Travelodge London Ilford Gants Hill

This review refers to the Gants Hill Travelodge, rather than the centrally placed one in Ilford.

We arrived at 4pm, being greeted by a less than informative and a somewhat un-enthusiastic receptionist, located at a reception desk in what could best be described as a dilapidated, tired and run down building in a less than salubrious part of London suburbia. No information was provided about the attached (Harvester) restaurant regarding meal and breakfast times and availability.

The allocated ground floor room was the normal Travelodge layout with a double bed, sofa bed, TV, tea making facilities and en-suite bathroom. This room had clearly seen better days as it was definitely in need of some severe renovation – or preferably, demolition.

First, the bathroom; this featured a bath with chipped and worn enamel, detached bath plug and a wide range of black mould in residence around the tiles. It appeared that the toilet bowl had escaped the attention of bleach, disinfectant and a toilet brush for quite a while.

The bedroom area was in a similar ‘good’ condition. Of the six castors on the bed, the majority were broken. The pillows, although encased in pillowcases, featured a wide range of staining throughout. To continue the ambience, the curtains appeared to have been there since the place was built and again appeared not to have been washed since then. The kettle interior featured an unusual calcite feature as its centre piece and also sported a variety of black speckles to complement the calcite. To complete the tea making facilities, two unmatched cups of different sizes sat nearby, again with a poor standard of cleanliness. The socket for the telephone, was also hanging off the wall. Didn’t get round to trying the TV.

The carpet didn’t look like it had seen a Hoover for years, especially around the edges and under the malformed bed lay a nice supply of antique dust. Indeed, bodily parts from a previous resident, in the form of toe nail clippings, were still visible on the floor. The carpet also featured various stains of unknown origin. The wall also had a worrying brown stain on it as well which was not due to damp – I didn’t investigate further.

Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that these are ‘budget’ rooms so I don’t expect all mod cons and facilities. I have used Travelodge many times before and am aware that consumables such as soap etc are not provided so I have no issues with that, however I do expect an acceptable level of hygiene and cleanliness especially from such a large chain, regardless of the cost. In all honesty, I have never experienced a Travelodge room as bad as this before.

I have photos of all these delights but have chosen not to post them so as not to contravene the 'family friendly' requirement !!

Faced with these horrors, at 4:30pm we left, having secured a room in a nearby Premier Travelinn (a competitor in the budget hotel market). On leaving, as we left we raised our complaint and disgust with the receptionist. As she made no effort to have our concerns addressed by either offering another room or having things cleaned and fixed, I would suspect our’s was not the first complaint – nor is it likely to be the last. She promised me that the manager would phone me to discuss our complaint (he didn’t) as she couldn’t find a complaint form and we were not prepared to wait around any longer while she did.

In summary – avoid like The Plague … or catch it (The Plague that is !) at Gants Hill Travelodge !!

POSTSCRIPT: Travelodge have responded to my complaint, apologising for the poor standard/cleanliness and advised that Gants Hill is due for refurbishment towards the end of 2008. They also acknowledged that cleanliness however is unrelated to refurbishment and will be refunding the cost of my booking.

Travelodge in Ilford is a simple good choice with good connections to central London. It lies in zone 4 with very good train connections, 15 minutes to Liverpool street station. 5 min walk to station. Travlodge paking garage in same building as the hotel if you come by car. We booked a familiy room for bargain 29L, spacy with double bed + sofa/pullout,bath/wc, tv (5 channels only, bbc, bbc2 and five ok, 2 others blurred) and breakfast. A bit noisy, try to get a room in front, road with heavy traffic behind. Breakfast was a package with cereals , milk, juice, apricots, muffin aso. Avoid if you want 'real' breakfast! Cinema, bowling and restaurants nearby, very good chinese buffet rest. centre of Ilford 2 mins away has a good choice of shops/centres with prices far below central London.

Everything in the room worked, always warm water, clean enough but floor carpet and one duvet inside the cover was not clean at all.

The neighbourhood is known to be a bit rough, we saw a few gangs with pitbull dogs but did not feel uncomfortable. Ilford is in east London and has a mixed population, a lot from Asia.