**WHY WAS I THERE? **
Myself and two friends travelled down to Wembley (from the Midlands) on Thurdsay to see Take That at Wembley Stadium on Friday and we stayed in the Wembley Travelodge on the Thursday night and drove home after the concert on Friday night. We booked the room well in advance in October last year and paid £39 for a family room, which sleeps three.

**HOTEL LOCATION **
The Wembley Travelodge is located on the North Circular, Ealing; less than 10 minute drive to Wembley Stadium and apparently an approximate 45 - 50 minute walk from Wembley Stadium.

It seemed to be surrounded by industry, with the Katsouris food factory across the road. It is in a rather nosiy location, being right on the North Circular.

**HOTEL FACILITIES**
Our room itself was very simple, one sofa with a pull out single bed and one double bed (much more on that later), a TV, Kettle with tea, coffee, milk and sugar, hanging space for clothes and an adequate bathroom with toilet, bath and shower. There was no Hairdryer or Iron but this was exactly what we expected and we had taken our own anyway.

The room door was keycard activated as was the bathroom light (really don't know why, I have never come across this before in a Hotel room)

The reception area wound around into the bar area and then onto the eating/restaurant area with table and chairs and also a more relaxed comfy seating.

There are vending machines in the reception area selling crisps, chocolate, sot drinks and we noticed Nurofen too. There is also a much needed 'proper' coffee machine.

On the wall in the reception area is a freephone link to a local taxi firm.

**LOCAL AMENITIES**
The Hotel is approximately 2 - 2.5 miles from the Wembley High Road with lots of curry houses, kebab/burger style places, newsagents and off-licences. We drove in the car, it took about 6 minutes but in all honesty couldn't find anywhere we would be happy to eat at so we headed back to the hotel.

**OUR EXPERIENCE OF THE HOTEL**
As I said previously, we stayed for just one night and are so glad that we hadn't booked for two nights. On the surface of it the room itself had everything we needed for a much needed nights sleep, three people, one single bed and one double bed and tele and a kettle and a bathroom. In reality, it was probably one of the worst nights sleep of my life. It was stiflingly hot in our room, being one of the hottest days of the year so far! The windows are on a safety catch and only opened two inches or so. We had ordered a fan from reception which was free and on a first come first served basis (although when it was delivered we were told there was enough for one per room - work that out). Anyways, it was a really big fan and quite powerful and relieving. BUT, all the plug sockets were at one end of the very large room (which was slightly sectioned off between the sofa/single bed area and the double bed area, so the girls in the double bed didnt get the benefit of it. We ended up dragging the double mattress through to the living area, in the pitch black, so all three of us could share the fan..... which leads me to the most disgusting discovery..... When we were putting the mattress back on the bed we found that it was in a really terrible state, was very very badly stained and actually torn. It resembled (sorry to have to say it, but...) a prostitutes bedsit - (and sorry if I offend any of you with that comment), I have never seen anything like it, I am sure it is a health hazard. We feel so strongly about it that we are going to write to complain. Its not that expensive to buy a new mattress, although I suspect that its not just that one room that needs attending to. The single bed mattress was fine, and although it had obviously been well-used it appeared clean, although we not provided with a sheet for the single bed. ( I just put the duvet on it, was too hot for sheets/blankets anyway.

We ate at the downstairs restaurant on both the Thursday night and Friday morning. My evening meal consisted of a bottle of Magners, half a rack of BBQ ribs (starter), Chicken Tikka Masala and a portion of chips and totalled exactly £18, which was an okay price for a meal 'out' I guess, but the portions were very VERY small and clearly microwaved. The 1/2 rack of ribs was £4.95 and was just three extremely small ribs - not what I would consider half a rack. They actually reminded me of some microwave in the bag frozen ribs I tried years ago and never bought them again!

The breakfast is all you can eat for £7.50 and we decided to go for this as we had a long day ahead of us. The available options were; bacon, sausage, scrambled egg, beans, plum tomatoes, white and brown bread for toast, jams, marmalade, butter, croissants, muffins, yoghurts, cereals, tea coffee, orange juice, apple juice and milk! I didnt see all of the cereals but all seemed to be kelloggs and was definietly frosties, cocopops, muesli, rice krispies and cornflakes.

One of my favourite foods is sausages and I can enjoy even the cheapest of sausages but these ones were like eating sawdust, dry and ... just not nice at all. The beans were acceptable as was the bacon. The scrambled egg was not good, quite dry and all stuck together when I prefer it to be much more moist. I didn't try the tomatoes but one of my friends resorted to just tomatoes on toast and seemed to enjoy it. The orange juice and apple juice were very watered down and not nice at all. The espresso from the machine was nasty (hence their bright idea of a 'proper' coffee machine in the foyer me thinks). The toast was okay, very thin slices that had clearly been defrosted. Apparently the Croissants were nice, another friend had three so I guess that was a thumbs up!! And the cereal was in individual sealed packets/boxes and was great.... oh and there was also Weeetabix to add to the list.

**MY OVERALL OPINION**
Well, I wouldn't stay here again not even on one off Travelodges very cheap £9 rates. The room was just not worth £39 not even split between the three of us. I didn't expect complimentary shower gel or a hairdryer but I did expect a clean comfortable mattress and got neither. It is also very noisy on the road. also, looking out of our room was the bin store which stank and there were empty food cartons and even a childs dirsty nappy thrown out on to the roof, which made for very unpleasant viewing. The staff were friendly and tried to help, but out of the four we spoke to only one could advise us anything about the area; where to eat, how far the stadium was etc; the others didnt know anything of the area.