Best place to stay in London during the Olympics?

Here's a map of hotels in the immediate area of the Excel Center: http://g.co/maps/hnd9b

If you have left it this late and want to be so close you'll have to get on the phones. Most things are probably gone. Better get busy...

Hi Kimberly: What you want is not the best place to stay, but the best place to stay that still has openings for the time period that you will be there. I would suggest that you use booking.com and tripadvisor.com which allow you to enter specific time periods and geographic preferences (at this point I would not narrow the areas but consider all of London). They will return the hotels, B&Bs... that still have openings. You can than narrow it down by price, level of consumer satisfaction, area... I will be in London for 16 days for the Olympics, and my experience is that all of the quality(!) bargain hotels (e.g, less than $125 per person per day) are long gone for the period of the Olympics. If you are going to be in London for more than a few days you might have to book at two or more places to cover the period of you stay. Enjoy the games. This will be such a wonderful experience. George

It's tricky booking this late. I thankfully managed to get a reservation from July 23 to August 21 all at one place at a great rate, but I booked waaaaay back... during the Olympics is tough. The overpriced places are still available, but the cheaper ones tend to be gone. You may want to expand geographically, if you're only going to be at the park for a few hours on a few days, it may not make sense to be based there. You also might want to look at apartment rentals, but non-scammy ones tend to be going for at least 1000 pounds a week. Dates and number of people might help people come up with suggestions.

We are looking at July 26 to August 9 or 10 and now it is 2-6 people depending. My brother thinks he can fill any larger places with friends who will be there which will help share the cost.

Surprisingly, LSE Bankside as a triple ensuite available, it runs around 135 pounds a night. Other dorms, etc. have small patches of availability, cheapest I'm seeing for a non-hostel twin room is around 105 pounds a night. I don't know the area around ExCel, you'll need to head to tripadvisor and start poking around. The quicker the better, as more people buy tickets.