Cheap, clean but watch out for the handles! (Travelodge Docklands Hotel)

Name: Lush Walrus

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Product:	Travelodge Docklands Hotel
Date:	09.12.05 (1475 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Price, location

Disadvantages: A bit tired

A couple of months ago, we had an opportunity to exhibit at Excel on the Docklands for a 3 day weekend. The exhibition itself is a whole other story, but as we were going to be at the exhibition from 8am till 10.30pm even though we are both London based the idea of a 40 minute drive either way just didn't appeal. After a full day of promoting, talking and selling a drive is the last thing we wanted, so we decided to find a cheap local hotel. After a quick hunt on the internet for a cheap, basic and local hotel we found the Travelodge in Docklands. Complete with a hotel car park, it appeared to be the perfect solution, what could possibly go wrong!


Booking

As with many chains of hotels these days booking via the internet is heavily promoted. With Travelodge, this appears to pretty much be the only option, at least if you have located them via the internet, any form of telephone number or booking direct with the hotel is pretty hidden. Only a tiny mention of the direct number appears, which of course infact is not direct but a high rate number linking to a central database starting with 0870. An added incentive is given by discounts while booking online, via what Travelodge refer to as 'web rate'. For this reason, combined with the fact that we were already on the internet with no specific extra requirements, we booked on line. A simple process of finding either the area or the name of the hotel and inputting your required dates, brings up the availability in the hotel. Generally I've found that two options are given at this point, either a double room or a family room, the cost of which are either the same or an extra £2 for the family room. In the same box as the availability details appears the option to 'book this room'. By clicking on the link a new box appears to confirm the dates, type of room, cost and number of people. The process then continues in the normal fashion with a request to enter your card details etc. Once completed, an invoice is sent to your email address and you are ready to go. One thing I would say to watch for though, as this is what caught us off guard is this receipt does not have the address of the hotel anywhere on it. Stupidly, we assumed it would and printed the receipt realising our mistake when it was too late and we couldn't find the hotel. So make sure that you don't make this assumption and simply write down the address directly from the website either at the point of application or before you leave. The penalty for not taking the address down is a rather fruitless search without aid or (well and) a call to a high rate line to ask for directions!!!!


Cost

Travelodge charge per room as apose to per person, which is a definite plus if you are part of a family. We paid £26.00 per night, which is incredibly cheap for anywhere in the country, let alone the Docklands! On the website it states that this is a special web rate and that the normal price is £50 per night. But as I haven't tried booking direct I'm not sure if anyone ever really gets charged the full rate. I've checked back a few times and this price appears to be pretty consistent regardless of the day of the week you are wanting to stay. The price does vary slightly, my guess is according to how booked the hotel is or expected to be. For example if you look to book at Christmas the price goes up to £40 per night, and if you book for the next day it can vary in price.


Location

So as I mentioned, we were visiting Travelodge purely for its close proximity to the Excel centre. The Docklands Travelodge is in fact located just over a mile away from Excel just off of East India Dock Road, for those of you who know Telehouse, it is directly opposite there. For that reason on arrival you are bizarrely faced with a security barrier, therefore before you can even approach the hotel and their property you need to speak into a microphone and state that you are visiting Travelodge. I'm sure the extra security measures are there to ensure that those visiting the street are monitored for Telehouse (which houses most of the servers for the UK internet) rather than something put in place by Travelodge! But none the less, although slightly inconvenient it doesn't have huge effect on your approach to Travelodge. Once outside of the Trvelodge, you then face another barrier which leads into the car park, again something I found strange for a hotel! But I found out what this is for later on, those of you who have used Travelodge before may well already know!!!


Facilities

Well, to be frank I didn't expect much for that cost. Wanting somewhere clean, basic but the real reason we chose the Travelodge was due to its promise of a car park. When we arrived however the car park was well, more than full. Cars were spilling out everywhere, parked up verges, double parking, blocking each other in, a mad house!! We couldn't find a space at all, but as we were arriving there at gone 11, I'm sure that everyone who was staying in the hotel had already beaten us. As you cant park on the road outside, we had to dump the car blocking the road to ask what to do in reception. The receptionist told us to simply park behind where we can, blocking whichever cars were parked in the spaces and come back in.

Personally, this is not something I felt particularly comfortable with, as if a car wants to leave in the night or early morning we were almost certainly going to be called to move the car. But at that time of the night with limited options, this was all we could settle for!

