAH CAREY
Busty Mariah Carey happened to be in the hotel for the release of her new single to the English press. They used the hotel's 202, Ferrari-leather-seat movie theatre to show her video. It's also where they held the world premiere of the movie The Queen. Believe it or not, Mariah is probably the least famous person to stay here and I got a chance to take a peak at where most celebrities stay. The suite has two bedrooms, a private elevator and costs £5,000 a night. What a waste. Before heading out for the day, I had the hotel's breakfast buffet. It was very good but limited, just a nice selection of fresh fruit, incredible muffins and juice. The eggs and meat could have used some help but really, I didn't care. I was sitting alone at a table facing the street, reading the paper and sipping my tea when I realized, I'm in London! How cool is that? Rack rates at the May Fair Hotel are not cheap but for their best rates, log on to lastminute.com where they can be found for £120. The May Fair, Stratton Street, London; Tel: +44 20 7629 7777.

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