Novotel London ExCel, London

**********LONDON EXCEL NOVOTEL**********

Last week I went down to London with my work. I work for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the examination department and as part of our job, we are required to travel down and help out with the twice-yearly exams in London. In our case, we were helping out at the London ExCel centre at Docklands, so our work handily put us up at the ExCel Novotel, which was essentially right ...
...I've never been to London and to be honest I didn't really get a chance to see much of it while I was down there, as I was only staying for three nights. However, I was very impressed with the hotel and its facilities.



**********LOCATION**********

As I said previously the hotel is situated next to the ExCel centre, which is in the Docklands area of London (south west) and it overlooks Royal Victoria ... more

**********LONDON EXCEL NOVOTEL**********

Last week I went down to London with my work. I work for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the examination department and as part of our job, we are required to travel down and help out with the twice-yearly exams in London. In our case, we were helping out at the London ExCel centre at Docklands, so our work handily put us up at the ExCel Novotel, which was essentially right next door to the exhibition centre.

Now I've never been to London and to be honest I didn't really get a chance to see much of it while I was down there, as I was only staying for three nights. However, I was very impressed with the hotel and its facilities.

**********LOCATION**********

As I said previously the hotel is situated next to the ExCel centre, which is in the Docklands area of London (south west) and it overlooks Royal Victoria Dock. As a result, it is slightly out of the way of the city centre, although there are good transport links thanks to the DLR (Docklands Light Railway - the nearest station is Custom House, a mere five minute walk away), it is extremely handy for the smaller London City Airport (a ten minute cab ride), and it only takes ten minutes (and one change of train) to get to Canary Wharf!

**********ROOM FACILITIES**********The 4-star hotel has 257 bedrooms, all of which are well equipped with a variety of things you might need....

• SAFE
  This was nice and easy to use (I thought so anyway)
• HAIRDRYER
  the website states this is in the bathroom but mine was in the bedroom under the desk - a far safer location as far as I'm concerned
• MINI-BAR
  I wouldn't say this was brilliantly stocked but there was two cans of coke in there, so I was happy.
• BATH and SEPARATE SHOWER
  This was far preferable to the shower IN the bath as I've found to usually be the case in hotel rooms
• TELEPHONE
  i didn't use this as the prices seemed astronomical to me
• TELEVISION
  This had both regular channels and pay as you go ones. There was also a connector where you could hook your mp3 player up to the tv and play it. Speakers in the bathroom meant you could listen to your music OR the tv while in the bath or brushing your teeth. (Unfortunately there were NO speakers in the separate toilet!)
• WI-FI INTERNET ACCESS
  You could access this either via the tv (there was a keyboard supplied), or with your laptop. This was yet another thing I didn't use due to the astronomical prices - I decided I could live without access to ciao or bebo for three days!
• BED
  For what's a hotel room without a bed!!! I found this very comfortable, although the bedcovers were slightly too thick for my liking. (There is also a two seater sofa, meaning the room can accommodate up to three adults)

**********HOTEL FACILITIES**********Venturing outside the confines of the room, there were other facilities to be found

• THE BAR
  Funnily enough, I really liked the bar (just like i like MOST places which sell alcohol...), it was fairly spacious with comfortable seats, and best of all it had an outside terrace overlooking the river. Since our stay coincided with some lovely weather in London, this was an added bonus. It meant we could sit in the sunshine once we had finished work for the day and, on one particularly warm day, watch a bunch of young kids launch themselves into the river. Another night my male colleagues sat out and saw a boat race on the river (they were late to meet the rest of us as a result). I don't know the exact prices of drink in there (we were charging the drinks to our rooms - lucky us, eh?) but I'm sure someone said it was about three quid for a pint. There were also bar meals available like fish and chips, or burgers.
• RESTAURANT
  Of course, there was also a restaurant, this offered a variety of different food (although the prices of the meals seemed astronomical to me when I had a look at the menu and nothing particularly caught my eye as there was a distinct lack of pizza and pasta on the menu) In the mornings, there was a buffet breakfast offered - I sampled this one day and there was a wide choice of food, both hot and cold available (although I had to dine myself, something i have never done before and hope I never have to do again - I really didn't enjoy that experience!)
  (I should point out though that there are quite a few restaurants nearby so you do not need to feel limited to the hotel if you wish to dine outwith the hotel but don't want to venture too far away. There is both a Chinese and a Caribbean restaurant less than five minutes walk away from the hotel)
• FITNESS CENTRE
  Although I never used this, a few of my colleagues did sample the sweaty delights of the gym and sauna (apparently the steam room was out of order) and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. The one thing I was told though was that as it is on the eighth floor, when you are running on the treadmill, next to the window, it feels like you might run right through it and plummet to your death!!! I'm sure not everyone would feel like that though, but if you get high on danger then maybe you'd enjoy that feeling!!!
• MEETING/CONFERENCE FACILITIES
  There are twelve meeting rooms onsite so if you are there on business, this is probably an ideal place to stay.

**********DISADVANTAGES**********I feel I have been quite positive in my assessment of the facilities so it's only fair I let you know what I feel are the disadvantages:

• PRICES
  At rates of between 79 pounds and around 150 pounds per night, it certainly is not cheap - however, if your company is paying then I don't suppose that would really matter.
• ROOM WAS TOO WARM
  It may just have been the time of year I went at, but i found that even with the window open and the air conditioning on I would still wake up sweating. I really DO NOT enjoy that.
• MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
  Although the hotel was undoubtedly convenient for the place we were working, it wouldn't have been a particularly feasible choice had we been working in, for example, the centre of London. For me, having to go on the tube anywhere isn't ideal, even if it IS only for ten minutes or so.
• SOME OF THE STAFF WERE UNFRIENDLY
  One night after the boat race we asked one member of staff if it was okay for us to sit on the terrace, as it looked like there was a private party winding up out there. He assured us it was fine (he was not an unfriendly member of staff, clearly). Ten minutes or so later, another man came up to us and basically told us we couldn't sit there as we were not a member of the private party and asked us to go away. Fair enough, this is an easy mistake to make, but when we explained we had been told it was okay, he snapped "I will see!" and stomped off, and never returned. Clearly he was told we had been permitted to sit there, but could not admit he was wrong. Really, after the way he spoke to us, we all felt he owed us an apology. I wish I'd got his name now so I could have written a letter of complaint about him!
  In general, however, the staff couldn't have been more helpful, accommodating and polite, so it really was only HIM letting the side down in that respect!

**********CONCLUSION**********

If you are required to go to London and need to be nearby to the ExCel centre, Greenwich, The City, City Airport and Canary Wharf, then this is an ideal place to stay if you want a comfortable, fairly peaceful hotel with a good deal of facilities. If you need to be nearer the city centre, give it a miss! 

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