I live in St Albans. Generally ante natal care here is provided at your gp surgery by community midwives or your gp. The booking-in appointment is done at the local hospital and there are regular ante-natal clinics there too, eg if you had to see someone on the consultant's team about a complication. The ante-natal classes are also held at the local hospital. The local branch of the NCT also runs ante-natal classes and these are very popular so your friend should book in early if she wants these. They are a good way of meeting other new parents, if nothing else.
I had my first two babies at Hemel Hempstead when it had a full maternity unit. Hemel now only has a midwife-led birth centre and providing there are no known complications, your friend could give birth there, even though it is her first. (This is probably the one you are thinking of cupcakes.) I had some ante-natal care there with my third and thought it was lovely - wished I could have had him there. However, as I had had complications after the delivery of my second, they wouldn't even consider letting me give birth there. This is because they want to minimise the risk of an ambulance transfer to a different hospital if there are any complications during the delivery. I had my third baby at Watford, where they have a midwife-led birth centre as well as a regular delivery ward. If anything goes wrong in the birth centre you can be whisked upstairs to the delivery suite in minutes. I wanted to go to the Watford birth centre but unfortunately for various reasons I ended up going to the regular section.
Lots of people here also go to the QE2 at Welwyn, especially if they live in the northern part of the city. Anyone I know who went there was v. happy with it. Your friend may need to specifically request that hospital, if it is her preferred one, I think because St Albans is outside its regular catchment area.
All the hospitals welcome visits where you have a look around. I think your friend needs to decide if she wants a birth-centre or standard delivery suite (or home birth which is very popular here!) and take it from there. I don't know how much she should go by other people's experiences - it very much depends on the midwives you have and the circumstances of the birth, IMO. For example, I was perfectly happy with the care, etc during my ds's birth. However, I wasn't happy that he spent 24 hours in Special Care the next day, but that is another story....