Express by Holiday Inn London Victoria

Hotel is very convenient - 2 mins from Pimlico Tube and less than 10 mins walk from Victoria mainline. No. 24 bus also goes past which goes on to Trafalgar Square and beyond. The road is reasonably quiet - the whole road is hotels and residential so no nightclubs to keep you awake.

Room was very clean and neatly finished. Any smaller and it would have been cramped, but these sort of hotels are for sleeping in, not lounging about in all day.

Bed comfortable: choice of hard or soft pillows which I've not seen elsewhere.

Good picture on flatscreen LCD TV (not always the case) with the full range of Freeview channels.

Shower very disappointing though. Hardly any pressure/flow - similar to a low powered electric one. If I'd been there a few days I would have mentioned it to the front desk.

Breakfast OK - standard range of Kelloggs cereals, choice of breads and preserves, tea, coffee, juices. Exactly as expected and something of the "USP" for HI Express over Travelodge and other 'room only' offerings.

As a London bed for the night, this is perfectly adequate. It's convenient (for transport and, as it happens, my London office), clean and quiet. Price was OK as well - I paid £117 for a fully flexible rate on the Government price, which I qualify for. Even cheaper rates were available on non-flexible advance purchase.

We stayed here for 3 nights in October, my wife and I, and our teenage daughter sharing a room. The hotel is not fancy, but it was clean and reasonably comfortable, and there was a bit of room left to move around after the sofa bed was made up. The hotel is well situated close to Victoria station (even closer to Pimlico), and there are buses very close at hand. The breakfast provided by the hotel was adequate without being fancy, and the staff were pleasant and attentive whenever asked to do something. The only downside during our stay was when they closed off half the reception area for renovations, the half that had access to the cheap internet connection.

The location is pretty good as it is not far from Pimlico tube station and a short walk to the Thames. However there are lots of hotels on Belgrave Road and despite it being a budget hotel, this was an uncomfortable and overpriced hotel to stay in.

Some of the staff were perfectly friendly and willing to help but I felt others had inadequate customer service training. For example, we were offered free drinks as we checked in early but had to ask 4 times before it arrived.

The hotel itself wasn’t great. The reception bins were overflowing, the lifts were painfully slow (disabled travellers beware) and the corridors and stairwells were stifling. We were provided with a fan that didn’t work followed by a very dusty fan to cool ourselves. I resorted to leaving the window open. The layout of the room meant the space between the large desk at the window and the bed was minimal, making the desk pointless to sit and write on or use a laptop. The bathroom was clean and the shower was fine. There was quite a bit of dust on the cabinets and other wooden items in the room, but on the whole, the room was relatively clean. The beds in our small third floor room would have been comfortable, but getting sleep in this hot room was not easy.

When we checked out, the luggage storage in reception was a few shelves in the corner behind the reception area. You could walk in off the street, pick a bag and walk off, no questions asked. I decided against using this facility. Breakfast is included in the price of the room and there was a choice of cereals, fruit and toast. Coffee and juice machines were available for drinks.

I’ve stayed in budget hotels across England and they have been good experiences, but this certainly wasn’t one of them. I’ll opt for the Best Western across the street next time I’m in London.