citizenM Tower of London

I hadn’t heard of the citizenM brand until I met a lovely lady at The World Travel Market who was representing citizenM, having travelled over from their headquarters in The Netherlands. Following our meeting, I explored the citizenM website and it struck me how different the brand is, in how quirky and individual their hotels are. You’ll find 4 citizenM hotels within London, one in Glasgow and more in other major cities outside the UK. There are 5 citizenM hotels in Paris, as well as hotels in Rome, Zurich, New York, Kuala Lumpur and many more across the globe! They’ve certainly grown since opening their first hotel at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam in 2008! 

We decided to give the citizenM Tower of London a try on a chilly, mid-January weekend. The hotel is in a great location, as you guessed it, right by the Tower of London, of which you can get a great view of, from the hotel’s cool rooftop bar! The following is what we discovered from our visit from an wheelchair access point of view…

Getting to the hotel…Tower Hill tube station has step free access and two lifts within the station (having multiple lifts puts my mind at ease that we are not solely reliant on one working lift!) 

Access in the hotel itself…there are spacious communal areas on the ground floor and lifts to all floors, including up to the rooftop bar. Access around the hotel is good. 

Communal lounge area

The rooms…We checked in via the self check-in as there didn’t seem to be a formal reception / check-in desk manned by staff, although there were staff around should we have needed assistance. In hindsight, I wish I had clarified our room options with a member of staff. The hotel has 370 rooms, I can’t confirm how many of these are accessible but upon checking in, we were offered around 8-10 different accessible rooms to choose from and we went for a Trinity Square view. I think however, a little more information on the different room types would have been useful. It may have been available, we just did not notice and didn’t think anything of it, we just thought the difference was based on the view from the room. Since returning home, I have seen other reviews where the visitor had a rather large accessible room, so I think we missed something there! I think if you are planning a stay, having a chat to someone beforehand would be a good idea, to ensure you get the best room to meet your needs. I have since noticed there is a ‘contact us’ option when looking to book an accessible room. 

Our room…The room was adequate for our needs, there was turning space within the room, a great wet room with plenty of space, shower seat, two different shower heads (one moveable), grab rails and toiletries. The bed is a HUGE XL king-size and this was low rise in our accessible room. There was access to the bed from only one side and anyone else sharing the bed would need to be able to climb over to the far side of the bed due to the design of the room. (I have since seen a review of a much larger room with access all around the bed). The door to the room was heavy, which may be more of a struggle for a wheelchair user travelling independently. The iPad which controlled the lights, blinds (regular and blackout), the tv, could play music, set an alarm etc. was a cool touch and something that could be really useful to an independent traveller. 

Price wise - I compared our stay to the Premier Inn Tower Hill, as the kids always love a stay in a Premier Inn and they are a chain that tend to work well for us as a family. For a stay on Sat 25th January for 1 night for 2 people at citizenM would have been 165.60 room only on a standard, non-refundable rate. The Premier Inn would have been £104, again room only on a non-refundable rate. So that’s £61.50 more for citizenM but citizenM offers a better standard and many more features / facilities than a Premier Inn, so I feel it’s worth the extra in this case. 

For a family of 4 to stay however, the Premier Inn can accommodate all 4 in a family room for the same price, whereas at citizenM, 2 rooms would be needed, doubling the cost of citizenM and tripling the cost of the Premier Inn. A child of up to 10 years can share the room with two adults at citizenM, sharing the rather large bed, so it all depends on each individual families circumstances and preferences.

Overall, we enjoyed our stay at citizenM and it is a brand we would consider using again in the future. 

Rooftop bar