Yo! This is a great hotel! (Yotel Hotel)

Member Name: herbie__53

Product:	Yotel Hotel
Date:	21/04/09 (40 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Located in the airport, great rates, no need to catch an early morning taxi

Disadvantages: Can be noisy throughout the night - take earplugs if light sleeper!

I first discovered the Yotel hotels when I was due to fly to Egypt from Gatwick at some insane time in the morning, and didn't fancy getting up at 3am to leave my house in time to get to the airport for check in. So I decided to look at the hotels in the vicintiy of the airport, but got dismayed when I saw the prices and then the fact that the "convenient" shuttle bus doesn't run early enough for us....

Then I came across Yotel. They are located in, yes IN Gatwick airport, just off the departure lounge. You don't even have to leave the airport. So you can wake up, shower, and walk the 100m or so to the departure area. What could be better?

The Yotel is loosely based on the Japanese capsule hotels, and as well as Gatwick there is one in Heathrow and also overseas at Amsterdam. The rooms you get are very small, but they have everything you need including bed with fresh crisp linen, a TV, luggage space, a shower and toilet.

Bookings are for a minimum of four hours, up to however long you need. If you book until say 4am in the morning but your flight is then delayed for four hours, you are able to extend your booking on site.

There is a choice of three different types of rooms:

Twin (2 large singles bunk-bed style)
Standard (Large single bed)
Premium (Double bed)

The prices do vary between the room types, with the premium being the more expensive. Me and my husband went for the Standard (As that was all they had) and we shared the bed comfortably. One thing I will mention though is that in our Standard Room the shower and toilet is seperated by a glass wall.... with no curtain! I presume that as it has a large single bed they only expect one person to use it, but be warned!!

There is a TV in the room which you can set an alarm on so that you don't miss check in, we set this and it worked fine. I may suggest to bring some earplugs though, as it can get quite noisy with other guests arriving and leaving all throughout the night!

When you arrive at the Yotel you check in at a machine that scans the debit card you used to book online with, and once it has verified a few details it gives your your room number and electronic key. The corridors are a very space age fluroescent purple (check out their web page for the pics) and very modern, the room numbers are clearly signposted.

Yotel have a website where you can take virtual tours of the cabins, read FAQ's and most importantly book a cabin. Its www.Yotel.com.

Booking on this site is very easy and straight forward, all you need to do is choose your Yotel, the dates and times and it will tell you what type of room is available. We stayed there for 8 hours in September 2008 and the cost was a very reasonable £52 - compared to the other hotels in the airport (the Hilton springs to mind!) this is cheap!!

Thoroughly recommended as an alternative to leaving your house at some unearthly hour of the morning to get there in time for check in, and also you dont have to worry about traffic jams!!

Summary: A brilliant concept.