These are two different answers to two different questions. If you are attending an event at the exhibition centre in the Royal Docks, stay on its own campus or one stop away and walk to the doors. If you are in London with a family and want space, a shopping centre and a park, stay at Stratford, three miles north, and treat the exhibition centre as somewhere you visit rather than somewhere you sleep beside. Booking the wrong one costs you either a daily bus ride or a week of eating in a food court.
Both sit in east London, both are in fare Zones 2 and 3, and both are cheaper than the equivalent room in Zone 1. That is where the similarity ends. One is a purpose-built strip of hotels along a dock with almost nothing else on it; the other is a town centre that was rebuilt around the 2012 Olympics and now has a park, two universities and a cultural quarter attached.
Our comparison of the districts places both against the rest of the city, and our guide to Stratford as a neighbourhood covers what there is to do there. This page is about the choice between the two, and about what each kind of room actually gets you.
The two areas side by side
- Exhibition centre station
- Custom House on the Elizabeth line, with Royal Victoria and Prince Regent on the DLR at either end of the building
- Stratford stations
- Stratford (Elizabeth line, Central, Jubilee, DLR, Overground) and Stratford International
- Fare zones
- Both Zones 2 and 3, so covered by the Zones 1-2 daily cap of £8.90 from central London
- Best for
- Royal Docks: a conference or trade show. Stratford: families, longer stays, sport and shopping
- Worst for
- Royal Docks: evenings and food choice. Stratford: quiet, and anything resembling old London
- Step-free
- All DLR stations are step-free street to train; all 41 Elizabeth line stations are step-free street to platform
- Night service
- Stratford has the Central and Jubilee lines all night on Fridays and Saturdays. The Royal Docks do not
The name changed, and the signs have not all caught up
The venue now writes itself as Excel London. The older spelling with internal capitals is still on maps, on older signage and in a good deal of travel writing, and searching for either will find the same buildings on the north side of the Royal Victoria Dock. If a hotel listing uses one form and the event ticket uses the other, they mean the same place.
That matters for booking because the hotels on and around the campus put the venue's name in their own, and a "docklands" hotel may be twenty minutes away on foot while an "Excel" hotel is next to the wrong entrance. The building is roughly a kilometre long from end to end. Which end your hall is at is a real question.
Photo: The wub · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
The Royal Docks: a hotel strip with a very specific purpose
The hotels here stand in a row along the dockside beside the exhibition centre, with a few more on the approach roads and across the water in Britannia Village. They are almost all purpose-built, which has consequences that are worth knowing before you compare them with a townhouse hotel in Bloomsbury.
What a purpose-built dockside hotel gives you
- A lift that reaches every floor, and a level entrance
- Rooms built to a standard size, with a proper bathroom and usually cooling
- A walk to the venue measured in minutes, not journeys
- Prices that fall sharply the week after a big show
- Space for luggage, and room types for three or four people
What it does not
- An evening. Restaurants here are hotel restaurants and a handful of chains
- Anything to walk to that is not water, a bridge or a car park
- A shop open late
- Any protection from event-week pricing, which can triple a rate
- A sensible base for sightseeing with children
Getting in and out is the redeeming feature. Custom House sits directly outside the western end of the building on the Elizabeth line, which reaches Liverpool Street, Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road, Bond Street and Paddington without changing. Royal Victoria and Prince Regent flank the site on the DLR. All DLR stations are step-free from street to train, and every Elizabeth line station is step-free from street to platform, though at Custom House level access to the carriage is from the fifth carriage only. Our Elizabeth line guide explains how the line works for visitors, and the DLR and the Overground covers the local network.
One stop east is usually cheaper than the dockside during a show. Event weeks price the hotels next to the doors as if walking distance were a luxury. A room around Canning Town or Poplar, two or three DLR minutes away, often costs substantially less for a journey you will make twice a day. Compare the total for your stay, not the nightly rate.
The other local feature worth using is the cable car across the Thames from the Royal Docks Terminal, beside Royal Victoria station, to the Greenwich Peninsula. An adult one-way trip is £7.00 and a round trip £13.50, and it is a ten-minute ride up to 90 metres above the river. It is the fastest way from this side to the Jubilee line at North Greenwich, and the only genuinely enjoyable piece of transport in the Royal Docks; our page on the London Cable Car has the opening hours.
Stratford: the family answer, and the one to book for a week
Stratford's hotels cluster around the station and the shopping centre, with more spread along the edge of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and out towards Hackney Wick. Most are chains built since 2010, which again means lifts, standard room sizes and family rooms.
What Stratford has and the Royal Docks do not is a reason to come back to it in the evening. A shopping centre large enough to shelter a wet afternoon sits between the station and the park, the park itself is open and free, and the cultural quarter on its eastern edge has late openings. For a family, that combination is worth more than a shorter Tube ride: a hotel you can walk back to at 16:00 to change a child and go out again is the difference between a good week and a grim one.
