citizenM Tower of London hotel — Hotel in London

What a lovely hotel. Where to start? We booked this for about a week long stay. We were given a room on the fourth floor, just 3 doors down from active construction in a different room. Upon entering our room, we were met with a wave of heat. It was upwards of 26C in the room at the time. The HVAC is controlled via an IPad, along with the lights, blinds & and TV. We immediately set the AC to 18C and the "fan" to high. After doing so, nothing in the room changed. No air was blowing out of the vent. A quick call down to the reception, and we were told to "close the blinds" and give it time to cool down. Okay, blinds closed. Another 45min pass. We go down to reception & tell them there's a problem as it's still not working. The same staff member tells us the air conditioning is being serviced and will be back on in a few hours. No, the windows do not open. After about 2 hours the air finally kicks on, & maintenance workers come by unprompted to verify this. Though it never got anywhere close to 18C during our entire stay, 21C at the best. There is minimal airflow as the vent hardly pushed air out. We even kept the blinds closed during most of our stay. Not ideal, and not what we were expecting when we booked a hotel that advertised ac and views. Somehow, even with windows that don't open, we found multiple clothing moths in our room.

First morning, I wake up to the sound of hammering & drilling from a few doors down. Apparently, we weren't the only ones whose rest was disturbed. As after about 30min, the noise stops & I heard one of the construction workers loudly complaining in the hallway about being told they had to stop their work. Problem solved, I suppose. Only heard them working two more times in the afternoon hours during our stay...

Now, back to the IPad that you must use to control everything (unless you download their app & create an account). While the idea is nice, the execution was flawed in more than one way (this is coming from someone with a smarthome). First, having an IPad with a camera & microphone in a hotel room is a huge privacy concern. There are products that are made for this that do not have a built-in camera or mic. Second, the application was extremely buggy. When trying to control the TV, turning the volume up or down the volume frequently muted it. Additionally, the TV automatically turns off after giving a countdown. This countdown says to press any button on the remote (IPad) to keep the TV on. However, it did not register any button presses, so it would just turn itself off regardless. Even if you power cycle it during the countdown, it will still turn back off at the time it displayed before the power cycle. Not a huge deal, just annoying af from a sysadmin perspective.

There were some light switches in the room, but certain lights could only be turned on/off with the IPad. Rather annoying to do early in the morning. The light in the shower was able to change colors to set the mood, that was a pleasant aspect. If you exit the room at night, when you come back and swipe your key card, this turns on ALL OF THE LIGHTS. If your partner is asleep, this will more than likely wake them. THERE WAS NO SETTING TO TURN THIS OFF. Huge frustration.

Another couple days pass. Had a late night, so slept in a bit late. Unbeknownst to us, they decided to test the fire alarm with zero no notice, so it really jolted us awake. It wasn't until after we got dressed & went to the lobby that we saw a sign placed in front of the elevator buttons stating there would be a test of the fire alarm. They did not place that sign the night prior, as we would have observed it when calling the only bank of elevators down.

The staff were mostly friendly. The decor was unique. Rooms were a bit small. The first floor bar was great. Not so much the rooftop bar, as they allow smoking on the narrow ledge & they keep the doors open to the inside allowing this cancer causing smoke to blow in. Menus could only be viewed on app. Overall, CitizenM Tower of London is a 2 star hotel trying & failing at being a...

My husband’s work selected this hotel for us to stay while he attended a conference.

I have a laundry list of complaints, some of which the hotel has control over, some of which they do not. Out of their control or unchangeable: the water smells disgusting. It reeks of sulphur. You have to get all consumable water downstairs. The rooms are offensively small. The mattress is framed by the walls and window, and the toilet is in the shower. You can see into all interior facing rooms if their blinds are up from the elevator bank.

My husband fell ill our last night and the hotel was extremely unaccommodating when I asked if we could use his corporate rate for my extra room. His company had 10k+ people traveling for this conference and very strict rules about how they could go about making reservations. That, paired with his sudden illness rendering him unable to act as a travel agent to help me find a solution, made it that I had to pay nearly $400 US to stay in the same hotel where my ill husband and all my belongings were currently. For such an expensive hotel, one would expect a higher level of customer service than was ever provided to us. They like to kick responsibility up the chain at this establishment and pretend their hands are tied for any request at all.

