The International Hotel

Not a four star hotel by USA standards.

The good: Plenty of hot water and good water pressure. Room was clean, and not terribly small. Bathroom was pretty big and in good condition. The not so good: No curtain on the shower/jacuzi tub so when you shower, water gets everywhere. Location is good if you are doing business in Canary Wharf butot so great if you are on a vacation. Edge of zone 2, so you are on the tube a while. Wallpaper peeling, carpet in the halls worn and threadbare. Dining in the hotel is extremely expensive and the food is just plain bad.

Nice value...

This was a nice hotel and a good rate relative to other local properties. I would have given it a 5 if there had been internet access in the room.

Some Great Features, and Some Really Bad Ones...

Although located in the business district of the Docklands, this hotel is clearly a British "Holiday" hotel(the bar and restaurants were quite good, but the rooms themselves... not so much.) Three big problems: - This was the most uncomfortable hotel bed I've ever tried to sleep on; hard as a rock, and the springs dug into my back. I wound up sleeping on the sofa. - Room was on the 11th floor, but had a tiny foyer and a spiral staircase going to the room itself. This was painful for lugging my bags, and more importantly, why not just make it the 12th floor?! - Check-in was manned by only one person when I got there; the queue was 8-deep to check-in at 10pm.

It worked for me

I chose the Britannia International for its location. I had business in Canary Wharf and it provided me with a short 10-minute walk to work. The faux-Victorian decor was not to my taste but the hotel was well maintained. The staff was friendly but young and not local. Consequently they not very helpful for recommendations for local dining. Would I go back? If I have business in the area again, absolutely. If I want to visit London as a tourist, Canary Wharf is a fringe location, I would look for something more central.

Very eerie Hotel

Walking into this hotel I felt like Nancy Drew. This was a creepy hotel right out of a mystery book. They try to use this retro look to their advantage as part of its "style" but it is more ghetto than anything else. The carpets change colors, the wallpaper is very 70s and the decorations you can probably pick up at party city. The location is nice if you're going to London for a meeting because everyone sleeps early and it's in the middle of the business district. However, if you're young and going to London to sightsee and enjoy the night life .. Canary Wharf is not the best place to stay. Try somewhere in the West End of London. Canary Wharf is a nice place to check out though .. I felt like I was living in Gattaca the 2 days I was staying there.

Overrated

This is not a 4-star hotel! The outside and lobby are attractive enough, but the quality of the room was shocking. The mattress on the bed was very thin, the carpet was worn, simple maintenance items like burned out light bulbs in the room were ignored, the "available free wireless" signal was so weak as to be virtually useless, and the shower had only two settings: frigid and scalding.

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Great Value

Nice room, comfortable beds, very clean, relatively modern hotel, 5 min walk to the Underground. East of city centre but only a few underground stops away. Great rates.

do not stay in that hotel

I have been bitten by bed bugs. please do not recomend this hotel, Dirty and old mattrasses that have army of bugs in them. Hotel denies it,however we have talked to emploees of the hotel which confirmed that they have many complains about bed bugs. The hotel claims that matrasses are changed ,however it is not true . Bad service. I do not recomend this hotel. Bad experience

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Concierge

Don't count on a lot of help from the Concierges. They are more like head bell hops. Also, don't count on public computer access. It was out the whole week I was there. If it goes down, they cannot fix it, but have to wait for some external service to come - at least that is what they told me.

Not a 4 Star!!!

I don't know how this hotel rates as a four star. The service was a terrible. The concierge was uninformed about nearly everything I asked him and was very rude and acted put out at having to help at all. When I asked for my bags he handed them to me over the counter and offered no assistance in getting them to my room. Our laundry was late. The mattress on the bed was so old it was inexcusable! The wire coils were poking through the top. Hairdryer was broken. We had difficulty making calls from our room and they refused to let us use the desk phone to make a local call. There was construction on the building blocking off entrances making the hotel difficult to get to. The location is very inconvenient in regard to the subway especially if you have luggage. I would not recommend this hotel.

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