Many hotels i am looking have no air conditioning including some known names/chains like Holiday Inn. my question is how important is that in first week of September? Just fan, good enough?
I am planning to visit London first week September (Sep 7 to Sep 10).
Thanks in advance for your reply
I’d probably want AC that week. I do stay at a hotel without but I haven’t been that early in Sept in a few years and I know this hotel has high ceilings so is a smidgy cooler.
If hotels generally needed AC, then they would be built with them, but they aren’t as, unless there’s a heatwave, it isn’t needed.
Although you can get some warm weather in September, heatwaves are more likely in June and July.
I rolled the dice, and won, on early-September stays in London in 2017 and 2018. As a solo traveler, I found a large difference in rates between hotels with and without a/c, so I took a chance. The weather during both stays was not hot at all. This year I'll be in London in August, and that was too risky for me, so I went with an air-conditioned Premier Inn. I'm fortunate to have a travel mate this year to split the cost.
The chance of high temps in September is not great, but it could conceivably happen, so you need to consider how miserable you would be without a/c if your luck is bad. I'd worry about it more if I had a long stay rather than a short one, because I find I can stand anything for a day or two, but trying to sleep in a really hot room night after night is miserable.
You can go to timeanddate.com and check actual day-by-day weather stats for London in Sept 2018, Sept 2017, Sept 2018, etc. I'd take a look at the last 5 years at least.
Definitely pack earplugs. If you need to sleep with an open window for ventilation, you may have a noise problem.
What you want to avoid is:
1) being in a hotel without AC during a time when it's needed,
and 2) the hotel has windows that open but no screens on the windows (insects come in).
This sometimes blindsides American visitors because we're used to assuming that any hotel room, no matter how humble, will have AC and screens on any windows that open. This is not the case in a surprising number of European lodging.
Although, obviously, it depends on how hot it is; if cool, no problem.
Almost no one has screens on windows in England. I’ve certainly never seen it in any private house or hotel. We just aren’t that bothered about insects.
Open those windows and embrace the fresh air and nature.
Unless it’s like last July, in which case get air conditioning.
Deng Xiaoping:
There are those who say we should not open our windows, because open windows let in flies and other insects. They want the windows to stay closed, so we all expire from lack of air. But we say, 'Open the windows, breathe the fresh air and at the same time fight the flies and insects.'
We leave in two weeks from the States for a week in London then 8 days in Paris. Having A/C was a priority to us, but even so we are concerned that the A/C may not be as cool as we are accustomed to, at least based on some things we have read. We are prepared/expecting to purchase a small fan to help circulate the air when we arrive. Hope it is not needed, but just in case......
I live in the countryside, sleep with my windows open all year round (of course I do; I’m British, it’s our thing) and can honestly say I’ve never had problems with insects. Sure, we get the occasional moth or the odd fly or wasp, but really nothing to bother about. Most hotels that have opening windows will only open a few inches. I have NEVER seen an insect fly into a hotel room via an open window in a British city. Maybe we have fewer insects or we just don’t notice them. But we don’t have bug screens on our windows here, and we don’t have ferocious US-style air conditioning. It’s a cultural difference - get used to it.
One characteristic of a B&B in London is that it has no AC, sometimes no fan either, regardless if a heat wave is going on, the same in Germany, where your small hotel or Pension has no AC. That is the case with my Pension in Berlin.
How important AC is depends on how warm it is and your own personal preferences.
New facilities are more likely to have AC.
That said, AC in an upper floor London hotel room early in September isn't a bad idea, even if it turns out to be unneeded.
One thing to keep in mind is that inexpensive London hotel rooms are likely to be incredibly tiny. You should not expect to have cross-ventilation from two windows. If you have a window, it may open onto an (airless) airshaft. This is not a problem limited to London; it's just that real estate costs are so high there that you may encounter it in lodgings that seem fairly expensive--if you haven't priced Manhattan hotel rooms lately.
Screens would be a wonderful thing in parts of Europe. During summer in Landscheid/Wittlich there would be flies all over the place, and eating in a restaurant was quite the swatting experience. Even though flies would land on and near their food, Germans didn't seem to care. I realize many of the windows open up differently and screens/AC won't fit, but in some windows screens would be ideal.
I spent a summer in a tent in Kuwait, but even back then AC was not uncommon in order to keep the electronics from overheating. I've never been good at sleeping while sweating, absent pure exhaustion.
another Brit who always sleeps with the window open all year round, no screen, in town, occasional fly, but nothing to get knickers in a twist about!
Sleeping with the windows closed can be an advantage if there is weekend noise on the streets outside.
Have been in London and other areas of the UK several times every month from May through October never needed an ac, but of course I don’t expect to have any ac in the UK. As stated above, I just open the windows and live it.
In London I never stayed in a B&B that had AC, likewise in France and Germany when staying in small hotels or Pensionen, but then I don't look for AC in a hotel to be one of the amenities either before deciding to take it.
At this time of year, when the days are long, and if the weather is warm, we always leave our windows open in the evening, and also the large patio door which leads onto a balcony. We seldom have problems with insects. That's why British windows seldom have fly screens.
My house backs onto a field with horses so in the summer (well, as soon as it's warm enough to leave the kitchen doors open) I place my chainmail fly screen to keep the flies out. It gives me a little burst of joy when I put it up and a tinge of sadness when it comes down around October.
I also dehydrate a lot of organ meat for dog treats which sends flies from a 50 mile radius straight to my house!
