Croydon Hilton is not in Croydon...

Advantages: Breakfast was great when I got it
Disadvantages: Location and lack of top quality service,

...Just over a week ago I was visiting London. As usual, I tend to look for hotel deals a little out of the centre of town as it usually works out much cheaper even when you've factored in the public transport costs (I don't drive.) I am a member of the Hilton Honors scheme - it is free to join and well worth it if you use hotels often as they do have regular special offers and you can earn Hilton points and frequent flyer miles at the same time. See website: http://hhonors.hilton.com - so I thought I would take a look to see what deals there might be. I was pleasantly surprised to get an offer on the Croydon Hilton for £43.50 a night (Fri/Sat) including breakfast and dinner the first night. This worked out more than £20 cheaper than my usual choice of the Holiday Inn Express in Croydon. The Hilton Honors website is simple to...

Maestrolover 18.11.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Hilton Croydon, London

Why Tom Hanks loves Croydon

Advantages: centrally located, large concert hall, good performers
Disadvantages: Steep booking fee if not in person

...Tom Hanks loves Croydon. So, from everything you've heard about Croydon, what possible link could there be with Tom Hanks? It's arguably the chav capital of south London; childhood home of both Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Kate Moss; June Brown (who played Dot Cotton in Eastenders) and that rude girl from Big Brother. Well, read on. What better way to enjoy the festive cheer than go to a Carol concert, I thought. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra were scheduled to play at the Fairfield Hall's, in central Croydon on Saturday 13th December, so I thought I'd book some seats. As I've been there many times before, I feel that I know it well enough to review it for Ciao. They claim to be South London's premier Arts, Entertainment and Conference centre. How they quantify the term premier, I'm not sure. ~ Some history ~ The Halls were...

kevin121 18.12.2008 (27.12.2008) · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The Fairfield Halls, Croydon

Esporta Health Club, Croydon

Advantages: Opens early, closes late. Lots of facilities and services
Disadvantages: Too many noisy children, expensive

...Esporta Croydon, also known as The Surrey Health and Rackets club, is part of a huge UK chain, owned by venture capitalist Simon Halabi. It was primarily a rackets club and has been responsible for helping train some of the up and coming Tennis stars of tomorrow. Esporta is situated in a purpose built warehouse on a large industrial estate not far from Waddon mainline station and houses a spacious gymnasium, also known as the "Fitness Arena", a large family pool and an even larger olympic sized pool. There are numerous Tennis courts and several Squash courts. It is a club which encourages families, so may not suit those in search of halcyon days. Having parked in the spacious car park you will come through the double doors into the reception area, where you will be greeted by the welcoming reception staff, who will actually greet...

Velvetee 22.07.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Esporta Club, Croydon, London

Virgin Active Croydon - It Didn't Work Out

Advantages: Clean, functional, has all key facilities and equipment.
Disadvantages: Cramped, basic and has a poor ambiance.

...regular exercise, and so upon taking up my current role at a college in South London, I soon sought out a gym that was close to where I was living at working. Virgin Active Fitness Club in the Grants complex, Croydon, fitted the bill in this respect and I?ve been a member there since November 2008. Why Did I Join a Gym? There are many reasons for joining a gym. These include vanity; concern about health; a desire to improve fitness for sporting or professional reasons; programmes for recovery from injury; and no doubt various other reasons that haven?t even crossed my mind. My gym-going is a combination of the above. Vanity probably takes top spot; I?ve got no desire to possess body-builder biceps or even a modest six-pack, but I am always trying to manage my weight. This has considerable health benefits, but my weight control...

MikeOCarroll 04.10.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Virgin Active Fitness Club, Croydon

Holmes Place Croydon - a place to call home

Advantages: Great location and easy acess to trams, buses and rail
Disadvantages: I am soon to change jobs and the town in which i will be working doesnt have a Holmes Place! a huge shame!

...Having been a total virgin to all gyms, health clubs and fitness centres up until just over two years ago, I now find myself reluctant to leave, like a child clinging to its mothers skirt! When i started work in Croydon, i joined Holmes Place as a founder member when it first opened as part of a Corporate Membership. Very reluctant to pay what i thought then to be a phenomenal amount of money (£54 per month), for facilities that I calculated I would use, on average, 3 weeks out of 12 months(namely post-xmas), but with high hopes that the expense would induce me to visit the gym at least a couple of times a month! Needless to say that upon joining I now feel that it is home from home and spend on average 3-4 days/evenings a week down at Holmes Place. (That is a considerable amount of time for someone that lives a good 30 mins train...

Healthhog 29.11.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Holmes Place, Croydon

When cheap means cheap.

