Travelodge Docklands, not quite the bargain I thought. (Travelodge in general)

Member Name: angusreid

Product:	Travelodge in general
Date:	03/12/03 (1025 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Easy to reach by car

Disadvantages: Shoddy attention to detail, Not well thought out

Visiting London is never cheap, so trying to find the ideal hotel, at the ideal price, in the ideal location is both time consuming and often frustrating, as deal after deal becomes unfruitful with the click of a button. "Sorry, but that deal is full, however we do have rooms for xx amount per night available".Do you know what I mean?

Well, trying to find a hotel near the Victoria Palace Theatre for around £60 per night was nigh on impossible u less you wanted to stay in something that resembled a Psycho movie set.
That when I tried Travelodge and their £35 per night deals. Not to disappoint, they also had ran out of special £35 per night rooms, but could offer a £45 per night room at their Docklands Hotel, off the A13.

Now there were two rooms required, as I was taking Sherry and her Mother out to celebrate her birthday at the musical ?Tonight?s the Night!? a Rod Stewart themed musical. The tickets had set me back over £120 so budgeting had to come into play somewhere.

So I booked two rooms here, to cut a long story short.

REVIEW

BOOKING ONLINE.

Easy to follow instructions made this a comparatively easy transaction.

Click on the large map of the U.K. to select the area you would like to stay.
Narrow down search to Town/City.
Check availability and price.
Confirm booking.
Card details.
Confirmation print out.

I found their on-line booking facility a gem. Pages loaded within seconds and every page was virtually click on this or that, rather than select this, add this, and so forth.

Once booked a page comes up to confirm your booking had been made and that you need to pay the hotel on arrival. Your credit card has been used as a holding deposit only.

Overall I found this quite easy and hassle free.

DIRECTIONS

Travelling from the South, take the M25 to Junction 2.
Take the A20 to Blackwall tunnel.
Once out of the tunne

l, take the second exit on your left and you are on the A13.
At the roundabout, take the fourth exit and follow road round to East India Dock and the Travelodge is right there. A dominating building and easy to see.

From North, take M25 towards Dartford and turn off for the A13 at Junction 30 heading Westbound for London.
After about 12 miles, you will pass the Travelodge on your left hand side. Take the next exit immediately after the hotel and it doubles back on you to the entrance.

By train, take the Docklands Light Railway to East India Dock and head North once off the train. Travelodge is about a 5 minute walk from here, about 800 meters or so.
There are quite a few steps to get down at the station, so if you have lots of bags I will advise you to get a taxi, which is £22 from the Centre of London. It may seem extravagant, but if you are a family and you have quite a few cases, it?s a godsend. East India Dock station does have lifts though, although they smell heavily of wee and are not clean. Also the changes from Underground to the Docklands Light Railway are not user friendly with long walks, many steps and quite often no lifts.

My advice to anyone who is not driving is to grab a taxi if it is within your budget. If you are sprightly and energetic, get the tube/light railway and hope it is not raining when you get off. The car park charge is £6 a day but it was not in operation when we were there so it was free. There are a limited number of parking spaces though.

RECEPTION.

Not quite friendly and courteous, but not rude. Just not very chatty to be honest! The chap took my details, asked for my credit card, gave me a form and asked me to sign twice and add car reg number. He told us where the lift was and where our rooms would be.

I found it very quick for a check in, which is a bonus but felt a smile is always the best greeting at any hotel and this one lacked just that.
Otherwise
the r
eception was easy to find (straight through the door), clean and adequate.
There was a small shop style location here for snacks, toiletries and confectionery at reasonable to over-priced cost, depending on what you were after.

ROOMS

\The room itself was quite small, with a double bed, and space for one arm chair. The T.V. had only three channels due to some technical problems, so no pay per view movies or the normal Sky channels. Luckily we were only staying the one night so it did not really come into play for us. The window was broken and would only partially lock, so the noise from the A13, which we were situated above, was quite loud. However, after a little bit of persuasion, we managed to get it to lock enough o drown most of the noise out.
We had no pillow cases on our pillows and had to ask reception for them as we were going out. (There was no phone in the room). Also, with it being a smoking room (For Sherry) there were no ashtrays. Strange move as it can be considered a fire hazard for someone to use a bin for example.

The bathroom was a shower and sink/toilet suite of ample size. The shower was not quite run to get wet, but hardly powerful and meant a quick shower took a bit longer than normal. One small bottle of free shower gel/shampoo was used on the first shower. So it was quite awkward unless you were prepared to buy some at high prices from reception or had brought some with you.
The taps were broken and they moved rather than twisted, so Sherry had to get me to turn them off for her as she was unable to grip it strong enough to shut it down. This could have been a big problem for an elderly person on their own especially with no phone in the room.

Overall, the room was clean and what I would expect from Travelodge, but the minor housekeeping repairs would have made it much more acceptable.

BAR & RESTAURANT

The bar was located on the ground floor next to the restaurant. <
br>It was
a self service kiosk style bar which quite small with only one person serving.
They had a small selection of spirits, no draft beer, only bottles or cans of draught Guinness
The seating for the bar is actually the restaurant tables, with the exception of one table situated underneath the T.V., so it?s kind of loud and also a neck cricker as you have to be a yoga expert to watch the screen. On top of all that, it?s a bit cramped for three people and the restaurant customers have to squeeze past you to get into the restaurant.
The restaurant it?s self is quite large, with about 20 tables or so. The menu is varied, with pasta, pizzas, traditional food and vegetarian meals. I thought the prices were exceptionally cheap for London, you could grab a Pizza to take away for less than £7! A reasonable wine list with small bottles available for people eating alone rather than having to pay silly money for two glasses of wine or a bottle.

Although I did not eat the food myself, I was watching a few people tucking in and it looked good quality and portions were ample.

Overall, the place was geared up for people attending functions etc in Docklands rather than the occasional tourist, and everything was aimed at speed and ease of use.

DISABLED FACILITIES

The disabled parking spaces were situated at an unacceptable distance from the main doors, so had it of been raining you would have got soaked by the time you actually got there. Sliding doors made accessibility for wheelchairs quite easy, and again, the reception was close at hand and easily accessible. Unless they had special rooms for disabled people, then the chances of worming your way around the corridors and opening the fire doors was nothing short of impossible. My mother-in-law is disabled, but not wheelchair bound so she made sure of telling me her concerns about bringing her mother there. (Who is wheelchair bound)
I do not feel a person could have e
asily manoeuvre
d though the tables and entrance to the restaurant unaided, which could result in the independent customer getting a bit annoyed or embarrassed about asking for help.

The rooms also were too tight for wheelchairs or people with walking difficulties, but I am not sure if they have separate rooms with easier access and facilities, it may be worth you checking before you book.

OVERALL

For £35 a night, this hotel would have been a bargain. For £45 a night, it was adequate, but only just acceptable.

For someone going in and out of London, the D.L.R. is okay if you are fit and active, but Sherry?s mother had to stop on numerous occasions to get her breath back when we changed at both Tower and Monument, as long walks are required between platforms.

Taxis are not cheap, £18 private hire getting to the Victoria Palace Theatre, and £23 by Hackney getting back. So again, unless this fits into your budget, it may be as well to pay say £90 a night and stay at a more upmarket hotel in the West End and enjoy the pleasures of walking through the Christmas Light?s enjoying each others company and pausing to look at different Christmas themed window displays.

I am a big fan of the Travelodge chain and often use them for overnight stops in the U.K. and the U.S.A., but I felt slightly disappointed with the standard of this one. I would only use it again if I was staying in Dockland for a specific reason, not as a City stop off.

Angus Reid

Summary: