W6 Hotel

i spent two weeks at w6, and apparently they were the best two weeks of my life. getting to the room was a fun maze through all the doors, excellent!! the constant creaking at night made for white noise other hotels can’t match, and the lovely people leaving bright and early gave me a great alarm so i could get barricade to the local spoons. for my first two weeks in london, this was the best place i could’ve stayed. couldn’t recommend it more to travellers or anyone after a sneaky night away.

The room was near shops and restaurants, and only a short walk from the concert venue. It had a working fridge, microwave, kitchen sink with washing-up liquid, pots, pans, cutlery, kettle, toaster, coffee, and a mini cream pot in the fridge. There was clean bedding and towels, warm water, and plenty of complimentary shower gel, shampoo, and mini soaps. The receptionist was friendly and polite. Even with those good points, I won’t stay there again. We booked for one night because we were going to a concert at Eventim Apollo. The pictures were misleading, and the room needed renovating and a deep clean. We didn’t sleep well because it was noisy. Our basement room was in a separate building about a two-minute walk from the hotel, with only one other room next to it. The other guest was in and out all night, banging into everything. The outer door’s number lock was broken, so it couldn’t be locked. I wouldn’t have felt safe there alone.

After the weekend, both of us had respiratory irritation. The room felt damp and unclean, with a moldy, water-damaged floor that left particles on our clothes, mold in the shower, worn broken furniture, stains on everything, a broken shower head holder, and no shower drain cover. There was also a plastic bag over the fire alarm, which raised questions for me about UK codes and law. We got a basement room for the weekend. Maybe only some rooms match the pictures and you might get lucky, but ours looked nothing like them. The receptionist seemed embarrassed to show it to us, then rushed back upstairs without giving us a wifi code or any details about our stay or checkout. The chemical perfume smell was very strong, like too much fragrance used to cover body odor, rather than a clean smell. There was no window to open and air out the perfume and moldy air, just a glass door to a shared outdoor area. Its curtain was wet and dirty, didn’t block the outside lights, and made the room uncomfortably bright. A centimetre gap under the door let us hear everything in the hallway, and the room door was the only lock between us and outside London, which didn’t feel very safe.

If you’re staying a while on a budget, I’d highly recommend W6. It’s comfortable enough, the value is unbeatable, and unlike many cloud accommodation places with outsourced management, there are real people to speak with about check-in, problems, or local questions. Someone is at reception 24/7 and can at least try to help, and generally they do. W6 probably works best around the "around usd100" price point. The location is surprisingly quiet but convenient, tucked into a calm corner while still close to the high street and both tube stations. Apollo/Eventim, Riverside Studios, the IG-famous Crisp pizza, River Cafe, the Thames, rowing clubs, and heritage pubs are all nearby. For a central London trip when you can’t afford somewhere more central, Ealing or Hammersmith are good alternatives. Ealing has the Elizabeth line, while Hammersmith is closer, and the riverside part is lovely. The rooms can be inconsistent and aren’t the best-looking. I suspect the best ones are in the flat with reception. I stayed in a Studio there and found it impeccably clean, big, with a good-sized bathroom, fridge, hob, and cooking and dining implements. It’s a basic long-stay apartment, sans dining table. Other flats, perhaps because they get less attention or were acquired more recently, can be disappointing. In a flat a block away, there was dust on everything, the mattress was bigger than the bed base, I had to ask for more kitchen utensils, and the layout was weird. A strange tweezers-and-trash combination sat on the stairs for days. And supposedly they don’t use fitted sheets?! What weirdos!!! Buuuttt I still appreciated it. It felt like coming home to your own barely put together flat in an old walk-up, with weird neighbours in the other flats. If you’re not a budget traveller, I don’t think you’d appreciate W6. But for a long, comfortable stay in London on a budget, I’d highly recommend it.