City Airport and ExCeL hotels, E16: an escort to the quay after the flight or the fair

The hotels along the quay

Most of the rooms stand in a line beside the water, between Custom House station and the exhibition halls. DoubleTree by Hilton London ExCeL is the biggest of them, a glass block facing the dock, its reception busy with lanyards until late on fair days. Moxy London ExCeL, near Royal Victoria station, is the informal one: guests check in at the bar, and the lobby doubles as a lounge well into the small hours. ibis London ExCeL Docklands, on Western Gateway, and Premier Inn London Docklands ExCeL are simpler again, and in the busiest weeks they fill first.

All four are modern, all four have lifts opening onto long, identical corridors, and all four keep someone on the desk through the night. For a visitor that makes them the simplest buildings in London: in through the main door, straight to the lifts, and nobody at reception thinks twice.

From the terminal to the dock

The terminal and the quay hotels sit on different docks, a taxi of about ten minutes apart, or two short DLR legs with a change at Canning Town. Nobody meets you at arrivals. Check in, settle, send the room number, and the car goes straight to the hotel door.

If you are staying beside the terminal rather than on the quay, say so, because the drive from town is a few minutes longer and the desk will build that into the time it gives you.

Fair week and the rest of the year

ExCeL changes the whole district. During a big trade fair the lobbies are full at 23:00, the bars are loud, and the lifts carry groups of colleagues who all know one another. On an ordinary Tuesday the same hotels are half empty and very still. A visitor goes unnoticed in both, but the timing differs. In a fair week, ask for her an hour after the halls close rather than straight away; by then the bar crowd has thinned and the lift is yours.

Fares, lengths and the clock

E16 lies just past the second fare zone, so her cab out and back is costed when you book and shown beside the fee as one number. From the West End the drive takes forty to fifty five minutes late in the evening, along the Embankment and out through Limehouse; from the City it is nearer twenty five. An hour costs £250, two cost £500, and £900 buys a four hour dinner date if you would like to eat by the water first.

No money moves before the evening. What you owe goes to her, paid by you face to face once she has arrived at the room.

Before a morning flight

The airport opens early, with the first departures around half past six, and it is small enough that a room on the quay is a short hop from the gate. That makes the night before a morning flight the most common booking here. Give the desk your departure time and the booking is arranged to finish with time to spare; an overnight, ten hours for £1,800, closes at least ninety minutes before you need to leave.

The runway also rests from Saturday lunchtime to Sunday lunchtime, so a Saturday night on the dock is nearly always a fair night rather than a flight night.

Who stays on the dock

Bankers and consultants on a day trip that turned into two. Exhibitors on the third night of a four day fair. Speakers who took the hotel next to the stage. Guests flying home to Dublin, Geneva or Florence in the morning. Nobody on the rota lives out here; the quickest come from Covent Garden, where Karolina, Nancy and Tina start twenty minutes closer than anyone in the far west.

For a stay that moves west for the weekend, the City of London page and the desk notes on Canary Wharf hotels are the next stops along the river.