Gatwick airport - hotel recommendations

[seahorse001]

Hi All

 

not strictly a cruise question but .....

 

I have a flight to Barbados from Gatwick south terminal (January).  As the flight leaves at 9am and I am travelling from S Wales I will have to stay in a hotel the night before. 

 

Before I go and research my question is ..... does anyone have any hotel recommendations - cheap, cheerful, restaurant /cafe for evening meal, easy to get to from Gatwick South bus station and hopefully a shuttle to get to the terminal in the morning. 

 

thanks in advance 

[d9704011]

7 minutes ago, seahorse001 said:

Hi All

 

not strictly a cruise question but .....

 

I have a flight to Barbados from Gatwick south terminal (January).  As the flight leaves at 9am and I am travelling from S Wales I will have to stay in a hotel the night before. 

 

Before I go and research my question is ..... does anyone have any hotel recommendations - cheap, cheerful, restaurant /cafe for evening meal, easy to get to from Gatwick South bus station and hopefully a shuttle to get to the terminal in the morning. 

 

thanks in advance 

Yes.  We recently stayed at the Premier Inn Gatwick North Terminal and it checks all your boxes.

https://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/hotels/england/west-sussex/crawley/london-gatwick-airport-north-terminal.html

 

[seahorse001]

5 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

Yes.  We recently stayed at the Premier Inn Gatwick North Terminal and it checks all your boxes.

https://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/hotels/england/west-sussex/crawley/london-gatwick-airport-north-terminal.html

 

thank you

 

[Cotswold Eagle]

Another vote for the Premier Inn North Terminal. It is literally across a road from the North Terminal and the first thing you come to is the station for the inter-terminal shuttle to get to the South Terminal in a few minutes. 

It's huge (about 700 rooms, I think) and at busy times the restaurant and bar can get little overwhelmed in my experience, although I think staffing issues have eased. If you want dinner, book a table at the restaurant as soon as you check in. 

In recent times it's consistently been about £100 per room. 

[Clarey1966]

We have booked the Premier inn North for the Thursday night.  Are you flying on the Friday?  A few of us Solos are meeting for dinner.  You are welcome to join us Seahorse 

[gdlamberth]

Any thoughts about Hilton at South Terminal?  Our plane departs from the South Terminal and the Hilton appears to be very near the train station also.  We'll be coming up by train from SOU.  Our thought was we'd drop our bags at our hotel at Gatwick then take the train into London for the afternoon/evening, come back to hotel get some sleep and catch our 1300 flight the next day.

Greg

[Cotswold Eagle]

12 minutes ago, gdlamberth said:

Any thoughts about Hilton at South Terminal?  Our plane departs from the South Terminal and the Hilton appears to be very near the train station also.  We'll be coming up by train from SOU.  Our thought was we'd drop our bags at our hotel at Gatwick then take the train into London for the afternoon/evening, come back to hotel get some sleep and catch our 1300 flight the next day.

Greg

It’s absolutely fine and obviously marginally more convenient for the South Terminal and the station. Also more facilities, such as a gym.
 

I use the Premier Inn purely on price, although there are good rates to be had at the Hilton (I just looked and it seems to have a standard HH members’ advance rate of £136, which is tempting - the nature of most of my travel is short term planning and I have seen it at £170, I think) - essentially I trade off the price of my dinner for the inconvenience of using the inter-terminal shuttle! 
 

[seahorse001]

14 hours ago, Clarey1966 said:

We have booked the Premier inn North for the Thursday night.  Are you flying on the Friday?  A few of us Solos are meeting for dinner.  You are welcome to join us Seahorse 

Hi. No I am flying on Sat 6th Jan at 9.30am (K401B) its the 7 day Caribbean. I assume your crowd is on the 14 day as that seems to be going earlier? Thanks so much for the kind offer of a meet up though , its very kind of you. Maybe we can meet up on the ship solo get togethers ? When I was on Iona they done these in the Crows Nest in the morning, I'm not sure what they do on Arvia. Keep in touch - thanks 

[TouchstoneFeste]

There also seems to be a Bloc? hotel at the South Terminal as well as a Marriott Courtyard (across the tracks). Any thoughts?

