Review: London Marriott West India Quay

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Back in June Marriott launched a promotion whereby anyone booking a premium room at one of their London hotels (for a Saturday or Sunday night) would receive 10,000 Marriott Rewards points and a Heathrow Express upgrade.

At the time I suggested that I didn’t think that the offer would be particularly enticing to most people because of the room prices being asked, but something  good did come out of the research I did for that blog post – a night at the London Marriott West India Quay.

The Marriott West India Quay is my go-to hotel in London….if I’m visiting on the weekend. There is such great value to be had out of this hotel it’s hard to look elsewhere.

Cost

The property sits in London’s Docklands – a major financial centre – which makes it expensive during the week (just like the rest of London) but great value at weekends when the financial services companies are closed.

If I take a standard room on random weekday in September (Wednesday 23rd) as an example:

and compare it to the following weekend (Saturday 26th)….

You start to get the idea of the differences in pricing. The difference between £324 ($500) and £118 ($182) isn’t exactly insignificant!

Compare that to some of the other Marriott Hotels in London for the same night:

During the summer months when the financial institutions are really only half-working, the prices can get even better – and that’s what I noticed when I was researching the original blog post:

I couldn’t turn down a night in London for £93 ($143) including all taxes – so I booked it.

Location

What’s unusual about the Marriott West India Quay is that the cost saving doesn’t come at the expense of convenience or proximity to major attractions. Yes, the hotel is slightly outside the very centre of town but that doesn’t really make it inconvenient. It is around 10 minutes walk to the closest London Underground (subway) station – Canary Wharf – and from there you’re close to just about everything:

• 1 stop (2 minutes) to the O2 in North Greenwich
• 3 stops (6 minutes) to London Bridge – Tower of London & The Shard
• 4 stops (9 minutes) to Southwark – Southwark Cathedral & Borough Market
• 5 stops (11 minutes) to Waterloo – Trains to the rest of the South East & SouthBank.
• 6 Stops (13 minutes) to Westminster – Palace of Westminster & The Mall
• 7 Stops (15 minutes) to Green Park – The Ritz, Piccadilly & Mayfair
• 8 Stops (17 minutes) to Bond Street – Bond St. shopping & Oxford St. shopping
• 9 Stops (20 minutes) to Baker Street – Madame Tussauds

All those destinations are on the Jubilee line so you don’t even have to change trains. Add to that the fact that places like Buckingham Palace, Leicester Square, Hyde Park & Park Lane are all within easy walking distance of 1 or more of those stops and you’ll start to see just how easy it is to visit everything from the Marriott West India Quay.

If you don’t want to venture too far from the hotel, Canary Wharf has over 200 regular high-street shops, bars and restaurants situated around some picturesque docks or within two indoor shopping malls – so the weather won’t get in the way of your shopping!

Check-in

I’ve stayed at this hotel on a good number of occasions and one thing that stands out is the Elite recognition that you get. As a Marriott Platinum (and even as a Marriott Gold) I have yet to stay in the category of room that I booked – I have been upgraded every-single-time. What would happen this time?

Check-in wasn’t particularly busy but the guests that were ahead of me seemed to have an inordinate number of questions for the check-in staff so things took a bit longer than normal. While I was waiting the duty manager approached me to apologise for the wait (I really didn’t mind waiting) and a bellman offered me a drink – both nice touches.

The Lobby at the London Marriott West India Quay

During check-in I discovered that the hotel was very close to capacity (which surprised me considering the price I’d paid – perhaps everyone else thought it was a good deal too!) so the chances of an upgrade weren’t looking that good. At least that’s what I thought right up until the point that the desk agent handed me my key cards and said “we’ve upgraded you to a corner suite”.

Suites don’t do much for me when I’m travelling on my own – I have absolutely no need for all that space – but this time I was travelling with my better-half so the upgrade was very very nice indeed!

The Room

The room was on the 3rd floor and on the west side of the building:

As you walk through the door you’re faced with the bedroom straight ahead…..

The bathroom is on the left…..

and a door to the right leads to the large living room….

The room overlooked West India Quay and the restaurants & bars below.

You could also see the City of London skyline in the distance (it looks a lot further away than it really is):

I was a little concerned that the noise from the restaurants and bars below may filter up to the 3rd floor but I can honestly say that I didn’t hear a thing all night – as rooms go this really wasn’t a bad one :).

Connectivity

This is where the hotel lets itself down a little bit (and I’m being deliberately harsh here) because they’ve fallen for one of my pet peeves – only one side of the bed had a socket into which you could plug a phone charger. The other side, technically, had a socket but it was 3 inches above the floor and on the wall half-way down the bed so no regular charging cable was going to reach the bed-side table. That’s annoying.

As a Marriott Platinum guest I got free high-speed internet access for up to 6 devices (more than enough for two of us!) and it was exactly as described – high speed.

The Executive Lounge

The executive lounge at the Marriott West India Quay is on the 7th floor and directly above the room we were staying in.

The lounge was pretty busy on Friday evening so I couldn’t really get too many pictures of the lounge or the food that was being served – you’ll just have to trust me when I say that it looked pretty good. I found time to go back the following morning, when it was empty, to take a few pictures:

The lounge isn’t exactly big and seating can run out pretty quickly…but it’s a very nice place to relax if you can find room. The views over Canary Wharf, the City and the nearby dock are all very relaxing and having large windows on most of the main walls makes the lounge nice and light.

Dining

Unless it’s unavoidable or very late I almost never have dinner in the hotel I’m staying at – I much prefer to get out and about, see a bit of the area and eat somewhere local. This trip was no different so I cannot comment on the quality of the evening meal offering.

As with most European Marriott lounges the lounge doesn’t open for breakfast on the weekends but that’s more than made up for by the breakfast available (free) in the restaurant on the ground floor – this was something I did get around to trying.

Breakfast is served as a buffet (at least on weekends) with a choice of continental buffet or a mixture of continental and hot buffet. The choices are all pretty standard with cereals, cold-cuts, various breads and then the usual hot selection of omelettes, bacon, sausages, hash browns, eggs beans etc….

Service was good and reasonably quick, the food was fine – nothing spectacular but it was good – and the staff were friendly. I can’t really ask for more than that out of a breakfast.

Other Hotel Amenities

I didn’t try any of these out but I took some pictures in case anyone was interested.

Bar/Lounge:

Business Facilities:

Gym:

Yes, there is a gym with free weights, treadmills and other cardio equipment but I wan’t about to start taking pictures of people in lycra so you’ll just have to take my word for the fact that it’s there and it’s on the small side.

Overall/Conclusion

I’ve already said that this is my go-to hotel if I’m staying in London on a weekend so it won’t come as much of a surprise when I say that I’m a big fan of this place.

I love the location because it gets me away from the hoards of tourists without leaving me too far away from everything I want to see. I love having the restaurants and bars of Canary Wharf so close because you never have to go far to find what you want and, most of the time, you can find a seat/table without a long wait.

The hotel staff are polite, helpful and friendly – that goes for all my visits, not just this one – and the place has a nice, light, atmosphere to it. When you combine all of this with the great elite recognition that I’ve consistently received it adds up to a really good place to use as a weekend base in London.