Arena Essex Raceway

Great location and very quiet

I spent 26 days here. It was good value and very convenient location. The staff were nice. Unfortunately, I had my backpack with my work laptop stolen from the breakfast space. I was away from the table for less than 4 minutes. cctv shows the man walking in the lobby, walking through the restaurant, picking up my bag and walking out. while I was there someone else had their mobile phone taken out of their hand while standing in front of the hotel. This unfortunately is common in London. I was not happy with the security (and told the front desk). Anyone can get to a guest floor. You don’t need your room key to get into the ground floor stairwell or through the doors on guest floors. And there is no security downstairs.while the front desk is immediately in front of the doors, many times they are not watching and often I walked in without anyone seeing me. Housekeeping wasn’t the greatest. As this had a kitchen they provide you with a kitchen towel (same as a bath and hand towel for the bathroom). When the kitchen towel needed replacing I put it on the floor, they put it back on the counter. The next time I put it with more towels. They took it and didn’t replace. I also came home to the rubbish bin perched on my line of shoes which I had along the wall. I use my own silk pillowcase to sleep on, every time they made the bed (I didn’t choose housekeeping every day) they put that pillowcase (the obvious one I use) behind. All this to say it was convenient.