[gumshoe958]

4 hours ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

There also seems to be a Bloc? hotel at the South Terminal as well as a Marriott Courtyard (across the tracks). Any thoughts?

The Bloc is actually inside the South Terminal, so for convenience it can’t be beaten.

 

Most rooms are very small though, and not all have windows so choose carefully if that’s important to you.

[TouchstoneFeste]

50 minutes ago, gumshoe958 said:

The Bloc is actually inside the South Terminal, so for convenience it can’t be beaten.

 

Most rooms are very small though, and not all have windows so choose carefully if that’s important to you.

Sounds plausible for a fast overnight to catch an early morning flight. Thanks for this.

[Cotswold Eagle]

3 hours ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

Sounds plausible for a fast overnight to catch an early morning flight. Thanks for this.

As long as you understand the concept (nature of the rooms and lack of anything else in the hotel), why not? Personally, I like to have somewhere to eat or drink that isn’t an airport outlet, but that’s a choice. 
 

The Courtyard by Marriott is about a 10 minute walk (signposted, I think) from the South Terminal. I don’t know it all, I’m afraid. 

[david,Mississauga]

On 10/19/2023 at 11:04 PM, gdlamberth said:

Any thoughts about Hilton at South Terminal?  Our plane departs from the South Terminal and the Hilton appears to be very near the train station also.  We'll be coming up by train from SOU.  Our thought was we'd drop our bags at our hotel at Gatwick then take the train into London for the afternoon/evening, come back to hotel get some sleep and catch our 1300 flight the next day.

Greg

 

We have stayed at that Hilton many times. It is about a five-minute walk from the railway station. We usually splurge on the Executive section. The rooms, in addition to being large, have a huge bathroom with a separate shower. The lounge offers a good breakfast, all-day snacks and evening hors d'oeuvres. There has always been an open self-serve bar from 5:00 to 7:00. It has been a few years since we have been there but I have read recent reviews and the bar amenity is still there.

 

We always cross the Atlantic at least one way on the Queen Mary 2. The Cunard coach transfers or a car service have always worked well for us. We always get a Britrail Pass and travel around, basing ourselves at the Hilton - although we sometimes go cheap for a while by splitting our stay there and staying at the aforementioned Premier Inn or in other parts of Britain.

[Globaliser]

 

On 10/20/2023 at 4:26 AM, Cotswold Eagle said:

On 10/20/2023 at 4:04 AM, gdlamberth said:

Any thoughts about Hilton at South Terminal?

It’s absolutely fine and obviously marginally more convenient for the South Terminal and the station.

 

From experience, I would say that the operative word is "marginally", when compared to the Sofitel at the North Terminal. IIRC, from the Hilton there's a rather unscenic walk through the multi-storey car park and then over the railway lines to get to the South Terminal; in contrast there's a shorter walk from the Sofitel to the transit and that tips you out almost inside the South Terminal. In other words, even if flying from the South Terminal, I would regard the Sofitel as pretty much an equal contender so far as location is concerned, and have used it more than once for that reason.

[Cotswold Eagle]

2 hours ago, Globaliser said:

from the Hilton there's a rather unscenic walk through the multi-storey car park and then over the railway lines to get to the South Terminal; in contrast there's a shorter walk from the Sofitel to the transit and that tips you out almost inside the South Terminal.

Yes, very good point, although the walk from the Hilton is at least all under cover. I think people just like to feel that they are at the right terminal! And if you are going to use the station more than once, maybe that goes in its favour. 

But the  transit to the South Terminal from the North is so easy and both the Sofitel and Premier Inn are right by it, as you say, so I'd always go there. It's nothing like LHR, which is more like 3 separate airports sharing two runways 😀

Edited October 22, 2023 by Cotswold Eagle