After a simple process of telling the receptionist our name, the keys were handed over and we were directed to our room. Its possible to have either a smoking or non smoking room, we chose non smoking but mistakenly left the stairs at the wrong floor and wondered along the smoking floor to find our room. Now I'm a smoker, but I can only advise at all costs do not opt for a smoking room. The smell emanating out of that floor was the most awful smell I have smelt in a long time, stale smoke times 50 is the only way I can describe it. Don't do it!!!!

So once we found the right floor and the right room, the door is opened with the generally used card devise as apose to an actual key. The electricity is not linked to the card, so you can turn the lights on without fixing the card into a further devise.

The room itself was spotlessly clean, with the window open which I thought was a nice touch. The room itself was completely tired, all appearing to have had one too many people stay in the room!

The room had a TV, kettle, bed, storage cupboard, mirror and a couple of bedside cabinets with a door leading to the bathroom. The bathroom again was basic, shower over the bath, WC, two towels and wash hand basin but once again very clean. My boyfriend at this point decided to use the toilet and this was where the true cracks appeared. While washing his hands he discovered that not only were the taps loose and impossible to turn off but the sink itself was coming away from the wall!! At this point I didn't know the instability of the wash hand basin as for once my boyfriend has chosen to close the door (probably the excitement of being in a hotel!). But after what he later told me was a struggle of holding the wash hand basin to stop it coming off the wall, while simultaneously trying to turn the loose tap off the whole thing failed and the tap stayed on!

Wanting a bit of assistance from me, he tried to open the bathroom door, only to find that the door handle came off in his hand after using the normal low force anyone would. Sitting on the bed, I heard a faint cry coming out of the bathroom and after pinning ear to door in an attempt to hear what he was saying over the sound of water, I realised he was trapped inside! The door opened inwards so the only way in was to throw myself against the door in a comedy sketch fashion. After 5 to 10 mins (that seemed like eternity) the door released and he was out!!! By then the hot tap had became so hot that we tried everything to get the thing to turn off, the whole bathroom was humid and steamy, more akin to a sauna than a bathroom after someone has simply washed their hands. Four hands proved better than two and eventually we turned it off with the aid of towels to stop the tap or sink burning our skin! We spent the rest of our stay washing our hands in the bath and leaving the bathroom door wide open. So my advice is definitely do not close the bathroom door in here unless you are completely confident that the knob wont come off!

Besides the room the only other facility on offer is a small bar/ restaurant / breakfast room. Strangely considering they offer smoking rooms, this is non smoking. We had a few drinks in here to laugh off our experience so far and the day in general! And the next day had breakfast, which is not included in the price of the room. £5.50 per breakfast is charged there and then. The breakfast is fine, self service and the food is hot and plentiful, just what we needed when about to face another day. But when choosing your hotel factor this into the price and the room starts to go up in price to match some of its competitors.


Booking out

Again a simple process, hand over the key and you are done. For us we felt that we should mention all of the rooms problems, not because we wanted to get any money off, but because we were sure that the room would be used again that night and would hate to see someone else getting stuck inside. Who knows if they fixed the problems as the room turn over is so fast, but at least we did our bit!

While stood at reception we noticed that there was a notice up regarding charges for the car park, £50 for loosing your ticket and an hourly charge. Neither of which was mentioned on the website (if it were it must be very discrete) or when we booked in and had to literally abandon our car! Personally I find paying for a car park when you are already a guest pretty outrageous and the fact that we were not made aware and there was no space even worse! We of course could not find our ticket anywhere and after checking in the car were resigned to paying £50, that was until we noticed that the in barrier was lodged in the up position while maintenance men headed back into the main building. Feeling like rebels we took this as an opportunity to leave, and didn't pay for the parking, well in our case £50 fine. I don't feel any guilt about this, as this is something we should have been made aware of, but be warned if you do go to this hotel there is a charge and don't loose your ticket as you may not find an out like we did.


Overall I would say its an example of getting what you pay for in life! The cleanliness was up to standard, but the hotel really needs a bit of love and care applied here and there. I think I've made my opinion on the car parking situation clear so I wont mention that again! Overall I would say the hotel is fit for purpose, no frills, well located and clean. Just don't close the bathroom door…EVER!!!

Summary: Worth the money, but its not the ritz!