Crowne Plaza Hotel, London

...journey to Theatre Land from Crowne Plaza. Booking was easy, we did it all over the phone, and it was a package eal. We had not been to the hotel before, and we found it a suprise as to what to expect. We did not have any problems with the booking. We did want to know after our booking how how far the hotel was to Theatre Land, as we did not have our own car with us, and we would rely on taxi's and public transport.

Getting to the ...
...From the entrance of the Crowne Plaza hotel, you can see the London Eye, one of London's famous landmarks, if you know how to get to the London Eye, then you woul know how to get to the hotel in New Bridge Street, even if you do not have navigational help. It is literally, down the road. In the street are some coffee shops such as Starbucks, and Cafe Nero. There are also a few banks in the street, with cash machines and ATMs. There were some pubs ... more

We booked this hotel with a travel company, as we were booking a short theatre break, one night in a hotel , and one theatre evening at Theare Land. We did not know how far the hotel was from Theatre Land, but when we looked online to see the distance, and seeing how much taxi's would be. It turned out that it was around 5 - 10 minute journey to Theatre Land from Crowne Plaza. Booking was easy, we did it all over the phone, and it was a package eal. We had not been to the hotel before, and we found it a suprise as to what to expect. We did not have any problems with the booking. We did want to know after our booking how how far the hotel was to Theatre Land, as we did not have our own car with us, and we would rely on taxi's and public transport.

Getting to the hotel was easy. Normally looking for certain places in a busy area is not easy, especailly with the buzzing traffic of central London. On the journey up to the hotel, we used satelitte navigation which was very easy. We punched in the postcode on the naviagtion and we did not need to worry about getting lost. The navigation took us the New Brdge Street, which is the street the hotel is is. We were all looking out for the hotel in the car, and we spotted the words "Crowne Plaza" on one of the stone walls of the hotel. The hotel was in the middle of a busy street, and we had to take our bags out of the car and be quick getting out, as it was a busy road.

From the entrance of the Crowne Plaza hotel, you can see the London Eye, one of London's famous landmarks, if you know how to get to the London Eye, then you woul know how to get to the hotel in New Bridge Street, even if you do not have navigational help. It is literally, down the road. In the street are some coffee shops such as Starbucks, and Cafe Nero. There are also a few banks in the street, with cash machines and ATMs. There were some pubs in the street too, and the prices wre not as steep for items, as to other places we had seen. If you do not have a car like we didn't, then getting a taxi will probably be the easiest option. Taxi's past this hotel every minute or so, so if you are outside, you should not be waiting around very long. You cannot miss them, as thy are bulky black cars with the word "Taxi" on the front above the windscreen.

There are two entrances to the hotel. One from the front, and one from the back of the hotel. One is on a busier street, New Bridge Street, and one is a road which is not so busy. The entrance through New Bridge Street is not too good for people dropping people off, but if you are dropping people off, and don't want to do it in around 10 secons, then going round the corner on the other entrance street will be easier to unload your bags, and say goodbye. From the outside, New Bridge Street, I thought it looked quite old looking from the outside, I think it may have been an old building but my opinions changed when I got inside the hotel, and got past the other side of the 360 degree moving doors.

Reception was stunning. It was about a twenty second walk from the entrance of New Bridge Street. The big reception tops, were made of dark Indian wood, and gave a new feel to the hotel. When looking from the receptionists view of the lounge, it was even better. On reception, there were around six different members of staff, all helping different people. The reception desk must have been 15 metres long. The staff were very helpful. Bein the desk was a lasrge plasma screen giving details of who was managing that day, and welcoming visitors to the hotel. The polite man on reception took a few details to confirm that we were genuine, and that we had booked. We were given a little cardboard book that had two plastic entrance keys to our room and to the lift. I have explained more below

The lifts are a few seconds away from the reception, and there are three or four lifts which are very fast, and kept very clean. There is enough room for around eight people per lift, and they are very reliable. If you are going to a floor with hotel rooms, you must insert your door key into the lift. This is for security and in my opinion, a good feature to have. You do not need to insert your room key when visiting a floor that has no hotel rooms on. There are a total of four floors, an our room was on the fourth floor, but when looking down at the hotel from the fourth floor through the glass which overlooked the reception, is must have been about 30 metres high. I am unsure of how many rooms the hotel has, but there are many rooms on each floor, it is a popular hotel which has alot of visitors, especially when we were there.

