Guilty as charged: a decent hotel. (Jury's Inn Heathrow)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Jury's Inn Heathrow
Date:	05/09/08 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, no frills hotel close to Heathrow.

Disadvantages: None worth bothering about.

My flight from Singapore to Heathrow was scheduled to arrive at 1900 on a Friday night and the last flights to Belfast were due to depart before 2000, so my chances of getting through immigration and customs and being able to check-in to a connecting flight were practically zero.

I had to find some solution to my travel dilemma that preferably didn't involve spending a lot of cash. I don't sleep whilst travelling, so I was also looking for a solution that would involve as little extra travel as possible. I had a few offers from London-based chums of a sofa/spare bed, which I refused due to the extra travel time of getting to central London. Luckily a friend of mine, who's a frequent visitor to all manner of airports across Europe, pointed me in the direction of the recently-opened Jury's Inn Heathrow.

I've stayed at a few Jury's hotels over the years including Belfast and Cork and found them to be of a decent enough standard for the price, so this was a good solution.

Jury's Inn Heathrow is just off the airport itself on Eastern Perimeter Road/Great Southwest Road or about five minutes walk from Hatton Cross Underground Station, if you're travelling by Tube. I believe there's a shuttle bus service, too, but I didn't use this.

Check-in was quick and simple, which was just as well as the night was cold and wet and I wasn't in a great mood. It only took a few minutes to get issued with my key card and I was soon in the lift, heading towards my room. The key card worked first time when required, getting in to my room and as security access for the lifts too, which was great compared to my last stay in Bewley's hotel in Dublin.

Initial impressions were great. The room, according to my memory, seemed to be that little bit bigger than other rooms in similar hotels. The bathroom/toilet was of a standard size and typically clean and bright. There was plenty of storage space in the room itself, though as I was only staying for one night, I never actually used it. There was the obligatory writing desk and chair, plus an extra comfier looking chair if you didn't facy lounging around on the bed.

The bed was very comfortable, though to be honest, at this stage, I'd been awake for fifty two hours straight and a bed of nails would have seemed as comfortable. By the time I'd had a long hot soak in the bath to ease away the travel fatigue, I was more than ready for sleep.

Being an airport hotel, it's functional more than anything else. The view from my window, for example, showed nothing more than a back lot in the airport (albeit with Concorde parked there). That was fair enough in my book because it was cold, wet and dark outside in stark contrast to what I had experienced in New Zealand. There's also the fact that, if you're there for a while, there's not exactly much to do in the vicinity in terms of, well, anything that might help kill some time. Again, this wasn't a factor to me as I spent the majority of my time in my room, sleeping.

The next morning, I awoke after a good thirteen hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep. The weather outside had improved, but the view hadn't. I nipped downstairs to investigate the breakfast options, which was in full swing by the time I had stirred from my pit. There were several options for breakfast including full English and Continental, all self serve/buffet. I managed to have both, for the grand price of absolutely nothing. I believe that normally, breakfasts are extra and you can either pay at the restaurant or charge to your room. However, the restaurant was solely staffed by those serving food, so there didn't seem to be anyone there to charge for the breakfast and I walked straight in from the lobby without any skulking around. The breakfast, at least the English one, was pretty good for a self-serve buffet style.

Check out was noon, so I still had plenty of time to return to my room, have another bath and spend twenty or so minutes chilling out with a magazine and watching the news before I had to vacate. The check out process was as easy as the check-in process and the staff were, at the very least, professional at all times.

I managed to get a room for £55 per night I had booked a double. The hotel is fairly new, only opening at the start of 2008, so I cannot remember if this was a special opening offer, but certainly explains the high standards within the hotel (and possibly the slightly-larger-than-normal room sizes).

With travel time to the airport (via tube/foot) less than ten minutes from Terminal One, the Jury's Heathrow was, for me, a good stopping over hotel when flight times were not accommodating. It's a fairly no-frills hotel, but that suited me to a tee and I would thoroughly recommend this as an option for those travelling through Heathrow that need somewhere to stay for an evening.

Summary: Cheap, no frills hotel close to Heathrow.