ibis budget London Barking

Arrived and had to wait 10mins to check-in despite 2people at reception one just sat on his phone when asked if we can check-in he said sorry and walked off. We were placed on the top floor and then told no lifts work so climb 2flights of stairs (with suitcases and bags). Room was to exception but not great lighting and plug sockets located far away from bed. Cleaner was knocking the door at 945 not impressed !!!

I wonder if some of the staff are customer trained. No welcoming attitude. It really made me regret my choice. Issues: 1) When I complained about the doorknob not working properly, the receptionist simply said that is a common issue and just ignored me. No effort whatsoever to understand the problem or help in some way. Some of the staff attitudes were very questionable. It was clear that they did not want to be there. 2) on another occasion I informed reception that the lift smelled of cannabis. She says "oh ya, a guy just walked past smoking. Some people just do that". She looked at her colleague and they both start laughing. 3) no electric kettle in the room 4) during booking it says that parking space is available but they omit the fact that they charge extra for parking. 5) They changed the towels every day but they had some kind of stain which made them uncomfortable to use. 6) guests were allowed to leave their rubbish in the corridors.

We arrived late evening, ran through the check in & headed up to our room. The room was very basic but ok. We requested a quiet room and a kettle, we got a quiet room on the back of the hotel so didn’t have any road noise but no kettle! The biggest issue was the heating in the room, it was only controlled by a wall mounted heating/cooling unit which didn’t work very well. It hadn’t been switched on so our room was very cold and the heating unit wasn’t working properly. We went down to reception & explained the issue to which they replied “that’s the only heating there is in those rooms” we replied “the room is very cold & we weren’t prepared to stay in that room” unfortunately there were no other rooms available that night. The receptionist was somewhat sympathetic and gave us a small blown air heater to use. It was actually fine & it kept the room warm! The room was very basic and quite small but adequate, it was clean, the bed was comfortable & the shower was good. Breakfast was provided in the price & was very good. The staff were friendly & efficient.

The hotel room was adequate. There was no hot breakfast even though we paid extra for it. No proper cutlery, just wooden take away spoons, that are horrible. The coffee machine did not work so ended up with a sachet of coffee and not a machine made latte. The lift was broken. Sign posts to the stairs to the 2nd floor were poor. The room was pleasant with the exception on the window ugly casing of the TV and Ugly window / blinds. The staff were not particularly helpful and the way a receptionist spoke to another guest who was foreign was appalling. The staff had very basic understanding of English and all appeared to be foreign themselves. Being foreign is not a problem, communication is a huge issue. Overall, I hope I do not have to stay there again.

Nice