Custom House Hotel, London

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Good transport links
Disadvantages:	Everything else

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

My daughter ( L ) , my granddaughter ( S ) and myself recently stayed at the Custom House Hotel , Docklands , London as part of an overnight package which we had booked for the purpose of seeing the Phantom of the Opera on stage in the West End .
Because we took a package deal the hotel was included , and we didnt have any alternative choices
But having said that , had I made my own selection based purely on the rather attractive brochure photographs and brief description I may well have considered this hotel independently ,.
My impression of Docklands , although I had never visited this area , had been of a smart , thriving up and coming area with high standard , modern hotels and facilities , well placed on the river front .
That will teach me to make assumptions .

On our arrival at the hotel at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon we disembarked from the coach right in front of the hotel , and immediately disillusionment hit .
I had expected something reasonably " upmarket " , but in fact the area appeared quite run down , despite being well publicised as part of a huge regeneration scheme .
And as far as regeneration goes , to my eyes this was one butterfly stuck way up its own cocoon , and showing little likelihood of emerging anytime soon .

The surrounding walls of the narrow street were covered in tattered posters and a considerable amount of graffitti , and several small gangs of hoodie - wearing youths were hanging around close to the hotel entrance .
Even in broad daylight it felt a little intimidating , and we were glad to be with such a large group of people .

Perhaps the slightly " industrial " feel in this area is due partly to the fact that the hotel is directly opposite the entrance to the huge new DLR ( Docklands light railway ) station , but whatever the reason it wasn't quite the swish Docklands address I had hoped for !

We proceeded ( pretty quickly ! ) to the hotel entrance , unashamedly jostling the odd slower moving elderly person in our desire to be off this particular street , and made our way to the hotel entrance ( along with everyone else who had travelled on this particular coach and a couple of new arrivals who had made their own way here just in time to clash with us ) .
Unfortunate for them !

The queue to check in was already hanging way out of the door of the small , narrow entrance lobby and was extremely slow moving .
At this rate breakfast would be an al fresco affair .

Despite the fact that they would have known well in advance that a coach party would be arriving , the hotel had seen fit to provide only one member of staff on the check in desk .
And as we were scheduled to depart the hotel again in an hour and a half ( giving us time to have a meal in the city before our 7.30 pm show ) , the 20 minute wait to be allocated our room keys was way too long .

During this endless interlude I had plenty of opportunity to notice that the hotel décor was bland to the point of " couldn't be arsed " , with cold , neutral tiled floors , cold , neutral painted walls and a touch of not-too-shiny chrome where neither tiles nor paint would have been entirely workable .
Functional , clean enough , but totally uninspiring , especially when viewed for the best part of half an hour , from the wrong end of a long queue

When I ( finally ) arrived at the head of this award winning conga line , I was asked to sign a form , given a key card , and informed that our room was on the second floor .
Nothing more .
So I assumed that any further information we may need during our stay would be in the room .

We took our bags and proceeded to the lifts ( which were situated down a couple of steps to the right of reception ) , and again stopped dead in our tracks .
No chance of a speedy passage here either .
The little square area was full to bursting with people waiting for the lift , most of them elderly , laden with bags and coats , and tired ( not to mention a little tetchy in some cases ) after the long journey and the wait in the check in queue .

A glance over their heads soon explained the reason for this further delay .
One of the two lifts was " Out of service " , meaning that the queue for the only other one had built up a huge backlog of people trying to get to their rooms by the quickest means possible.
And if that meant wielding walking sticks and jabbing bony elbows into other peoples ribcages , then that seemed to be acceptable also .

We soon realised that the stairs would be our best ( and safest ) option , so off we went , stomping up three flights to the door marked " 2nd floor "
Here we easily located our room as it was , handily enough , ( or rather NOT on this occasion ) , only two doors away from the lifts .

As we dragged our bags along behind us on our way from the stairs entrance we discovered that now the only surviving lift had also given up the ghost , and was stuck , doors akimbo , on this floor .
Oh joy !
Ah well , at least the key card worked , and with anticipation of a hot drink from the complimentary tea and coffee tray followed by half an hour's relaxation to spur us on , we entered our room .
Our dark room .

It took us a while to figure out that the key card has to be inserted in a slot by the door to turn on the electricity as we had not been given any information on checking in , but eventually my daughter figured it out .
Now you know who ended up victorious in the 9 month battle for the brain cells .

