Anthea Gerrie Attempts A Scientifically Engineered Good Night’s Sleep At Buzzy CitizenM London Shoreditch
Pre-check-in questionnaires are now commonplace among better hotels, which often ask for your preferred choice of pillow as well as expected time of arrival in their advance welcome missive. However, when that welcome includes a detailed interrogation of your sleep habits you know you’re in for a slightly more tailored experience. All in a good cause at CitizenM, which has taken multiple steps to ensure as best it can that its guests get a proper night’s kip for the sake of their health before being gently woken by the in-room alarm.
Now the chain’s signature extra-large comfy beds come with “customisable environments” – yours at the touch of an in-room iPad – and a personal sleep guide based on your “chronotype”, assessed by a certified expert in the field on the basis of what time you usually bed down and get up and how easy you find it to do both with your head in the right place.
Having been honest about my habits the week before checking in, I put this campaign to the test at the most environmentally challenging of the international chain’s London properties. CitizenM London Shoreditch is perched by the busiest junction in urban East London, at the confluence of Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road.
And I slept like a baby, thanks to accoutrements not offered by many grander hotels, including black-out blinds as well as curtains, room lighting warmed up and/or transformable in hue at the touch of a button, heat controls able to cool rooms instantly to the optimum temperature for sleep, and even a choice of music tapes to snooze to.
It was a surprising switch, on the room floors high above the traffic, from the colourful entry and dazzlingly bright lounge full of caffeine-fuelled guests working at their laptops; CitizenM guests, hip whatever their age and international, seem to be of the work-hard, play-hard variety. Even the room floor corridors reflected this, with blow-ups of festival crowds adorning the walls and a carpet printed with a map of the London city streets far below.
While rooms are typically fairly small, that becomes a virtue thanks to the cosiness of building the bed into a room-wide picture window as in Shoreditch, allowing breathtaking skyline views by day before curtains are drawn and blinds lowered. The room becomes a nightclub as you unwind, thanks to the facility to change the hue as well as the intensity and warmth of the lighting, while a desk accommodates delivered pizzas or take-out treats, and a comfortable chair offers an alternative to watching TV in bed.
While some bathrooms are compact, my accessible one was spacious, with responsive shower controls, a perfectly positioned wet room drain and huge fluffy towels that put many a five-star establishment in the shade.
Thanks to my sleep guide, I knew what time was optimum for lights out, and complied after enjoying some intermediary hot violet nightclub lighting while enjoying a mug of tea. I also took a few moments to explore whether the “Brainwaves” tapes created by music scientists would help my descent into unconsciousness.
Probably only the intention of the Dream sequence, one of three “moods” available, Ascend and Focus probably intended to rouse the dazed and confused when the alarm goes off next morning. Listening was an interesting experience, but I felt nearly 17 minutes, the full duration of Dream, would be better employed inviting sleep with the silence I’m used to nodding off by. On the other hand, I would have welcomed the tape which invades your inbox with the sleep questionnaire, a soothing mix of extreme chill instrumentals and gentle zzzz.
However you sleep, breakfast is a treat worth getting up for; as well as a bountiful hot and cold buffet which is reasonable value at £19, CitizenM London Shoreditch gives its staff barista training so each guest can get a proper Flat White or whatever made to order and replenished on demand. Coffee by night is gently discouraged in the name of decent sleep, with a tray of high-quality tea bags, herbal as well as the leaded variety, proffered at the bar as an alternative and carefully brewed.
Of course cocktails are on offer too into the small hours; not everyone comes to CitizenM with sleep in mind, more a fairly-priced perch in one of the world’s 34 most happening cities, including four central-but-noisy corners of the British capital.
Tell Me More About Sleeping At CitizenM London Shoreditch
CitizenM London Shoreditch, 6 Holywell Lane, London EC2A 3ET
T: +44 203 519 4840
Rooms from £129
More information about getting a good night’s sleep in a hotel at Get a Good Night’s Sleep
