The Goring Hotel in London is a home from home for the Royal Family

WHEN you live in a palace, even the best hotel could seem a bit of a step down.

But the Royal Family has a number of favoured hotels that offer that “home-from-home” quality they must find difficult to come across.

And, no, the Wynn in Las Vegas where Prince Harry had his infamous snooker session isn’t on the list.

And their favourite is in London, just a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace, which strikes me as a bit odd as with 775 rooms, you’d have thought there’d always be space.

The Goring, in Belgravia, is less than a 10-minute stroll from the Palace, but it’s been so popular with its near neighbours since it opened in 1910 that it is the only hotel in the world with a Royal Warrant.

The first hotel in the UK to boast en-suite bathrooms, in the good old days, it was even known to those in Buck House as the “annexe” when foreign dignitaries would pause to refresh themselves before visiting the sovereign.

The Dining Room, designed by the Queen’s nephew David Linley, was the Queen Mother’s most-frequently visited restaurant.

More recently, the hotel gained widespread fame for being where Kate Middleton stayed the night before her wedding to Prince William.

She stayed in the Royal Suite, fittingly enough, which starts at an entirely-reasonable £8,400 a night . . .

The Goring’s footmen are famous for their bright-red uniforms and one day, their counterparts from the Palace came down and were impressed at how their duties were carried out in exactly the same manner as they would be in Mrs Windsor’s house.

In other words, you could probably assume staying at the Goring is the closest most of us could get to spending a night at the Palace.

The Royals also have long-established links with the Hyde Park Hotel, now the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel.

Also close to the Palace, the Queen and Princess Margaret learned to dance on its sprung ballroom floor and Prince Philip was a regular, either when hosting his post polo match cocktail parties or when taking the young Prince Charles and Princess Anne to tea.

It played host to the Queen’s own gala dinner on the eve of Kate and William’s wedding in 2011, when Philip was better behaved than before his own marriage 70 years previously.

Then, he organised a stag do with his Royal Navy friends at the Dorchester, where they famously smashed the flashbulbs of the Press photographers to ensure their privacy.

Now, most hotels would be more than happy to be able to say a number of Royals have enjoyed their hospitality, but not the Hotel Marotte.

The only five-star hotel near Amiens, they turned the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as well as Prince Harry away when they were in the area for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme last month.

I hope they found a nice B&B.

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