Light was shed on the situation , but we begun to wish we had stayed in the dark
Our pre-booked " triple room " consisted of what appeared to be a king size bed in the centre , at the foot and to the right of which was a built in wardrobe with an open lower section for shoes etc and a TV shelf above , which continued around to the window wall where it became a broad kind of writing desk / dressing table , with the house phone on the far end .

The next wall ( which was the bed head wall ) had a large , ill fitting , sliding wooden door which led to the bathroom , or in this case " wet room " .
In here was the toilet , basin and shower head suspended high on the wall , and the whole room was floored with a non slip textured rubber .
However , the shower head was located right alongside the ill fitting door which had no lock and wouldn't slide all the way to , so I cannot think how all of that free-flying water would stand a chance of being contained .
There was no ledge , raised step or drainage conduit of any kind between the wet room and the carpet of the bedroom area , so obviously the water must seep into the main part of the room under the gap at the base of the door .

As the carpet was not wet , I assume that the same thought must have also occurred to the previous occupants , who , like us , opted to do without for the night in favour of a quick wet flannel , a good lathering of deodorant and a dry room .

Now for the fun part .
Did you notice that so far this triple room only has one bed ??
Well , surprise !
And I was . Surprised , that is .
And not pleasantly .

Wedged in the small gap between the " king sized bed " ( I will explain shortly ) , the writing desk / dressing table , the wardrobe / TV stand and the bathroom door was ….. A folding put-u-up bed .
So to get to any point in the room , the occupants had to straddle , hurdle or step on this rickety affair .

Add to that the daunting fact that whoever slept in it would have their head either under the TV stand in the shoe storage section of the wardrobe , ( or in the bathroom should they choose that alternative orientation ) , half their body width under the writing desk / dressing table ledge , and would be in immediate danger of colliding with any or all of these during the night .
You see our dilemma .

The only solution in part that we could discover was that removing the mattress and bedding from the base and placing it directly onto the floor gave , if nothing else , a little more head clearance .

Oh well , the king sized bed would be more than big enough to accommodate the three of us .
We're not proud , and S is only a skinny little 8 year old , albeit one with a disturbing habit of preferring to sleep diagonally .
And we reasoned that if we sandwiched her in the middle we should all get a reasonable amount of space .
That is , until we discovered that the king sized bed was in fact two three quarter sizes pushed together and made up with a single batch of king sized bedding .
So unless S was suddenly capable of sleeping balanced on a hard , double ridge of mattress edges , or we could come up with a suitable potion that would render her so without causing long term damage , that was another idea out of the ( rather small ) window .

In the end I opted to take the mattress-on-the-floor bed , as it seemed a better option than spending the night half awake waiting for the aforementioned skinny little 8 year old to roll over and disappear either into the wardrobe or under the dressing table .
Or , God forbid , down the inadequate drainage system of the wet room .

So , sleeping arrangements finally sorted , rickety bed base folded and hauled out into the corridor , we were more than ready for a soothing cup of coffee , especially as our planned relaxation time had now all but disappeared in a flurry of lifting and shifting .

L went to put the kettle on , discovering along the way that to do so involved turning off and unplugging the TV as there was only a single power socket provided to service both appliances .

Next , we found that the lid of the kettle was broken , and had simply been wedged into place by whichever maid had last serviced the room , ( a feat we had neither the time nor the inclination to repeat ) , so we just turned a blind eye as the damned thing steamed up the room and had to be switched off forcibly .
And feeling our way through the steamy haze we also found that there was no decaffeinated coffee on our tray .

Some of you may already know that my daughter has a heart condition and cant have stimulants , especially caffeine , but as I have never encountered a hotel of any star rating that didn't supply decaffeinated with the drinks tray we hadn't thought to take any along .
And yes …….. there is a first time for everything , and yes , this was it .

By now a little exasperated and running very short on prospective chill-time , I decided to call housekeeping and ask for some decaf to be brought up , but having scoured the room there was no list of telephone numbers to contact .
In fact there was no information of any kind … no guest timetable giving details of when or where breakfast would be provided … nothing .
So , using my initiative and past hotel experience I guessed that dialling 0 would at least get me as far as reception .

In theory that is .
Had there been a dialling tone on the phone .

I traced the wire to the phone point on the wall , and discovered that the connecting end had been wedged into the phone point with a torn piece of folded card .
A little jiggling , and lo and behold , I managed to get a line .
Before it changed its mind and died on me again , I quickly dialled 0 , simultaneously watching our remaining time tick away and realising that I yet had to wash , change and prepare for the theatre .

