Paddington Quay Post Office

I had an appointment for Priority Check and Send for a passport renewal and when I arrived I took my ticket and took a seat. Even though I was 20 minutes early for my appointment when I was called up within a few minutes, I mentioned that I was early but this was not an issue and I was relieved I wasn’t made to wait the whole 20 minutes.
It was nice that there are seats available to wait at, I thought this was a nice touch. The young lady who served me at the counter (Benita) was really friendly and helpful and we had a lovely conversation whilst she processed my paperwork. I received my new passport within 2 working days which was really fabulous (and much quicker than the 5 working days I expected it to take). I would highly recommend this Post Office personally.

Paddington Post Office has moved further up Praed Street (opposite Sale Place which is nearer to the Edgware Road end) since Royal Mail closed Paddington Sorting Office so they can sell off the building and land, which is where the post office used to be located.

Terribly busy, so much so that it needs a ticket queuing system! However, there are post-​and-​go machines if you just need to send a small parcel and a designated travel money desk.

Well I love this post office. It might be because I have fairly simple needs but the machines are great once you have used them once or twice. If you are posting a package for instance, it will automatically print out a stamp depending on size/​shape, destination &c, and then let you pay by credit/​debit card.
On the odd occasion I have to talk to someone I have found all of the staff friendly and helpful.

Fine if you can use the machines but their new clever queueing system is HELL ON EARTH BECAUSE THE STAFF ARE JUST LETTING PEOPLE QUEUE JUMP SO NORMAL PEOPLE ARE WAITING FOR AGES AND GETTING REALLY UPSET. The staff do not care and just watch people queue jump.
Basically you get a different queueing ticket for each different kind of service.
So people take the ticket for the thing which is quickest and not what they actually want.
So if you take the ticket for one of the services that takes a bit longer but is what you actually need you wait ages.
This is because people who want the services that take longer lie, they take a ticket for the quick easy things.
They they get to the counter for the quick thing and they then pretend they took it by mistake which is a lie and stupidly the counter still serves them while others look on in horror at this queue jumping.
Basically customers just get angry as you have to wait far far longer and watch this this queue jumping and the staff out front who are meant to help, do nothing and just watch people doing this queue jumping.
It is awful and really aggrevating.
Bring back the normal queue where you just queue in 1 line.

This is an extremely useful branch of the Post Office for travellers to/​from Paddington, being so very close to Paddington Station. It’s quite large which means that there are several people serving at a time, so you don’t have long to wait. Friendly and helpful people behind the counter which always makes the experience even better!