My husband and I have an overnight layover at LHR, arriving at 10:00pm and departing the next morning at 9:20. We are thinking of getting a Yotel, but wondering if it is worth storing our bags for the night and going into London. Will anything (restaurants/bars) be open that late, or should we just stick it out at the airport all night?
Thanks in advance!
The easy answer is no it's not worth it. I am assuming you are coming from the States and your flight arrives on time; you will take between 1 and 2 hours to deplane and clear immigration. The baggage storage facilities close at 11 pm so you will most likely be out of luck there. If you were lucky and able to make the storage before it closed, it would cost £11 per piece for overnight. Then add the cost of getting into and out of central London, the cost of a meal for two, if you could find somewhere to eat. The wear and tear on your body and nerves. Nope - I'd head for a comfortable bed and a decent nights sleep!
Edit. Check out this web site hot-dinners.com for a list of late night restaurants in central London. Will give you an idea of what is considered late in London. There are a couple of 24 hours places.
What time do you think you could get into London for (and which part)? What time do you think you'll need to be up for to get to the airport for your morning flight?
Therein lies your answer.
I'd opt for the Yotel and get some rest.
There are night tubes if the right night, and you don't give your origin nor where the continuing flight is going, so can't give you definitive advice for arrival or departure, there are hoppa buses around Heathrow so you can stay in a real hotel rather than a pod, can you take a Heathrow Express and stay around Paddington, the flight might be early, not really enough to go on....
When I layover at Heathrow, I treat the overnight as part of my vacation. I stay at the Sofitel and have a lovely dinner via room service. I have a restful night and walk to my flight the next morning. There's not enough time to go into London during those hours, IMO.
Second vote for the Sofitel at Terminal 5. No need to catch a bus to an outlying hotel and no need to feel cramped in a room the size of a Yorkie's doghouse.
Thank you all for the helpful responses! We are leaving from Greece and returning to the states and will have a long flight ahead. That being said, I think it would be best to get a good night's sleep, and the Sofitel is really pretty comparable to the Yotel price-wise, so I think that will be our best option. Hope we can sometime stay for longer and see the city!
Thanks again!
I third the Sofitel. They have the most comfortable beds ever! Its easy to get to from any terminal. Its my go-to hotel at Heathrow.
One thing to take into consideration for going to town is that it takes quite a bit of money and time to get from Heathrow to London proper. For the amount of time you have, I wouldn't bother leaving the airport. I did the Yotel Heathrow in August, and it's a pretty good option. It is a little noisy...the toilets have a powerful flushing mechanism which briefly sounds like a jet taking off. Not such a big deal in your own pod, but when the people in the pods around you flush you hear it as well. Otherwise, it's a good place to catch some z's.
We ended up staying at the Yotel and it was awesome. Really glad we did it. We got much needed rest, saw some dumb American TV, and it was easier than I thought it would be to transport between terminals. I recommend it.
How was the flushing noise, Linda? And could you tell the difference between your neighbor flushing and a jet taking off nearby? ;-)
For those who find this thread via search later on, the Premiere Inn at Terminal 4 is well-regarded for being affordable and a reasonable walk from the terminal
I used that Premier Inn in September; it was perfectly nice. No whooshing! When I booked it (probably in August) it was substantially cheaper than the Yotel for my night. I suspect that's because the Premier Inn is quite new; it's mentioned on some but not all of the directional signs as you approach it from the tube station. It's a longer walk from the terminal and the tube than the Hilton and I assume also than the Yotel. You're in a covered but possibly unheated walkway part of the time.
