European Hotel, London > Reviews > "Cheap" accomadation in London

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money	Good
Quality of Rooms	Poor
Standard of Service	Average
Quality of Food & Drink	Average
Cleanliness	Average

Advantages:	Simple B + B
Disadvantages:	Room was by smokers courtyard

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Having spent 4 years of rowing at university, my girlfriend and I had made some long term friends who we will probably be friends with for many years to come. At the back end of March every year, one week before the Oxford-Cambridge boat race an event is held on the Thames involving crews from across the country and it was decided to have a big meet up of 'old boys' after the race.

Originally, my girlfriend and I had planned on catching the train home after the festivities had ended rather than attempt to find a place to sleep. However, when we found that on that night trains would be replaced by a bus service, we decided that staying would be the better option after all.

Usually in a situation like this I would book a Travelodge or Travel Inn but a quick look online showed me that these places were either too expensive (considering we are trying to save for a new house at the minute), or the only rooms available were miles away from the function room.

It was therefore decided that we would stay in a B+B and after much browsing, I decided on this one, close to Kings Cross station. It appeared cheap (by London standards!) and was very close to the station, a huge advantage as we needing this to get around.

We arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon and although the receptionist seemed a little bored, he was friendly enough and we soon found our room. If I had to sum it up in one word then that word would have to be, BASIC! Considering that we have probably paid less for 3* or 4* rooms in other cities then the £55 I paid for this was a waste of money as we has two single beds, a small bathroom and a couple of bathrooms. I was slightly frustrated as I was certain that I had booked a double but a quick check of the confirmation showed this not to be the case and was probably a switch made by the third party website that I used. My other initial impression was that the decor reminded me of my grandparent's old house with furniture and wallpaper straight out of the 1950's!

One of our biggest problems with the hotel came the following morning when we awoke. As we had been in a rush the night before we had not taken into account the time of breakfast but assumed that, it would be a little later than the Mon-Fri time that we had both subconsciously noted. This wasn't the case with it finishing at 9:30 so too late for us having got up at 9:40! The other problem was that our room was right next to a small courtyard so we were awoken by the smell of smoke outside our room, not nice for two non-smokers.

All in all this B+B was perfect for what we required. It was close to Kings Cross (literally 2mins walk), it had a comfortable bed and most of all, in London terms, it was cheap. If we were going to doing an overnighter again then I would use this place again and would recommend to friends and family.