Comfortable night's sleep near Gatwick (Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick)

Member Name: cerys82

Product:	Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick
Date:	25/08/09 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: comfortable, quiet, nice setting, perfectly serviceable

Disadvantages: room had a musty smell

I recently stayed at this hotel for one night as I had an early morning flight from Gatwick the next day. My husband booked it through lastminute.com just under a year previous to our stay. It cost £79.00 for an August stay.

We travelled to Gatwick airport by train and picked up a taxi from there to the hotel which cost £12. It was approximately a 10 minute drive.

I was quite surprised at the appearance of it when we arrived. Not knowing anything about Copthorne hotels I was expecting a Premier Inn type place. In fact, this hotel is a country house style-hotel, all brickwork and sprawling grounds (albeit most of the grounds are taken up with car parking!

We were dropped off right at the front door and went right into reception. The reception area/foyer is quite large, and has a olde-worldy kind of feel to it, quite dark with stone flooring and lots of wood.

Check-in was quick and easy. We were asked if we wanted a wake-up call which we did. At this time we also booked a place for ourselves on the shuttle bus which went every hour at 40 mins past at that time in the morning. We were then given our room key and made our way to our room

Most of the hotel, if not all, is at ground level so the layout of the corridors and therefore rooms is sprawling and a lot of the rooms are quite a way from the reception, however all the floors are flat and when they are not ramps are provided so its easy to lug heavy wheeled suitcases around.

Our room was quite large with a double bed, bedside tables and lamps, a table and 2 chairs to be sat at separately, a TV, a phone and some storage space. There was also a small folder giving details about the hotel. Room service was available if required.

The TV had very limited channels, the main 5, ITV2 and news and some audio only music channels by genre. You could buy films on request using the TV system. You could also book a wake-up call this way.

The bathroom was also adequately sized with a large sink area, a bath with a shower over it and loo. Basic toiletries were also provided.

However, we did pick up on the room itself have quite a musty smell. Our guess was that it must have formerly been a smoking room.

Having been travelling all day and being pretty exhausted after having gotten married just a few days previous we weren't really up for much except eating and sleeping so we made our way down to the restaurants. We had the option of the brasserie which served a la carte or buffet food, the Lion D'Or restaurant which is apparently award winning. However, we were just in the mood for a bit of home comforts so made our way to the 'pub' area where we ordered drinks and our food from a pub food menu. The menu itself wasn't huge but I think comparable to most no frills pubs.We both had burger meals which I believe were £10.95 each. They were very nice and the meal was filling.

We then took a walk in the outside area just to get a bit of fresh air. There was a conservatory area which you could eat in which led out onto a large grassed area with seating. This was very nice, and although there was a traffic noise, made the hotel feel more secluded than it was. There was a little wooded area which had ponds and paths around, so if you went there with young children you would have to keep an extra special eye on them if they were running around the grounds.

There was also quite a nice looking bar near the reception which looked quite sumptuous.

After a comfortable and quiet night's sleep we made our way to reception to check out. We were unable to have breakfast as they did not begin serving until 7am, however there is a good Wetherspoons at Gatwick and if you have a long wait at the airport you might as well eat there.

Check out was swift and efficient. The shuttle bus arrived on time, and we paid £3 each on boarding it.

All-in-all this was no-frills in a lot of ways, but if all you want is a comfortable nights sleep before a short journey to or from the airport you could do a lot worse!

Summary: No frills, but would stay there again