We are a strange race, I stay in a hotel because ineed to distress as I shared before, if I stay at home it doesn't matter how much time that Ileave to get to the airport I still worry, what if there's an accident and the roads closed! What if my car breaks down! Then these worries keep me awake and I'm so stressed the following day I don't enjoy the first couple of days of my hol. I'm not a confident flyer either so being in a hotel on the doorstep of the airport makes me feel relaxed.

Travel on the day.

Even if it is an early flight I would rather be in my own bed even if it's just till 3.30 am or 4 am. Have tried airport hotels before a couple of times and due to being a bad sleeper anyway, I get even less sleep in an airport hotel than the few hours in my own bed ! So an airport hotel is a waste of time and money for us.

Doe

Like some others we are lucky in being quite close to an airport, it's about 37 miles/40 mins from Gatwick for us. We usually have early morning flights around 6 to 7 am and will leave home around 2 to 3am which gives us plenty of time to park and check in early. But if we're flying out after 9am we go up the night before , most airlines we travel with do twilight check in and we will stay at the Hilton which is connected to the south terminal so we can have breakfast around 7 and then go thru security and have a look around dep. lounge and it's all fairly relaxing . Another reason is that nearly every morning at 6am all you here on the travel news is queues or accidents at jct 5 or clacketts on the m 25 and once we join the m26 it's 18 miles to jct 6 god stone which means a long queue if anything happens , it's too much of a risk of missing a flight.

I'm in two minds what to do right this moment.
We've just booked our hol and the flight out is 6:20 am from Birmingham.
We live about 30-40 minutes away from Bham airport so to get there 3 hours before we'd have to leave the house about 2:20 am (including 20 mins to park the car)
If leaving the house at 2:20 we'd prob have to get up about 1:50 at the latest and I really doubt I'll have had more than 2 hours sleep by that time!

So the alternative would be to book into a hotel (with parking) by Brum airport and see if our luggage could be checked in the night before?
Does anyone know how to check if we can check luggage in the night before? It's a Monarch flight!

Also if we did check our luggage in the night before and stayed at a hotel what time would we have to get to the airport for a 6:20 flight? (I guess we could just go straight to the departures lounge?)

So maybe staying at a hotel would give us a few more hours sleep? All depends on if we can check in that luggage I suppose!

If there is nothing on the Monarch website, you could try posting in the Monarch topic in our Flights forum.

luci

Cheers, I've just had a look and it seems that we CAN'T take the cases the night before!
Oh well, who needs sleep anyway!!!

Can any one recommend a good website for booking an airport hotel at Gatwick?

Me thinks I need to start getting organised for my holidays, normally use premier in but they want £80+ I normally only pay £29. I know I could hang on till Easter and they will probably release new deals but as it is the school summer hols I dont want to leave it to late.

Cheers guys

I usually use Holiday Extras for an airport hotel with parking

vicjayhay,have you looked at Travelodge?

Oscarben I have priced up a couple of the travelodges and they are pricing up quite reasonable, though they don't fair so well on the reviews. And if I'm honest I am really fussy( even though it is just one night ) can anyone recommend a tavelodge at Gatwick as their are a couple I think
Cheers

Vickie

Hi we boooked Day,s Inn [ Skylane] its been refurbished,good size rooms
£44, airport transfer every 20mins.you only pay one way£4pp
pre booked breakfast at £5 was good
annx booked with Booking.com

Wow that's a great price will give it a look thanks

We don't need to do this any more since we came to live in Cyprus but I do recall that when we were travelling as a couple with my husband's son that sometimes it was a cheaper option to do an overnight at the airport and take the 24hr early check in option. It meant our seats were always together and all we had to do the next day was go to the airport and announce ourselves.

We used to get discounted rates as I worked in travel myself plus we had the car parking included with the hotel accommodation.

If it was just the 2 of us, more often than not we used to just book one of the long term parking places off airport and make an early start.

Shell
Limassol, Cyprus