For my Christmas present my hubby had booked tickets to see a show in London and make a weekend of it so along we went last weekend (I know its March but this was the earliest we could get tickets and a willing baby sitter!).

As usual hubby had left it until a week before we were due to go before bothering to look for a hotel despite my constant nagging. He spent a good few hours googling London hotels and came up with this one.

Custom House Hotel is situated in the Dockalnds area of London and is directly opposite the Excel exhibition centre. It boasts 282 rooms and 3 restaurants. It is also situated directly opposite the Docklands Light Railway station - making it easy to get into the city -about a 30 minute tube journey. I find this fine although I appreciate that some people may want to be more centrally located. It is worth noting that at the moment there is ongoing engineering work at this station but there is a replacement bus service which will take you about 10 minutes extra to get on the tube. I'm not sure how long they anticipate this to go on for but they were working on it when we went to Excel in December and they have pulled up a lot of the track so I'd imagine it will be quite some time.

We found the hotel no problem and checked in about 6pm although you can check in from 2pm. The sat-nav took us directly there so we couldn't go too wrong! We arrived and parked in the hotel car park - it is reasonably small with room for probably 50 cars. As with most hotels these days you just leave your car registration number with reception so that they know you are a patron. It is manned some of the time and there are barriers to let you in and out. You cannot leave without an exit code from reception so I felt that our car would be pretty secure here. Car parking is charged at £10 per day which compared to parking in most London car parks I thought pretty good -and they did let us leave our car there the following day while we did some touristy type things and collected it about 4pm at no extra charge.

When we checked in we were greeted by a friendly gentleman who gave us our room key and details. He explained that if we booked breakfast there and then we would get 20% off the usual price of £10. He explained that there was a full English and continental breakfast available but we declined as we didn't know what wanted to the following day. Breakfast is served from 7-10am should you wish to have it there.

We arrived in our room which was a superior room - it was quite small although had the necessities - double bed, flatscreen TV, wardrome, loo and shower. This was fine for us as we were just using it as a place to sleep and didn't need it all singing and dancing. The one good thing about the room is that it was spotless. It was lovely and clean.

Our evening in the hotel was fine, the temperature was just right although there was a thermostat in the room the adjust it should you need to. The matress was quite firm and the quilt was nice and snuggly. There was the option when we booked to either have blankets or duvet so its up to you.

After I got up I had a shower - towels were all there and quite soft compared to some hotels I have stayed in. There was also 2 bottles of complimentary shower gel and shampoo and 2 bars of soap. We didn't use these so I chucked 'em in my bag - you never know when they will come in handy! The shower/toilet and basin were in kind of a 'pod' which was pretty small but was fit for the purpose. The shower cubicle was tiny but there was enough room for a hair wash and shower. You couldn't swing a cat in there but I wouldn't want to! The water was just right and the pressure was ok, not a power shower but it was adequate. There wa also a hairdryer to make myself slightly more presentable.

There was kettle and tea and coffee available also in the room - a few sachets of each but these also found their way into my bag!

There are no ironing facilities in the room iteself but there is an ironing room on the second floor should you need it.

The hotel has 3 places to eat -although we didn't use any of them. The Ho Lee chinese restaurant on site looked absolutely lovely and I don't think it was too expensive - about what you would expect really looking at the menu. There is also the Custom House Cafe selling tea/coffee and snacks and the Custom House Pub and Kitchen serving meals, snacks and of course alcohol. They are all open late too so no need to worry about getting something when you get back to your hotel.

There is a lift and stairs to all floors so everyone is catered for and there is a choice of standard or superior rooms. Rooms are available as double or twins - there is no provision for families. The standard rate is £130-£150 per room per night. I think this is expensive but the other half had booked it through another site and paid under £50 so we were very happy. There are also banqueting and conferencing facilities available on site too.

We had a fantastic weekend and this hotel offered great value at the price we paid, it was clean and staff were friendly. I'd recommend it if you are planning a break in London.