Advantages: Cheap, reasonably clean
Disadvantages: Facilities not as available as advertised, expensive food, staff are cold

...It's been a tough time at work for my sister and recently she has been feeling particularly down. I've also been needing to get away, so we decided to book ourselves a little weekend break just to have a change of scene. Both of us following the philosophy that to be a proper break we needed to stay somewhere comfortable and with things to do as winter is coming and we can't trust weather to be great, we decided to go for a hotel with leisure facilities. After much trawling for a decent deal on the Internet, we came across The Croydon Park Hotel. Basically the deal was £120 for two nights in a twin room, no breakfast. Normally I am keen to book breakfast but as my sister often skips it, we just couldn't justify the price. For the two of us for two nights breakfast on top would have added a whopping £40 onto our bill. I booked...

Ayesha- 15.10.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Croydon Park Hotel, London

The Inn and I

Advantages: centrally located, reasonable room rates
Disadvantages: no parking, as it's on a main road some noise is possible

...Having attended a conference here before in one of the conference suites, and having stayed overnight at the hotel a few month's ago, I felt it was time to post a review of the Inn on Ciao. ~ The location ~ Jury's Inn Croydon is situated on the A212, Wellesley Road in central Croydon. This is one of the busiest roads in the borough and the hotel is only about a ten minute walk from mainline East Croydon station and the smaller West Croydon station. There are numerous buses that stop virtually right outside the hotel, which serve south London, as well as several tramstops nearby making it easily accessible to Wimbledon, amongst other places. ~ On arrival ~ The hotel is only a few years old, and the exterior of the building is clean and modern. There are about 8 or 9 floors of bedrooms in this hotel, with the first floor...

kevin121 15.12.2008 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Jurys Inn Croydon, London

Looks nothing like it does on the website!

Advantages: Convenient for Gatwick, free onsite parking, wireless Broadband in Lobby, reasonably priced drinks, food prices not inflated because of location
Disadvantages: Not particularly convenient for central London, Only some rooms have high speed internet (which doesn't work)

...A late afternoon meeting in Croydon, followed by an early morning one in London meant I needed somewhere quick and convenient to stay, I also needed windows that opened, on-site parking, air conditioning and high speed internet access. The Hilton Croydon promised to comply on all these factors. *** ARRIVAL *** Providing you can navigate Croydon's rather complex one-way system to get out of town, based on the A23 Croydon to Gatwick and Brighton road, access is pretty easy. There is ample free parking on site in the form of above and below ground multi-storey. Even better and considerably rarer for most Hiltons, parking is free. The first thing that struck me was that the hotel looks NOTHING like it did on the website, and is reminiscent of a 1970s/80s build mini tower block! *** RECEPTION & CHECK IN *** Reception is nice...

sue.51 15.07.2006 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Hilton Croydon, London

A casino royale with Amy Johnson

Advantages: Historical significance, attractive art deco frontage
Disadvantages: Situated near a busy dual carriageway

...May 5 1930 . This was the date of the first solo flight to Australia by a woman, non other than Amy Johnson. She took off from Croydon Airport and 11,000 miles later landed in Darwin. The feat is even more amazing when you consider that the plane in question was a single engined plane made ostensibly of wood. Along with Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, Amy is believed to have stayed at the impressive Aerodrome Hotel, which was part of the airport complex. As Croydon Airport gradually lost most of it's civil airline business to Heathrow after the second world war, the airport went into decline, subsequently closing in 1959. The adjacent hotel, however, seems to have gone from strength to strength. A small hotel with just 50 bedrooms originally, it catered mainly for the staff and crew using the airport itself, but within...

kevin121 08.01.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Aerodrome Hotel, Croydon

Shop til you drop! (Or grab a bite to eat)

Advantages: Big variety of shops, easily accessible on public transport
Disadvantages: Grubby pavements stuck with chewing gum, can get very busy, expensive parking fees

...I can't help thinking that if I'd reviewed Croydon's shopping twelve months ago, it would have been a very different review. I last went into Croydon town centre on Christmas Eve and even in the few days since, the credit crisis has hit the town hard. The shops in Croydon town centre are concentrated around three shopping centres: the Whitgift shopping centre, the Drummond Centre and Centrale. These are divided by North End road, which has been pedestrianised for as long as I can remember. For those of you interested, large amounts of land in the centre of Croydon are owned by a charitable trust which was set up by John Whitgift, an Archbishop of Canterbury in the 16th Century. The Whitgift shopping centre still has the Trust as it's freeholder today. It is one of the oldest shopping centres in the UK, with construction first...

kevin121 16.01.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Croydon shopping in general