I recently had a trip to London with a friend, and since I have been in hotels in and around London before, I was tasked with finding us accommodation for 3 nights. I knew that we would be using the hotel for bed and breakfast only, so wasn't going to waste our money on anything too fancy. After a little searching I found this hotel on a site at just over £30 a night, coming to £108 in total per person. This was for double, en-suit rooms with breakfast included, a great deal I thought.
Overall, I was pretty much right. The hotel is far from perfect, but then I've thought the same about many hotels I've paid a fair bit more to stop in, including 4 star ones. The rooms were spacious, as expected for doubles, but basic, with a TV
(5 channels only, and not a great signal despite being right near the Crystal Palace transmitter), desk, tea and coffee making facilities and a bathroom with bath and shower. They have seen better days, the carpets were a little threadbare in places, but the bed was comfortable. The rooms are central heated with radiators, but in both our rooms the thermostats were broken, mine would not come on, his would not turn off. Unlike many hotels I've stopped in, the cleaners were good at replenishing the supplies, and replacing used towels.
Breakfast was reasonable. Cereal and Tea or Coffee are self service, with cooked breakfasts and toast ordered. Neither of us had cooked breakfast, so can't comment. We got 6 slices of toast each though, and didn't wait long for that. It wasn't that busy, but we didn't have to wait long for the tea to be refilled either.
The staff are all "none native", which is common in London, intact I can't remember a London hotel where I saw a single English member of staff. Obviously this can lead to somewhat of a language barrier, probably made worse by our "up north" accents and way of talking. I found them generally to be good and helpful though, once they could be got to understand what was required.
Since we weren't at the hotel much, I can't comment on facilities, but their was a bar, and that was about it.
Crystal Palace itself seemed a reasonable area, although obviously not one of the most affluent parts of London, but nothing like the inner city "slums" either. It has everything expected of a small town, shops, banks, a railway station, bus station etc. It is on high ground, which gives very nice views. As far as "safety" is concerned, I felt no different walking around their as in my own town or other towns I've stopped in, either during the day or at night, intact the general area around the hotel was much quieter and "safer" than the centre of my town at night. Our rooms were on the inside, so external noise wasn't an issue, but the road past the front seemed pretty quiet. Their was some noise from planes into and out of Heathrow and London City, but they weren't too noisy, and seemed to stop about midnight anyway (and weren't that frequent from about 10), although I live near to an airport so am used to plane noise.
The hotel has car parking facilities, and being some way from the centre of London I imagine it's not too difficult to drive to, plus it is outside of the congestion charging zone. The nearest railway station is Crystal Palace. Trains are half hourly from London Victoria and London Bridge, taking between 25 and 30 mins. I would not recommend the walk from the station to the hotel though, since this involves walking up a quite long and very steep hill. Bus route 249 though runs regularly (about every 10mins) passing the station and the hotel. It is also a fairly short walk to the bus station, with regular buses into the centre (route 3 to Oxford Circus) taking about 40mins, although as we found out, at rush hour this can be a lot longer (over an hour). Buses and trains run late (last train is early in the morning, the 3s run 24 hours).
Really, we only had 2 problems with our stay. The first was arriving just before 2 o clock to find that checking was not until 3, although this was the booking site at fault, not the hotel, and gave chance to explore the area before checking in (after leaving our bags at reception). The second was with the swipe cards used to get into the rooms, which on the second and third night refused to let us in, and we had to get them re-activated by the receptionist.
Overall, if you want a cheap hotel, convenient for central London, but without paying central London prices, this is not a bad bet. You get what you pay for, and you can't get 5 star accommodation at these sort of rates. It's definitely on my list of 2 or 3 hotels in and around London that I would use again.
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Price is per double room per night and may vary depending on date booked...
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Information:
Price is per double room per night and may vary depending on date booked...
Location. The Queens Hotel Crystal Palace is a traditional style property situated in ... more
Crystal Palace, half a mile from Crystal Palace Park and the Horniman Museum, eight miles from the centre of London. London Heathrow Airport is 38 miles from the hot...
Information:
Price is per double room per night and may vary depending on date booked...
Apr 30th, 2008
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