Description: On a recent trip to London with my flatmate, we knew we wanted to stay somewhere tried and tested – somewhere where we would know what we was going to get. This is why we picked to stay in a Travelodge. Although not the best hotels in the world, they are clean and the beds aren’t too uncomfortable. The Travelodge branch in question is the Kings Cross Royal Scot.
== Location ==
As you can probably tell from the name of the hotel, it is located close to Kings Cross station. Unless you know London and this area really well, I would advise printing a map from the Travelodge website although the hotel is easy enough to find. This Travelodge is only a quick 5 minute walk away from the train station. Exit the station at Pentonville Road and carry on walking down that street until you see a turn for Kings Cross Road and keep following that down until you see the Travelodge which will end up straight in front of you.
== My experience ==
We booked this hotel way back in the summer and it only cost £40 for a twin room for the night. I have stayed in some terrible hotels in London for more than this so I thought the price was great. I booked through the Travelodge website instead of any other hotel booking sites. The website explains what time check in/ out is and what amenities the hotel has.
As I have said, the hotel was extremely easy to find which is a huge plus for me. First impressions of the hotel were quite good. The front of the building is nice and clean with large glass windows showing the inside of the hotel which consists of lobby and bar/ restaurant. At the time we arrived, the lobby was full of a (what looked like) school trip of foreign students but we had no problems checking in easily and without any hassle. However, check in isn’t until 3pm and we arrived in London at 11am. This meant having to cart a bag around the city for a few hours before being able to check in. Due to this reason, we only took the bare minimum with us so we didn’t have to carry too much around. You can pay more to have a later check in but not earlier, which I would have been happy to pay for.
After checking in, we headed up to our second floor room. The hotel does have lifts in case you have a lot of luggage but there is a decent walk to your hotel room. We had to follow a really long and windy corridor around until eventually finding room 241 which seemed to take forever to get to. All rooms have electronic key cards so entering was very simple – we just put the card in the door and the little green ‘open’ light popped on and unlocked the door. The room was pretty much what I had expected it to be although nowhere near as nice as the lobby and bar. The Travelodge website shows rooms with modern furniture whereas our room had furniture which looked quite old and worn. We didn’t mind this too much as we were literally only sleeping there for one night and going out early the next day.
The twin bedroom comprised of two single beds which shared a bedside table with one drawer. Each bed has a light and switches next to it. The room also has a large desk with mirror behind which had on it a TV and a kettle with tray of teas and coffees. Next to the desk was a chest although it seemed to be used more for a seat than anything else. There is also a large wardrobe in the room next to the door which had hangers and extra pillows inside. The room was spacious and nice enough and was generally your average cheap hotel room. The window in the room was lovely and big though which let in a lot of light. The curtains were nice and thick though so it blacked everything out when we were ready to sleep. I was glad to see a working radiator in the room which we made full use of!
The bathroom is really what lets this room down so much as it was so small! Inside the bathroom is a sink with mirror behind, toilet and bath/ shower. There was barely any room to stand in the bathroom so taking pictures of it was extremely difficult. As long as I could have a shower in the morning though I thought it would be ok. Unfortunately, the shower was rubbish! The water pressure was terrible and being someone with very long hair, it took me a long time to rinse both shampoo and conditioner out of it. The water came out in the slowest trickle which I was very disappointed with. The bathroom also does not have an extractor fan nor a window so it gets very steamed up in there quickly.
Even though this hotel room did have some problems, I had a wonderful night sleep! The second floor of the hotel was quiet and we weren’t disturbed at all by others staying here. The beds were extremely comfortable and it didn’t take me long to get to sleep and stay asleep until my alarm went off. I can’t actually remember a night where I didn’t wake up at least once apart from when I stayed here. Staff at the hotel were friendly although we barely had any interaction with them. A lovely girl at the front desk quickly gave us our key cards upon checking and in explained that to check out we only needed to deposit the card into a box. Because of this, I cannot really comment too much on the staff’s competency because we didn’t need to talk to anyone!
== Overall ==
The Travelodge Kings Cross Royal Scot isn’t the best hotel but you do get what you pay for along with a decent night sleep. I would stay here again if I paid the same £20 a night per person because you won’t get much else for that price in London!
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