Why you should experience Aloft London Excel in London, England.
Aloft London Excel is a kinetic waterfront hotel where Royal Victoria Dock's exhibition culture, contemporary architecture, international events and East London resurgence converge within a sinuous glass building created for a new generation of Docklands hospitality.
Set along Eastern Gateway near Western Gateway and just steps from Excel London, the hotel was conceived by Jestico + Whiles for ADNEC as a £45 million architectural project completed in 2011 ahead of the following year's London Olympics. Structural engineer AKT II shaped a nine-storey building whose convex and concave plan gives the property its distinctive curved profile, while a shimmering glazed elevation responds to the expansive dockside setting. The lower floors were organized around a triple-height entrance hall and an oak-clad spiral staircase, establishing a deliberately social architectural counterpoint to the six-and-a-half upper floors devoted to accommodation. The result is a hotel where Jestico + Whiles, AKT II and ADNEC translated Royal Victoria Dock's accelerating international profile into a purpose-built expression of early twenty-first-century London.
What you should know about Aloft London Excel.
Aloft London Excel is best known for opening on October 31, 2011 as the first Aloft hotel in the United Kingdom, introducing Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's design-led brand to Britain with 252 loft-inspired guestrooms immediately beside the ExCeL International Exhibition and Convention Centre. ADNEC owned both the hotel and ExCeL London, extending a hospitality strategy that had already produced Aloft Abu Dhabi, the first Aloft property in the Middle East, while Starwood launched the London property during the same year that W Hotels made its London debut. Julia Harnischfeger became the opening general manager after joining Starwood in 2007 as Six Sigma Manager for Le Méridien Piccadilly and the former Café Royal and subsequently serving as director of operational innovation across six English Starwood hotels representing four brands. The opening introduced FEDE as a contemporary British restaurant concept alongside the Aloft brand's Re:fuel format, while direct covered access to Prince Regent Station integrated the property with the Docklands Light Railway as East London prepared for the 2012 Olympic Games. ADNEC, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Julia Harnischfeger, Aloft Abu Dhabi, FEDE and the 252-room London debut collectively positioned the property at the intersection of international hotel-brand expansion and the Royal Docks' pre-Olympic development.
Marriott International now carries the Aloft brand forward at the property following its 2016 acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, while ADNEC Hotels retains Aloft London Excel within a portfolio spanning Andaz Capital Gate, Aloft Abu Dhabi, DoubleTree by Hilton London Excel, Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara, Anantara Sir Bani Yas Island and The Reykjavik EDITION. Docksider Restaurant has replaced FEDE as the principal restaurant identity, while Forge Excel London and Re:Fuel continue the property's emphasis on social dining and late-night gathering within the hotel. The relationship with ADNEC has grown more significant as the group's London interests expanded around Excel London, connecting the hotel directly with an international organization whose venue operations extend from London to Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. Aloft London Excel consequently carries an institutional lineage through Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Marriott International and ADNEC while remaining rooted in the same Royal Victoria Dock events economy that shaped its 2011 opening.
How to fold Aloft London Excel into your trip.
Aloft London Excel works as the anchor for an afternoon tracing Victorian dock engineering, twenty-first-century infrastructure and the performance economy reshaping the Royal Docks.
Begin at Royal Victoria Dock, opened in 1855 as London's first dock purpose-designed for large steamships, bringing hydraulic machinery and direct railway connections into an enormous new commercial basin whose scale helped redirect maritime trade eastward. Continue to IFS Cloud Cable Car, opened before the 2012 London Olympics as the first urban cable-car system in the United Kingdom, carrying passengers above the Thames between the Royal Docks and Greenwich Peninsula and converting the river crossing itself into part of the district's contemporary spatial identity. Conclude at Excel London, opened in November 2000 and subsequently acquired by ADNEC in 2008, where the expanding exhibition complex hosted seven Olympic and six Paralympic sports during London 2012 before becoming NHS Nightingale Hospital London during the COVID-19 pandemic. The progression moves from nineteenth-century maritime engineering through aerial transport into ADNEC's international exhibition complex, revealing the successive waves of infrastructure and global ambition that explain why Aloft London Excel belongs so naturally on Royal Victoria Dock.
Where your story begins.
Foresyte Travel reveals places that feel extraordinary long before you arrive.
Experience premium editorial crafted for luxury travelers.
