“Definitely Butler Bootcamp. No, the treasure hunt. Actually… making my cocktail with all the flowers!” My daughter (five) just can’t decide, but her older brother (seven) is quick to list his favourite parts of our stay at the Lanesborough. “First: the food – make sure you write ‘breakfast pancakes and the chocolatey caramel bubble bar’. Second, the pool. Third, seeing the King’s horses!”

Technically that last one isn’t delivered by the Lanesborough itself but it is possible thanks to the hotel’s proximity to Hyde Park, so I’ll give it that. My own highlights? Watching one endlessly patient member of staff after another lead the kids off in search of Lilibet, the hotel’s incredibly fluffy Siberian Forest cat (often ‘relaxing in the bar’/getting some peace from small admirers). Catching up with my husband over a TGIF glass – okay, two – of chilled sauvignon blanc and ridiculously good room service. Laughing as my daughter, in full butler tails and bow tie, trotted between our connecting rooms, doing ‘jobs’ and shouting “Dead end!” every time she was confronted with one of their many doors.

Butler training for the hotel’s youngest guests

I must admit, I had sky-high expectations of the Lanesborough, which welcomed us one early spring night, as triumphant daffodils and petite snowdrops heralded the return of warmer weather. That’s because I’ve stayed at another Oetker Collection grande dame before, Le Bristol Paris, where I had one of the best meals of my life and languished in a suite which has probably also hosted the likes of Grace Kelly and George Clooney. I may not have stayed at Eden-Roc or Jumby Bay Island (yet) but those, also Oetker, are synonymous in luxury travel with the epitome of five-star service.

Expectations: met. Everything at the Lanesborough is just right, or better, and it’s nigh on impossible to find a fault. The children are entranced the moment they receive their Mini VIP wallets at the front desk, which they carry everywhere, and my husband and I by the fact that parenting today will be easier than usual. Although we’re here as a family, when delighted children = relaxed parents, this is a hotel where adults are just as spoilt as the kids.

We’re shown to our rooms by smiley butler Ovi. They have everything I’d expect from a hotel of this calibre (blissful beds, blissful baths, easy tech, light-blocking curtains, underfloor bathroom heating, gorgeous amenities) and more I don’t. There are TVs disguised as paintings, which delights the kids more than you could imagine; a little tipi; child-sized dressing gowns and matching slippers; enough sweet treats to keep us going for three days, and curiously, a long stick with a tiny hand at the end. We eventually agree this is a back scratcher, hung innocuously in the wardrobe alongside a clothes’ brush; another unexpected little detail, brandished by our daughter like a wand.

Lilibet the Lanesborough cat

Then they spot the treasure hunt, and the first bespoke clue sheet has them haring around in search of the next. The Lanesborough team really gets what makes kids tick; they have to work out the combination to the room safe to access their loot. Inside: two fluffy Lilibet cats, more sweets, activity books. Happy days. And a door knock: Tarek the butler with tiny versions of his outfit. They change into their ‘uniform’ and within minutes are spirited away to the King’s Suite for a butler lesson with Tarek. Which equals half an hour of blissful solitude for us. We double take, then smile, when we realise the hotel has scoured Instagram to find two photos of us together and printed them out for the bedside table frame. Equally happy days for us.

I can’t at this point believe the kids’ day could get much better, but apparently it can. A play in the spa’s hydrotherapy pool (very much not a kids’ pool but there’s the accommodating twice-daily ‘splash time’ and my goggle-faced two are happy in a pool of any description); chicken goujons and chips in the room; then down to the bar for another complimentary flourish of fun. They can go by themselves but it’s worth sitting with a drink of our own to watch Angel (‘On-jel’, s’il vous plait) take the children through a tasting session of juices then help them create their self-named Boats of Basil and Wildflower Whirlpool mocktails.

Curious guests smile as the children guess flavours and disregard Angel’s warning that the edible flowers taste quite bitter, raising their glasses with great satisfaction at the end. Sleep comes quickly for us all that night, sated by our supper, beneath gleaming chandeliers and half-canopies over the bed housing hypnotically neat fabric folds.

None of us want to leave, especially after a morning feast in the Lanesborough Grill – very quiet at 7.30am (child-free guests are obviously having an actual lie-in). I devour a full English, my husband enjoys the shakshuka and my son has never eaten breakfast so quickly (probably because at home, his pancakes aren’t liberally drizzled with Nutella). Not usually a pre-lunch ice-cream kind of family, the kids remember what they were told at check-in word for word: ‘They said we get free ice-cream ANYTIME we want!” So this is cashed in at 10.30am before we leave. They did at least circumnavigate the Serpentine and pretend to clip-clop alongside the King’s horses first.

I think long and hard about anything with which to find fault – tricky. The lighting control panels are well-lit, which is helpful for finding them at night, but quite bright for children too excited to sleep. Some greens with the kids’ supper options would be great; mine really like veggies. That’s literally it. My daughter wants to keep the butler outfit but I definitely wouldn’t expect the hotel to be dishing these out. Otherwise, practically perfect, like fictional Londoner and child-whisperer Mary Poppins.

As I gather up the last few small items of clothing and two identical cuddly cats, I find a note written on the hotel stationery, as carefully as a five-year-old could manage. ‘Thank you butlers for the lovely things’. I hope it brings a smile to Ovi’s face, as it did mine; this is an experience for the grown-ups to treasure, and one that your little ones won’t forget either.

From £995 a night for a Deluxe Room on a B&B basis, oetkercollection.com