Holiday Inn Express London Greenwich

The hotel has 162 guest rooms, which all have comfortable beds, a chair and table, a flat-screen television, ironing facilities, tea and coffee making facilities and en suite bathrooms.

An Express Start buffet breakfast (included in your room rate) is served in the Great Room lounge next to the hotel reception area. In the evening you can buy dinner in the Great Room (from a mostly casual dining menu) and there is also an area with vending machines for those times when you need to grab a drink or a snack in the middle of the night.

There is free wired internet access in all rooms, but Wi-Fi wireless internet access is only free for IHG Rewards members. It is free to join the IHG loyalty programme and free Wi-Fi is available to all members of the programme, even those on the entry-level tier.

Although there is plenty to see in Greenwich and even North Greenwich has a couple of interesting sights (such as Up at the O2 and the Emirates Air Line), this hotel has an awkward position midway between the two. The hotel is on a dual-carriageway and the immediate area straddles the divide between feeling suburban and industrial with warehouses, office parks and retail park-style shopping centres surrounding by car parks.

Although the neighbourhood is seriously lacking in character, it is only around a five-minute walk to the Millennium Leisure Park, a retail park with a large multiplex cinema complex, a big hardware store, an Ikea furniture store and a handful of fast-food restaurants. If you walk another five minutes down the road, you will come to two more retail parks (Brocklebank Retail Park and Greenwich Shopping Park).

The main centre of Greenwich, which is actually quite charming with enough attractions to keep you busy for a full day, is around a half-hour walk from the hotel. Points of interest in the centre of Greenwich include the Cutty Sark, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, the Old Royal Naval College and Queen’s House.

North Greenwich tube station is a 15-minute walk north of the hotel. North Greenwich station (in zones two and three) is on the Jubilee line with trains into Central London running every two minutes. From here, it is only two minutes to Canary Wharf, nine minutes to London Bridge and 13 minutes to Westminster. So, while this hotel does not have a particularly appealing location and it is a relatively long walk to the closest tube station, once you’re at the station it is only a short ride into the centre of London.

Car parking is available but it costs £15 per day.