Crowne Plaza London - The City

15 GBP for internet for a 24 hour period; I went to the business center to print some things for my meeting, they thought I was crazy when I said their color printer was out of ink as the page I was holding was all in pink.

This hotel is situated in the Financial district of London so a lot of the shops & coffee places surrounding it are closed on the weekend, for supplies & food at this time you have to go a little further afield. It is located across the road from the Blackfriers tube station although it is being worked on and is closed until sometime in 2010 so check this before you go. Although it is quite easy if on the Circle / District line to get off at Temple and walk, it only takes about 5 – 10 mins. Not sure if this would be the same if you get off at Mansion House. Also the St Paul’s stop on the Central line is about 5 – 10mins as well. Because of its location it is a nice quiet hotel at the weekend

The room that we had was upgraded to a deluxe although it looked like a standard room in any other hotel with TV, Desk, Sofa and table. The room was a good enough size though in that you were able to put any luggage in the corner out of the way so you aren’t tripping over it.The bedside table on both sides had a little counter and a shelf but for some reason on one side they put a big red box which on further investigation turned out to be a drawer, really didn’t fit in with the rest of the room.

The room did have adjustable heat / cold so you could regulate the temperature, it also did have tea & coffee making facilities with a mini bar. The bed was really comfortable and the curtains overlapped each other so you couldn’t be wakened by the sun shining in which I really liked

The bathroom was a good size with a bath / shower which had good water pressure and there was a lot of towels provided

We had breakfast each morning which was the standard breakfast buffet you have come to expect although the scrambled eggs were really good. We also had dinner in the downstairs bar / lounge area at reception as the other 2 restaurants were closed on a Sunday evening and this place had their last food orders at 10pm on a Sunday night. This place only served burgers, sandwiches, pies and salad but is a very relaxing place to sit and have something to eat and a drink.

We actually never went into the bar and never saw anyone else in it when we walked past

The staff were friendly and there was a different concierge every time I went over and the scale of helpfulness did vary a bit between not really sure to very informative but they were able to provide us with a blackberry charger when we needed it

All in all it was a very comfortable hotel just off Fleet Street which is close enough to all other areas and particularly Covent Garden which has more options for dinner / drinks on the weekend