Travelodge London City — Hotel in London

The positives... the location of the hotel is great for people who have never visited London before. It is within walking distance of Tower Bridge, very close to multiple transport links (Aldgate, Aldgate East, etc.), and it's one of the cheapest private stays in the area with a private bathroom. It's a budget hotel chain, and this branch is located in central London. As long as you set your expectations, then it's an 'OK' place to stay for a night or two, but none of the optional upgrades are worth it, in my opinion.

Our particular overall experience was pretty poor, but I'm hoping it was just a one-off and it's not regularly that bad.

Our experience: • On our last day, the hotel thought it’d be appropriate to start refurbishment works (drilling, hammering, etc.) right outside and next to our room at 8 AM on a Monday, after the whole hotel had been woken up earlier that morning at 6:15 AM by a fire alarm! • Our AC unit didn’t work in our room from day one, meaning no cooling or heating was available. We were given a fan, but there was no offer of a room change or any sort of partial refund. We had to have the window open, which made the stay noisy. • The bathroom hand soap was empty on arrival and was never refilled throughout the whole three-night stay. • We had paid extra for the 'SuperRoom', but I’m not quite sure what this included as an upgrade over the other rooms other than a coffee machine in the room. It had USB ports in every plug socket, which was helpful, albeit they were all very slow charging. The TV was a 32", which was too small, in my opinion, for how high up and far away it was. Save the money and do not upgrade the room! • We paid £11.50 per person per day for the buffet breakfast. The food quality was decent, but there wasn’t much selection at all. The coffee machines and juice machines were regularly out of order, and the milk was left out at room temperature. I would definitely recommend people skip this. There are two Tesco Express stores within a three-minute walk, or there are a lot of local cafés to get breakfast from too. Either of these options would save you money and give you more choice. • The front desk staff were always nice and helpful to talk to. The café staff, however, always felt like they were rushing you out of the area, dragging chairs instead of picking them up and slamming plates down. At one point, there was only one working coffee machine, but the café staff all stood in that area (which was in a corner) having a conversation, making it difficult to use the machine without feeling like you were interrupting. • The TV was a Samsung TV which had It's smart features disabled, meaning you could only use Freeview. I don't know if the TV we had was damaged, but I wasn't able to plug my Roku device into any of the ports as it would just not fit in. The ports were not visibly blocked, but I don't know if they had some sort of lock to stop people putting devices...

I came to the UK for the first time, first time travelling on my own as well. I was very excited to visit the country, but this hotel ruined it for me. My mum got the hotel room for 5 nights for me and we received a booking confirmation. A very small string of text was in that confirmation e-mail that I did not spot: "Please note: Bookings made with international cards require funds to be held for a number of days until released by your bank. No payment will be taken at this time. The booking will require full payment on check-in." This is already unacceptable, I've heard from other travellers that they booked hotels with their international card and they didn't have any problems at all. So I, thinking my hotel was already paid for, flew to London with a couple hundred pounds of cash and no bank card because I don't have one. I arrive at the hotel at 4pm on 5 Aug and I learn of my fate: My hotel is not paid for and I can't pay for it, because my cash is not enough. The member of staff there called her manager who then recommended me to use the service "Western Union" so my mum could send me cash internationally that I could then pick up at a pick-up agent. After hours of hastling, my mum did manage to send the money. The problem is that Western Union seems to be declining at the moment and all the pick-up agents I was trying to find were all not there anymore. I came back to the hotel at 8pm showing my Western Union confirmation to the staff and the manager, begging her to allow me to stay for one night and I'd pay her half the money with the cash I had. She refused saying it's against company policy. With the help of another black guy in the staff, we looked for more Western Union pick-up agents and I ended up walking through the streets of central London alone. Central London at night looking at all those poor homeless people is scary enough, but doing so out of fear of having to sleep on the streets yourself is much worse. I came back at midnight begging them to stay for a night again. The black guy offered to book another room for one night. The manager reluctantly decided to have some decency and I was able to stay the night, paying 114 pounds for it. I would pay the full price for the other room the next day. I wanted to stay 5 nights, but I stayed that one night and fled London by taking a coach. I was sick of everything; central London, Travelodge company policy and that inhumane manager. I do not recommend staying at this hotel when this manager works there and if her children (if she has any) end up travelling alone, I hope they don't end up in a situation like this, my mum was...

Worst breakfast ever! Waited 20 mins. Yes! 10mins to pay for breakfast at the bar. Then obediently stood at sign saying 'wait here to be seated'. No-one came! Eventually just sat at a table. Got some fruit. Waited at hot food counter as a member of staff had taken away the tomatoes which looked disgusting, we presumed to be replaced. Took a long time so sat down to eat fruit while waiting. Realised all food was being cleared away. Went and got bacon, eggs, dried up mushrooms, dry beans stuck to pot. Still before 10am but not 9.35 which was when we arrived for breakfast. I asked for some tomatoes. Was told 'no! Breakfast is closed.' Still before 10am. Staff member rude. Tall lady with hair in a bun. Seemed to be telling staff what to do so maybe management. I asked for raw tomatoes. These were slammed on our table in a soup bowl 5 minutes later. Staff were all seated having their break and it became obvious why they cleared food away before 10am. Member of staff who was rude rushed out to have a cigarette. Please remember we were in the restaurant at 9.35am. I do not begrudge staff having breaks. They work hard but the cut off time for breakfast should therefore be 9.30am. We arrived for breakfast 25mins before end of service but due to inefficient service we were left waiting. Now, I find I have been charged £1.20 for the raw tomatoes. This has been added to my bill without my authorisation. There were stains on the duvet. A hand towel was stained lime green with something and unusable. The hotel was noisy at night. Doors slamming. Noise all from within the hotel. Some staff were nice but unfortunately the lady with the scraped back hair and bun was so rude that the lasting impression was of a couldn't care less establishment. The location of this hotel is great and from the outside it looks nice. I have never left a bad review before (check it out). I stayed here a year ago. It was clean and OK. Supposedly a flagship hotel! I paid over £500 for two rooms for two nights (not really budget prices) and was treated rudely ( I was polite at all times). There was no soap in the basin dispenser. I had the same problem year ago. The soap dispenser for the shower was water! Just awful. Stayed at Premier Inn and Ibis on this holiday both much cheaper and much better than here. I will never stay travelodge London City again. I will be writing to...