Travelodge London Central Southwark — Hotel in London

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Overall experience: this is an incredible hotel, staff, and location - people need to wake up and realise why. All these people bemoaning things are asking for a champagne lifestyle on a lambrini budget. If they want a faultless experience, they need to falk out the cost to pay for it. Travelodge is ultimately a budget range hotel - that's their market, and the Southwark branch does it wonderfully! It is by far one of the best Travelodges in London; clean, modern, spacious, and their staff want to do well.

Sure, things may not always go right, but their staff want to do well - and that says a lot more than some hotels I've stayed at in London, and which have cost more money.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rooms: large, spacious, clean, and I can't hear my neighbours bonking. What's not to love?

I've stayed in some hotels in London where you can smell sewage, hear all noise outside (or next door), people on the top decks of buses can see into your rooms - it's very hard to find hotels at this price point that do not sacrifice something. Travelodge Southwark has it all.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Location: I spent four years living in Southwark. It's the perfect location, being just across the bridge from central, but at night it's quiet! Do not underestimate the rarity of silence in London - it's a commodity people pay premiums for.

Southwark is also safe, and very vibey - lots of independent restaurants, kitsch bars, and a thriving theatre scene.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Assistant Manager, Alex: it's the second time I've stayed here and Alex immediately recognised me. The endless faces he must be, but he remembered. That's what service is about.

On both occasions, I've asked for a quiet room as I'm a solo traveller, and on both occasions they've been able to accommodate me.

Alex is great and wants to make sure his customer's are happy. He understands service.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Sepedeh: she also just gets it! Although new to Travelodge when I first stayed, she understood what it means to help a customer and their individual needs. Such a lovely soul and deserved of 5 star praise. Thank you!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ramsay: absolute dude! Travelodge is lucky to have him - moving between the place helping his colleagues, training others, making sure the small things are done. And still taking time to court the customers, ask for reviews, and make sure people are happy. The guy is the Assistant Manager of tomorrow - watch out Alex 😉

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Simran: great first night shift, well done! Hopefully you'll still be here in September when I next visit

All in all, great hotel - people would be idiots to overlook this modern, clean, spacious hotel just a stones throw from central.

I will be continuing to stay here every time I come...

I arrived late due to driving down because of the train strike! Upon arrival I was greeted by security guards lounging around on the sofas and two members of staff behind the counter. After check in I proceeded to my room which at face value so late at night seemed ok, was the cooler side of cool due to AC being on but that was ok. The 1st thing I noticed was dirty cups! They clearly hadn’t been cleaned.. then I noticed a very full bin!! Other peoples rubbish! I went Over to the bed to check, that had been changed but had some stains on.. (blood)? Not sure! The bathroom was a little grim.. dirty taps.. water stains and an odd smell. I was at this point after an 8 hr drive and it being almost 2am not walking down to complain for the worry of a longer wait.. the next morning I woke to better light and found a lot more grimness! The amount of dust was unacceptable! The fact the previous occupier’s had written HELLO in it tells me this!! The towels were soiled in some “brown stains” also a large hole on the smaller towel with a large burn mark.. the fact I was paying £350 for 2 nights single occupancy! This is unacceptable.. breakfast was nothing special… low grade produce, over cooked and lukewarm.. the juice seems very watered down.. and the seating arrangement very tight.. uncomfortable to move around. At £9.95 a breakfast I definitely wouldn’t pay that again!! Included in the room rate I guess most would enjoy. After airing my grievance's to a member of staff who was lovely! It really just fell on deaf ears.. she didn’t seem at all shocked… no mention of how it will be rectified… I understand Travelodge is a basic hotel that doesn’t excuse dirty accommodation! And at the prices charged I expected far more. We have barley come out of a global pandemic every room should be clean and fit for purpose. Otherwise germs spread! Cause illness and infection. It’s very basic hotel standards that need to be met above all. The reception area was exceptional but that’s clearly a ploy to attract guests. No good having a clean front of house if your rooms aren’t clean! While I sat at reception on check out I noticed the 3 different cleaners I had seen all took time to come down and help them selfs to coffees and juice which is fine, however given the cleanliness of my room I doubt they should be awarding them selfs with regular breaks.. maybe clean the rooms properly then the free coffee would taste much better!

All in all it was a very basic stay.. one I wouldn’t recommend! And I won’t be repeating. There are other budget hotels at cheaper prices with far better cleanliness standards around. Check reviews before you stay. I took pictures incase management would like...

I will start by saying that I am not one of those people who pays 50/100 quid for a hotel room and expects the Ritz, it's always a balance between price and quality, and I have stayed in Travelodges (and other budget chain-hotels) across the country and have had few complaints, however this particular hotel (despite the price) is grim.

Positives first: great location, near the Thames & Tate Modern with excellent transport links (Waterloo train station, Southwark tube station and Blackfriars Thameslink station are all a short hop away), the room itself was somewhat serviceable.

As for the negatives: pretty much everything else. The lift took ages to arrive for my entire visit (ended up using the stairs but didn't want to when checking-in because, naturally, I had my suitcase), when I got to reception there was one person ahead of me, for whatever reason the staff took about 15 minutes to check this person in (I'm really not sure how, I thought the routine was "who are you? do you want breakfast? here is your key."), when I got checked-in I had to repeat my name about 4 times to the receptionist (my name is not especially complex, I wouldn't say I speak like a BBC news presenter but I have certainly never had to repeat my name when checking into a hotel before!).

When I got to my room the first thing I noticed was that the bin had not been emptied and that the bin contained travel documents from the previous occupant(s), naturally I didn't look at them but a nefarious person could have, this of course didn't give me much confidence that the room had been actually cleaned or checked (presumably, they just remade the bed?), also there was no TV remote. When I went back to reception to mention this they did not seem overly bothered (to put it mildly), no mention of getting the room actually cleaned or moving me to a clean room, they handed me a TV remote, I got back to the room to find the TV was broken anyway (perhaps not a major issue if you're on holiday but I'd had a long day and just wanted to zone-out to some TV for an hour or two).

Overall, I will say again: grim. (giving two stars purely for the location and the fact that it was not...