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A last minute trip to the O2 arena required a last minute booking for accommodation in London Docklands. Picked up the Crown Plaza as a 'mystery' last minute hotel. I would say first of all that the content of this review should not be taken as a reason to not stay at this hotel, simply pointing out some points that I noticed and where simple changes could make the difference between, "it was an alright stay", to, "I really enjoyed it and would look to stay here again".On arrival there were two members of staff on reception who had a professional disagreement about who was the busiest and therefore could be bothered to check us in. The intervention of the person who appeared to be in charge of the reception only resulted in further debate between the two as to who was the busiest before one decided that it was appropriate to begin to check us in. Whilst checking in I noticed that the nightly rate was in excess of ¿¿400 so expected to be blown away by the standard of the room and hotel.So we finally received our room keys and proceeded up to floor six. Arriving at the room we found a nice room, generous in size and clean. The bathroom had a bath and shower combo. The type of hotel that it is I would have expected the rooms to have had a mini safe, however it did not!On turning the TV on we were greeted on each occasion with a pink screen requesting a pin number for housekeeping and maintenance. After some fiddling you could bypass this by pressing TV on the remote. Just a small annoyance, I just find it annoying when things that should work don't, kind of expect this to happen in the very budget group rooms, but certainly don't at a Crowne Plaza.So a quick visit to the bar on the evening was enough to relieve me of ¿¿11.00 for two pints of larger, in my opinion even considering London prices this is on the excessive side!Breakfast was the usual standard for this kind of hotel, choice was good, eggs were being cooked fresh in front of you which I always like. On serving the tea/coffee the waitress said to my wife, "anything for you lady", just didn't seem an appropriate use of the English language.Just for information the beds are on the soft side, so if you like a firm bed you will be disappointed. I've rated the sleep quality down on this, but of course this depends upon what type of bed you like so that really is a personal issue! On the subject of wifi, I was amazed! In a world where wireless is offered free as a general standard in restaurants etc hotels really need to catch up, The Crowne Plaza is not exception here! You can have a period free which is not really worth having for speed and amount of data. Now if you want more you can pay, ¿¿7.99 for a faster connection. If you want daily fast internet access it will set you back a cool ¿¿15.99. Now if you were staying here for a week you would save money by finding the nearest Three store and buying a brand new pay as you go mifi wireless broadband with 3GB of data. The wireless prices are just unreasonable to put it mildly!The pool area was nice, no staff on the reception, in the end I signed the sheet, picked up my own towel and found my way to the changing room, this was after waiting five minutes for someone to turn up. Again, no real issue, but hassle that you don't expect when you're in this type of hotel, especially if you've paid in excess of ¿¿400 per night!When it came to checking out it was claimed that I had spend ¿¿6.25 in the bar and charged it to our room, which I hadn't. The lady said that she would look into it. Again I go back to the hassle, I don't want it, I haven't spent it so I don't expect to be told, "I'll look into it", I expect to be told that it's not a problem and it wasn't any thing to do with me. Having spend a couple of days in London last month at a rival chain hotel where the customer service made me want to return and I will return, the same cannot be said for the Crowne Plaza which is a real shame.The location is great, as is the cable ca

Great Hotel, Was going to concert at 02. Transport links are great with the DLR around the corner taking you into Central London. There is also a cable car from over the road to the O2 (Cost 4 pound something) but this only runs until 9pm which is a shame.The room at Hotel was very large and had everything you wanted. It was clean and tidy. Coffee and tea provided.Ironing board.The reception staff are very freindly and helpfull.We didnt use the fitness facilities but they looked lovely.For info the tube lines were closed late at night due to engineering and there was rail relacement buses from 02 to Canning town then another train then DLR but we jumped in taxi to hotel and it was 20 quid well spent. Breakfast was spot on and big fry up if you wanted or pastries or fruit......or if greedy all.

I stayed here for 4 nights with my boyfriend who was here on business so even though I wasn't personally here for work, my review takes into account the purposes of his trip.Pros:- Helpful staff (Alisha was great)- Clean, modern rooms with comfortable duvets- Although the location isn't very close to the city, both the DLR and the Emirates Air Line are a stone's throw away so it's quite accessible (although if your purpose of being in London is to hang out in the West End, this definitely isn't the best place to stay)Cons:- The pool is right by the reception/hotel lobby and as soon as you walk through the doors, you are bombarded by a stringent chlorine odor (may not be pleasant for those with sensitive noses)- In terms of location, there's nothing around - there's the conference centre, a restaurant, and a Tesco express. That's it.- Wifi was a joke. So here are their charges for wifi:-- 2 hours for 256kb of usage - free-- 2 hours of high speed usage - ¿¿7.99-- 24 hours of high speed usage - ¿¿15.99The problems we had with this were endless. First of all, we were paying for the 24 hour option that applied to 3 devices and whenever we tried to access the wifi, it couldn't recognize us as guests. Apparently, this was happening with everyone, which is problematic since you should probably have your internet sorted out before a giant international conference (the entire company was staying at this hotel - they even had their own info desk at the hotel lobby so it wasn't like this was a small conference). Since we couldn't access the wifi, we had to call down for access codes for each individual device, so we were probably doing this about 8-12 times a day (my boyfriend has 3 work devices, I only had one). On the second day, we called again for 24 hour access and were told that the 24-hour wifi only applied to one device, which wasn't what we were told upon arrival. We hung up, called someone else and were given another code. I applied my code at around 11am and by the time I got home that night around 9pm, the wifi no longer worked. After that, I just couldn't bother with it anymore since I didn't really need it but for anyone who is staying here for work purposes, I probably wouldn't recommend it. My poor boyfriend who had work to do had to constantly call the front desk for access codes and it was just a mighty inconvenience for what otherwise could've been a good stay. Secondly, the wifi (even the high speed) is VERY slow.As you can see, this place wasn't exceptionally bad. In fact, it was all pretty decent - even the room service was good. Value-wise, it's an average hotel (no frills, clean, comfortable, kind of far but commensurate with the price), but since this was mostly a business trip, for the price we (well, the company) paid for bad wifi, I wouldn't bother with this place again.

I have stayed almost exclusively at Intercontinetal properties the past three years. In all my previous stays I have never had the treatment and hospitality that I received from Samia. She is a front desk professional. After an overnight flight and hour train subway and train ride from Heathrow to the Crowne Plaza - Docklands I could tell you I was physically and mentally exhausted.From the time I asked for a room at 9:55 a.m., to me store my luggage and to my partaking on the excellent breakfast buffet, arrangement of breakfast voucher, to the return at 10:55, retrieval of luggage, and subsequent check in, schedule of wake up call and arrangement of shuttle service, Samia took care of all this.I worked for Marriott years ago inher capacity. I will have not ever and probably will never have that type of incredible customer service again. No match!Samia my hat is off to you and cheers to you for being the epitome of customer service and guest relations.

We had tickets to a concert at the O2 and this hotel is perfectly place for this. We checked in quickly and had a coffee whilst waiting for our room, which was ready before 2pm. Very helpful on reception. Room was nice, everything we needed and reasonably priced. Would stay again and would recommend to others.