The part which excites everyone going into a new hotel room, what it is going to be like. To enter the room you need to slot your plastic card into the card reader. Only two cards can unlock this, and these are the two cards that were given to you on reception. As you go in the room you can see that there is a luxurious beige carpet, that looks so clean. The first thing that you spot is the bed. The room is in an "L" shape, and the bed is round the corner from the door. The bed has cushions that you have to try out, and throw your head against. Once you've hit these pillows, there is no getting up. The feeling and the softness is just crazy and out of this world.Aso as we came in, we noticed a TV, and it took a few minutes for us to notice that the TV had a personal welcome message to the ones staying in the room. We thought this was nice. The TV had a variety of English channels, and channels which were in French, and Spanish. The lamps in the room are modern, funky chunky cube shaped, and they are tall and slim. This adds a good feel to the room and they do look very nice. In the room is a kettle, buscuits, chocolate, cups, hot chocolate sachets, milk, sugar, coffee, and if you ever run out, you can call up reception asking for some more, free. There are also two free complimentary bottles of water in the room, right next to the ice bucket. If ever you want ice for champagne, or just a cold drink, you can go down the hall where an ice despencer can be found. We didn't use this, but we thought it was a nice and good idea to have in a hotel. Also upon entry, and next to the television we saw a small card that said if we had a laptop or device that requires internet access, then we could use the free internet if we wanted to, the card also gave instructions on how to do this, good for those who are not good at using computers. I found the room to be so relaxing, we didn't think that it would be great when we arrived, but it turned out to be outstanding. It was such a comfortable place to be, and had a very comfortable sleep. Often at hotels, you do not get so many features and your moneys worth, here you do and it was great to be at such a hotel.

The bathroom is the first door you come to as soon as you enter the hotel room. The door was shut, but you can tell that it is a bathroom when you enter the room. When opening the bathroom door you notice that there is so much room. The room itself is not massive but it is a good size. The bathroom is a square size, an around two metres by two metres. The flooring is tiles, which are cold to walk on but they are very clean an sparkling. The same with the walls. Tiled, bright white tiles, which are kept so clean. As I said before, there was alot of room to move around, there was a toilet, saink and bath/shower. There was still loads of room to move around and do whatever you need to do. A notice in the bathroom said if you needed any complimentary essentials, such as toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, ect, you can call reception. Another nice thing for the hotel to offer. Also in the bathroom were massive towels, there was one massive towel, the size of a tent. There were also smaller towels. Also free were some complimentary flannells, and shampoo, conditioner and moisturiser. The bathroom was really nice.

Underneath the television was a mini bar, one was a fridge with loads of chocolate, alcoholic, canned soft drinks, jelly beans and other nice treats. However, the prices were quite expensive. For a KitKat chocolat bar, you were looking at over £2. This is good if you don't like going out to get drinks, convienient for those who would use the mini bar.How much was in there? There was also a mini bar which was on a small shelf, there were lasers behind the items to make sure they are not tampered with. We know that around the hotel, was the buzzing of the London City, but unfortunatly, our view from the window was only a building on the bank of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. It would have been nice to have a different view, but our room was really nice, and it's not like we would spend most of our time gazing out of the window anyway. It would have been nice to look over the London Eye, Big Ben and the Houses Of Parliment, but our room was nice enough.

There was a bar downstairs, when we were in the hotel it was not open, and when it was open, we were too tired to go and get a drink. On arrival to our hotel room, we looked at the menus, and price lists for things around the hotel, and drinks were around £5 each. This is not bad considering this is in the middle of London City. Looking at the bar, which was near reception you could see in through glass. The bar had lovely lighting of bright colours, but had a night time style to it. There was a small TV, and the bar was very long itself. It looked very classy.

There was a resturnat, which we only used once. They served Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. We only had breakfast on our last day, as we had eaten out else where. There was a fried breakfast buffett, of eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms and other juicy foods. There was also yougurt, and fruit aswell, such as pineapple, melon, kiwi, oranges and apple. They were also selling hot tea and coffee. However, our breakfast was included in the price of our stay, and breakfast buffett per person is around £19 per person. This isn't bad for the location where the hotel is, you can eat as much as you like, and there is a wide variety, The staff are very polite, always aroun to take your plates, and other items incase you want to go and get more food.The food quality itself was amazing, the fresh french breakfast foods were tasty, and the cakes were so sweet. The resturant can be seen as you go in the entrance through New Bridge Street, with the 360 degree spinning automatic doors. In the resturant, there is a fair amount of room to move around. You arn;t sitting to close to people, and you don't feel uncomfortable. The style of the reasturant is quite nice, there are pictures on the walls, you are sitting by windows, you are on the bottom floor of the hotel so you can see passers by through the windows, on the busy streets of London. It is a nice resturant, and their service is really good.

If you are waiting for someone to pick you up, or a taxi, then you can wait in the lounge. If you are waiting for othe things, or maybe just want a change of scenery, you can sit in the lounge which is such a lovely place. It is noticable from the reception desk, and has marble flooring. The floor is very shiney, and there is so much room to do what you want. It is opposite the lifts of the hotel, and on the walls are shelves with books which can be borrowed by those staying at the hotel. There is a computer in the lounge, for those who want to use it. Next to that is a telephone too. The computer is for those staying at the hotel. There are also newspapers, and there are alot of them, and they are for use of the visitors. There are large glass coffee tables, and large luxurious brown leather softas with wide cushions. They are very comfortable.

Overall, this is a great place to stay, and I would love to go back, it is one of the best hotels I have stayed at. I would give it a very well deserved, 9 / 10, for its outstanding achievements, and the way that everything is so clean, and staff are so polite. A great hotel that offers a great service, at an affordable price of £70 per person, per night, right in the centre of busy London City. 

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