Only One Towel? No Wonder The King's Cross... (Travelodge London Kings Cross Royal Scot)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	Travelodge London Kings Cross Royal Scot
Date:	23/10/09 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap and central

Disadvantages: Bit noisy, bit grimy in places

Getting massively discounted tickets to the World Gymnastics Championships was an offer too good to pass up, but I assumed at the time that our good luck would end there and it would still not be the cheapest of weekends down in London. However, I managed to find train tickets from Manchester for £8 each way, and a room in this cheapie Travelodge for a too-good-to-be-true £35, turning our mini break into a bargain of a weekend.

I hadn't stayed in any London Travelodges before, but the city is crawling with them, and my first tip is to make a note of both the name and address of where you are staying. Walking from Euston this is the second one you'll come to (the other is directly next to the station) but we were coming in the other direction from a brief shopping jaunt to Covent Garden and, even though we were physically on Kings Cross Road, stopped at (a different) wrong one not realising there were two mere meters from each other. The names aren't that visible from the outside but there was a big sign behind reception so we noticed and made a swift exit.

We arrived around 4pm and our room was ready (check in is from 3pm, but for £10 more you can check in from noon, subject to availability). However then, and in fact every time we went to speak to reception, we had to wait a while. The desk was roomy but there only ever seemed to be one person working at a time. On the whole we found the staff reasonably friendly and they tried hard, but the whole thing lacked a little efficiency considering the size of the hotel (big) and its location (central London). We were asked how many (electronic) keys we wanted and these were provided with the minimum of fuss: no forms to complete or signatures to give since I had brought printed confirmation of our pre-paid internet booking.

Our room was on the 4th floor, and we took the rickety lift up. To get there we had to swipe through an interior door, making the place feel quite safe for an inner city location. Our floor, which was pretty standard, was well signed so you knew which way to go for each lot of rooms, and ours was near the start of the corridor, meaning less distance to walk (though, as we found out later, you could also hear the lift dinging all night since it was so close). For the first time that I can recall in a Travelodge, we had an actual twin room, with two very separate beds, not mattresses pushed together, or a double and a sofa bed. The beds were very narrow singles, with soft mattresses, and made up with clean white bedding but none of the usual Travelodge bedspreads / throws. I actually preferred this: I hate dubious, shiny throws of the kind you get in American motels as I always wonder how frequently they change them. However it did seem unusual to be sitting straight on your quilt in a hotel, though with no other soft seating on offer there was little choice.

There were no bedside tables, but we did have bedside lights and bedside controls for the main light, which were helpful. We also had a desk and chair (though this wasn't under the desk, but placed in one corner). There was a wardrobe with a spare pillow (we got only one on each bed) and a TV (good reception on all terrestrial channels, and a random mix of others including news and CBeebies). We also had tea and coffee making facilities with a generous provision of sachets and milks, though, as per the Travelodge cost minimising policy, no biscuits. There was a bin, but this was very small and soon over-flowing once we'd put in a newspaper and the other various bits of junk you tend to accumulate during train journeys - I never understand the tiny little bins hotels offer.

The bathroom was as you would expect - bath with shower over, loo, sink, a bar of soap and little else. However we were perturbed to discover only one proper towel, and a hand towel, in a room booked for 2. It was quite cramped, and two people could not easily have been in there brushing teeth at the same time, for example, but there was plenty of hot water and decent shower pressure so, for the price, we couldn't complain.

The room was adequate but had a tired feeling to it. The windows, in particular, were a bit grimy, and the curtains were falling down on one side, meaning they didn't quite close properly, something that would have been more of a problem in summer with early daylight. They also had the standard Travelodge smoke detector which annoyingly has a constantly flashing red light that can be distracting at night. On returning late in the evening, we also discovered how sound proof the rooms weren't - there was a group in a neighbouring room getting ready to go out as we were drifting off to sleep, and you could hear everything they were saying so clearly it was as if they were in our room. We had no traffic noise in the room at all, which I had anticipated, but the thin internal walls were a bit annoying.

The hotel is a place to sleep above all else, and has few facilities. Computers in the lobby provided internet access at a fee, and wi-fi is also available if you pay. Vending machines sell hot and cold drinks, snacks and toiletries, and are not outrageously priced though you'd find a better deal at one of the many little mini marts across the road. There was a café bar that offered an evening menu plus a breakfast buffet, and though this looked bog standard (hot food, cereals and not much else) it seemed popular, though probably because there were groups staying in the hotel whose deals included breakfast. Room service is not available (would you have even expected it to be in a place like this?) but there is a bar menu in the rooms that says you are welcome to collect any dish from downstairs to enjoy back up there, perhaps if you prefer a TV dinner to sitting at street level in a busy restaurant.

We asked at reception on our way out if we could have another towel, and were told to ask when we came back in - I had assumed that, since it was their error, they would have sent another one up for us while we were away. When we returned we had to wait to get one, but managed to jump in with another guest ahead of us who had asked for the same thing. There were no spares left behind reception, so we accompanied one of the staff to the 6th floor to the locked linen cupboard, where she doled them out happily enough. It did make me wonder, though, since they frequently seemed short staffed why they didn't make an extra effort to ensure all rooms had the right number of towels in in the first place.

The following morning, after a decent night's sleep and two long, hot showers, we went to check out and found the reception desk unattended. There was a key drop box, so we simply left the key here and wandered off. Since there's nothing you can charge to your room (breakfast, for example, must be paid for in advance, even on the day) I suppose this keeps things simple for them and frees up their staff to be covering several areas at once.

For one night, with such a central London location, this place cannot be faulted for the price. That said, I would not have wanted to stay for longer than a weekend due to the sound proofing issues. We didn't miss not having fancier facilities, but had we paid nearer the rack rate, I would not have been overly impressed since it is rather basic.

This hotel is really well located for Euston and St Pancras (now the Eurostar hub) as it is within easy walking distance of both. It is surrounded by various tempting little cafes and restaurants, and shops that sell all the basics you might need during a stay away, and with good tube and bus links it is the perfect place to stay for a (very) brief stop in the capital. I would stay here again for a night or two if it was at the same price or less (rates can drop to as low as £19 per room per night) but for any more I'd probably look further afield and take my chances either with a different Travelodge or a Premier Travel Inn, just to see if they could offer anything better.

Summary: Could do better...but you could do worse