The transport is the strongest in east London. Stratford has the Elizabeth line, the Central line, the Jubilee line, the DLR and the Overground, plus the high-speed service from Stratford International, and the Central line reaches Oxford Circus in about twenty minutes. The Central and Jubilee both run through Friday and Saturday nights, which the Royal Docks cannot match; our guide to the Night Tube lists the lines. Most of what there is to do is in our Olympic Park guide.
Two warnings. Stratford is busy in a way that surprises visitors who expected a suburb: the station and the shopping centre carry enormous numbers of people, and the streets between them are crowded from breakfast until late. And the park is large, open and dark at night in its middle sections, so plan the walk home along the lit routes. Our guide to where to stay in London with kids weighs Stratford against the other family districts.
How far you really are from the sights
Both areas are sold on being a short ride from the centre, and both are, as long as you count the whole journey rather than the train. The honest arithmetic is that a hotel here adds roughly fifteen minutes at each end of the day compared with a Zone 1 room: the walk to the station, the wait, and the walk at the other end.
Stratford wins on the west side of the city, because the Central line runs straight into Oxford Circus and the Elizabeth line reaches Bond Street and Paddington without a change. The Royal Docks win on the river and the east: the cable car puts Greenwich within about twenty minutes, and the DLR reaches Canary Wharf, Tower Gateway and Greenwich directly. For Westminster and the South Bank both are mediocre and Stratford's Jubilee line is the better of the two.
Where neither works is the late theatre. A 22:30 curtain in the West End means a train home, and from the Royal Docks on a Sunday or a Monday night that is a tighter connection than it looks. Check the last train for your specific station before you book tickets, using our page on first and last Tube trains.
What a price band buys in east London
East London is the part of the city where the same money buys a visibly bigger room, and where the calendar rather than the season sets the price. The bands below are our own estimate for September 2026, from watching the market rather than from a published tariff.
| Band (our estimate, September 2026) | Royal Docks | Stratford |
|---|---|---|
| Under £80 | A budget chain room on a quiet week, breakfast extra | A budget chain room, often a short walk from the station |
| £80 to £140 | A mid-range chain on the dockside, a walk to the halls | A mid-range chain by the shopping centre, family rooms available |
| £140 to £250 | The same rooms during a major show | A four-star or an aparthotel with a kitchen |
| Over £250 | A dockside room during the biggest weeks of the year | Rare, and usually a suite or an event weekend |
For a stay of four nights or more with children, an aparthotel with a kitchen usually beats a hotel room of the same price in either area, because breakfast for four is the cost that quietly doubles the bill. Our guide to aparthotels and serviced apartments explains what the category includes, and family rooms and rooms for three covers the alternative.
Questions to settle before you book either one
- Which entrance, which end? For an event, ask the hotel how far it is to your specific hall, not to the venue.
- Is there an event on? Check the venue's own calendar for your dates before you commit at the Royal Docks, and look a week either side.
- How far is the station door to the hotel door? In the Royal Docks the distances along the dock look shorter on a map than they walk.
- Does breakfast start early enough? Trade shows open early, and hotel restaurants do not always.
- What is the evening plan? If the honest answer is the hotel bar, consider Stratford instead.
One last point in Stratford's favour for anyone flying home from the east: some Stansted Express trains call at Stratford, and contactless is valid on them, though Oyster is not. That is one change fewer with luggage than going via Liverpool Street; our Stansted Airport guide has the timetable and the ticket rules. If you are flying from the west instead, staying near Heathrow covers that end of the city.
Frequently asked questions
Which station is the exhibition centre in the Royal Docks closest to?
Custom House on the Elizabeth line sits directly outside the western end of the building, and Royal Victoria and Prince Regent on the DLR sit at either end of it. Because the venue is about a kilometre long, the right station depends on which hall your event is in, so check the hall number against the entrance before you set out.
Is Stratford a good area to stay in London?
Yes, particularly for families and for stays of several nights. It has five rail and Tube services including the Elizabeth line, a large shopping centre for wet afternoons, the Olympic Park on the doorstep and newer hotels with family rooms. It is not the place for quiet streets or historic London, and it is extremely busy around the station.
Does staying in Zone 3 cost more in fares?
Barely, for these two areas. Both Stratford and the Royal Docks stations straddle Zones 2 and 3, and journeys into the centre are covered by the Zones 1-2 daily cap of £8.90. The exception is the high-speed service from Stratford International to St Pancras, which is fast but excluded from caps and Travelcards.
Should I stay at the exhibition centre or in central London for a trade show?
Stay on or beside the campus if your days start before 09:00 or run into evening receptions, because the walk back is worth more than an extra hour in the West End. Stay centrally if you are attending for a single day, or if you are combining the show with a holiday, and use the Elizabeth line from Custom House.
Is there much to eat around the Royal Docks?
Not much, and that is the area's real weakness. Food here is hotel restaurants, a small number of chains and whatever the venue itself is serving. Plan to eat one stop away or in the centre, and expect queues in the immediate area when a large event is running.
Sources
- Excel London - Hotels near Excel London (checked September 2026)
- Excel London - Getting here (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Fare capping (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - London Cable Car fares (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Step-free access (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Night Tube (checked September 2026)