The man working the front desk developed an attitude with me when I didn’t thank him that evening for the water that I picked up (because remember, the water from the room is disgusting and I was asking for assistance because I didn’t want to touch the water dispenser and spread more germs). He was upset I didn’t thank him when he pointed out that there were already bottles filled and provided no services. I didn’t realize verbal tips were required when no work was done, but I guess the staff at CitizenM require more encouragement. At this point I asked to speak to the manager, where I expressed my dismay.

I told him that I took issue with paying a premium for a hotel with no space, rude employees, issues with theft, and constantly malfunctioning elevators (good luck getting up to your room when everyone who is attending the same conference is going up and down the elevators to get breakfast or leave for the day!). You are required to scan your key to get up to your room (a security feature I usually appreciate) but the scanner regularly fails or it simply forgets the button you pressed afterward. The elevators often break and at least one of them has to be dedicated to housekeeping, so there were many occasions where only one elevator was expected to serve all the hotel guests.

The manager’s rebuttal to my complaint about the elevators was comical - he said, “that’s been a problem since you got here, it’s not anything new since you paid for this second room!” As if that makes it any better!

The phones in the room did not work for us, so any time I needed to call the front desk (I.e. for more towels or to find out if there was a doctor they could connect me with), I had to go downstairs.

They also have a theft problem - at least one person in our group had a bag stolen from the lobby during breakfast. So be wary and always keep your belongings close.

Oh! And I almost forgot - The pleasure of finding all sorts of foreign hairs in my second expensive hotel room! They have these disgusting pillow dolls that they place in each room, and there is no way that they wash them with any frequency. I found a hair on it upon arrival. There was also a long hair adorning the exterior shower / bathroom curtain facing the bed (so difficult to describe the setup because it is just so incredibly nonsensical) and stains to really keep things exciting. Repulsive. Definitely not worth $400 USD, and it pained me to pay it.

I hope I never have the displeasure of staying at a CitizenM again and would go out of my way to stay at any other option close by.

The day workers were all nice and...

The rooms are incredibly small but amazingly comfortable and adequate in every way. I was not excited about being asked to stay here for 3 days for a sales meeting but turned out to be delighted with this hotel. It's very thoughtfully put together. The rooms are small, just wide enough really to accommodate a bed, but that bed is situated by a huge picture window framing a magnificent view of the tower bridge of London and the surrounding historical buildings. The bed is extremely comfortable, the room controls are modern, it's perfectly quiet and private feeling. It's just very well put together with a lot of attention to small details that make the space comfortable. I slept better in this hotel than in many finer places. The staff are ever present in the lively living room / lobby area. The people working here are extremely enthusiastic and attentive. It's a really young hotel staff where everyone seems like they're committed to the success. I don't know how to describe it other to say it has very positive vibe. There's a centrally located coffee bar and food area, always attended, alongside a very comfortable lobby area with workspaces and lounge seating. It's like a very comfortable coffee shop/living room/bar. They serve a nice breakfast every morning for a reasonable price, have really great meeting rooms, and at and at night there's a bar on the upper floor that is a lot of fun. The location is also terrific. It is directly across from the Tower of London and as I said many of the rooms offer fantastic views. It also faces on one side a historic customs house and the small park and courtyard in front of it. The customs house has been renovated into a very posh and recently opened Four Seasons Hotel with a two Michelin star restaurant. That just makes this more modest hotel feel even more special. Like the affordable house next door to a mansion. The hotel also sits directly on top of the Tower Hill metro station. You really only have to walk across 20 ft of sidewalk and you're inside the station which couldn't be more convenient to access anything else in London. I sometimes dread taking public transportation from the airport to my European hotel because I expect a long walk dragging my luggage down cobblestone streets. Not here. You just walk out of the train and you're practically at the check in desk. There's also a Docklands Light Rail station about 3 minutes walk away where you can reach other parts of the city. If you happen to be going to a conference at the Excel you can be there door to door in 20 minutes and rather than stay near the conference center, you can enjoy a much better part of the city. Just writing this makes me want to go on with even more superlatives. I'm completely happy with this hotel and if the rest of the citizen m properties resemble this one I think I'll be staying there as well.

Note: One small end very important detail with regard to the rooms. There are some rooms that face inward to a glass ceiling inner courtyard covering part of the lobby. I haven't been in these rooms but you can unavoidably see into many of them looking through the windows while waiting for the elevator. Get an outward facing room if you want any privacy or even the ability to open your window blinds without displaying your bed to the world.To say you have no privacy in those rooms is an...