Reception answered my call quite quickly , and I asked to be redirected to housekeeping .
There was a rather bewildered pause before my query was answered with " Er .. what did you want housekeeping for ? "

I explained our need for decaffeinated coffee , and was informed rather curtly that supplies were kept at reception and I was quite welcome to go fetch them .
The implication was a very strong " you don't expect me to bring it up , do you ? "

A quick run down three flights of stairs later ( the lifts were still not working and we now had only 40 minutes before the coach collected us ) and I arrived once again at reception , looking , no doubt , every inch the weary traveller .
Unfortunately the lone receptionist was still booking in new arrivals , and after hovering hopefully for five minutes without even the slightest acknowledgment I resorted to hammering on the door marked " Staff only " at the far end of the desk where I had seen a porter wander in .

When he re-appeared I quickly explained my problem , heart sinking as he obviously struggled to understand my English .
Still , he did his best , and vanished back through the doorway .

Luckily this gave me time to overhear another guest ask the receptionist when and where he might expect to find his breakfast in the morning .
Obviously , no one had been granted access to this information , and other people were also having to trot down to the lobby , leaving me with the distinct impression that maybe .. just maybe .. their telephones didn't work either and they hadn't thought to trace the wire and jiggle it as I had done

Still , at least now I knew that breakfast was between 7am and 10am on the first floor .
Wouldn't have guessed that , so it's a good job I was eavesdrop ... erm ... listening !

The porter re-appeared a few precious minutes later with ……. Coffee .
Full strength , caffeinated coffee.
I attempted again to explain the difference , but half way through the receptionist became free and interrupted ( albeit unasked ! ) .

He told me that they didn't keep decaf on the premises as in his experience " most people prefer ordinary coffee " .
I explained to him the difference between " preferring " ordinary coffee and the medical implications of someone with a heart condition actually drinking it , but this fell on deaf ears , and he determinedly made himself busy shuffling papers with a short comment over his shoulder that he had noted my request and would send some decaf to the room should it magically become available .
I wont hold my breath then .

I resignedly trotted past the still - useless lifts , back up the three flights of stairs , wondering if it really mattered after all as there was now less than 30 minutes until our departure .
Still , somehow we managed to be presentable AND on time for the coach , and despite the experience at the hotel had a truly memorable evening .

As I mentioned before , I am not giving details of the travel arrangements or the show we saw ( Phantom of the Opera , her Majesty's Theatre … utterly , absolutely , fantastically enthralling , recommended 100 per cent , without reservation , but make sure you check the theatre seating plan for restricted view seats ) , and will skip straight to our return to the hotel .

Some of our companions had booked to see a different show , and due to the drop off schedule some hadn't had time to eat or get a drink either before or afterwards .
We were speaking to some of these unfortunate souls on the drive back to the hotel , but they didnt appear to be too concerned , cheerfully assuming that they would be able to get a drink in the hotel bar and a meal in the adjoining Chinese restaurant as it was still only 11pm .
However , on our arrival , neither appeared to be open .

Whether they actually ate that day or not will have to remain a mystery as we went straight to our room , where I prepared for bed , filled with misgivings about the coming night .
After all , we were directly opposite the main entrance to a large railway station , there were gangs of youths on the street outside , and my bed was a thin single mattress on the floor .

But as it turned out , we didn't hear a thing .
The rooms are all soundproofed , and very effectively .

And despite my worries I slept like a baby , flat on my stomach , which is my favourite sleeping position , but one I cant normally keep up for long due to lower back pain .
The combination of the thin mattress and the hard floor worked miracles , and for the first time in ages I awoke well rested and pain free .
I am sorely tempted to make my bed on the floor at home !

The breakfast was self service , full English and a decent standard , ( although L never did get her decaf coffee ) , and the selection available was good .
In addition to the full English there was cereal , yoghurt , cheese , bread and toast ( which you make yourself in a funny little " conveyor belt " machine ) , plus preserves and butter .
Tea , coffee and a selection of fruit juices were also available .

In summary , the only thing I can really say in the Custom House Hotel's favour is …..

The breakfast isn't bad and the soundproofing works .

General Information

The Custom House Hotel
272-283 Victoria Dock Road, London, E16 3BY

Three star rating

156 rooms , air conditioning , en suite
Complementary tea and coffee tray
Television

24 hour reception

Continental breakfast from 6.30 am till 10am
Full English breakfast from 7.30 am till 10am

Convenient transport links
Currency exchange available

Rooms from £69.95 high season , but as low as £29.50 low season and on special offers , includes breakfast