Hotels by London City Airport, from the moored yacht to the ExCeL pair

Four hotels on one dock

The hotels that serve the airport are grouped on Royal Victoria Dock, roughly ten minutes from the terminal by taxi. Crowne Plaza London Docklands faces the water at the western end, a large, straightforward business hotel with a lobby bar. Novotel London ExCeL and Aloft London ExCeL stand at the two ends of the exhibition halls, both built for delegates and both crowded in show weeks.

The unusual one is Sunborn London, a hotel on board a moored superyacht in the dock beside ExCeL. Guests climb a gangway into a lobby that feels more ship than hotel, with cabins along narrow decks. It is small, so the arrival is more personal: mention it in the first message and the desk briefs her on the gangway and the reception on board.

Crossing the water

The hotels sit on the quays around Royal Victoria Dock, and the quickest way across on foot is the high footbridge that spans the water. Further along, the cable car swings over the Thames to the Greenwich peninsula. None of this matters for her arrival, which is by car to the front door of the hotel. It matters for the evening: a walk across the bridge before dinner, with the towers of Canary Wharf lit up to the west, is one of the better ten minutes the docks can offer.

Show weeks and quiet weeks

ExCeL runs large trade shows for much of the year, and when one is on every hotel around the dock is full, the restaurants are loud and the lobbies stay busy late. That makes a visitor invisible, but it also slows taxis at the end of the show day. In a quiet week the docks fall almost silent after nine and arrivals are quick.

If you are in town for an exhibition, tell the desk which one. It helps time her arrival around the crowd leaving the halls, and it gives her a sense of the night ahead: a delegate after ten hours on a stand usually wants a quiet dinner and good conversation more than anything else.

Transfer times into E16

By car in the late evening, 30 to 45 minutes from the West End along the Embankment and the Limehouse Link, and 20 to 30 minutes from the City. By rail, the Elizabeth line reaches Custom House, next to ExCeL, in about 15 minutes from Liverpool Street, and the DLR stops at the airport terminal itself. Once it is past 23:00 she travels by car, with the return fare built into the quote.

Guests in City of London hotels sometimes move out to the docks for the night before an early flight. The run east is short enough that the evening can start in one and end in the other.

An airport that sleeps

London City does not fly through the night. The runway closes in the late evening and opens again early next morning, and the airport shuts from Saturday lunchtime to Sunday lunchtime. So its hotels see no small hours arrivals and a strangely calm Saturday night. Bookings fall into two patterns: an evening after a late afternoon landing, or an early evening before a first flight at dawn.

That quiet weekend is also the easiest time to book one of these hotels at short notice. The docks are empty, the roads are clear and the arrival time is short.

Business travellers, mostly

Bankers flying to Frankfurt, Zurich or Edinburgh at first light. Exhibitors and delegates on a four day stand at ExCeL. Consultants with a client in Canary Wharf who picked the docks for the airport next morning. They share a working week and a hotel room that is quiet by ten. An hour or two of company, arranged from the room, suits that week; a dinner date on the waterfront, four hours at £900, suits it better.