The first time I went abroad, aged sixteen, my best friend's dad took us to the airport, and my dad picked us up. Of course, I wasn't old enough to drive, let alone own a car, so airport parking wasn't really an option. But even when my now-husband and I had a car, we still relied on the kindness of parents and friends to get us to and from the airport for a good few years. Eventually, of course, we decided to stand on our own two feet, and it didn't take long to realise that it was almost as cheap to get a hotel/parking package as it was to pay for parking on its own. There are numerous advantages to booking an airport hotel, especially if you have an early flight. It means you don't have to get up at stupid o'clock to drive to the airport, for a start. It also means you don't have the panic of getting stuck in traffic and thinking you're going to miss your flight, as happened to us once (but that's another blog). Anyway, we booked a few packages over the years, in hotels five or ten minutes away from the airport. It normally involved leaving the car in the hotel car park and getting a shuttle from the hotel in the morning, although I have vague memories of having to phone the hotel once for someone to come and pick us up from the airport - picture Igor, and you won't be far wrong. This all changed on our honeymoon, when we decided to treat ourselves and stay at the Gatwick Hilton. Apart from being a little posher than what we were used to (which wasn't hard), the crucial thing is that it's actually on-site at the airport - instead of waiting for a shuttle bus (sometimes outside in October in the early hours), you just have to crawl out of bed and along a tunnel, and you're at departures. Well, once we'd done it once, we were spoilt - no more random hotels and disconcerting pick-ups for us. Instead, we alternated between the Hilton and the Sofitel, depending on which terminal we were flying from (Hilton at the South, Sofitel at the North if you're interested). All well and good, until our second son came along. No cot space, no extra bed - if we were really lucky and one was free, we could spend nearly double the amount on a family room - otherwise it was the even more expensive option of two rooms. Hmmmm. We soon found a solution - book a normal sized room and sneak one of the children in! We did this for years - I'd do the check-in by myself and say my husband was parking the car, then he'd follow me to our room at a distance. It was okay when my youngest son was little - we could always find space for our own travel cot. But the last few years, we've had to try to put one or other child in bed with us - not conducive to a good night's sleep! After last year, I'd finally had enough. We tried to put the kids to bed then hid in the bathroom waiting for them to fall asleep (another blog subject there!). An hour later, we could still hear them chatting - and we desperately wanted to go to bed ourselves, as our alarm was set for 4am! Eventually, we gave up and went to bed too - or at least, I tried. Lying there listening to my children toss and turn, along with theatrical sighs, and soon accompanied by my husband's snores (why can men sleep through anything?!), I soon realised I wasn't going to get much sleep. Finally, the children fell asleep too, one with a knee firmly placed in the small of my back. I lay there thinking about the fact that I had to get up in three hours. At four o'clock, the alarm went off. The boys got up, tired but excited. My husband looked remarkably refreshed (something to do with the ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat and not wake for a hurricane, perhaps?). I'd only fallen asleep half an hour before. This year we splashed out on a family room - next year, I'm thinking two rooms, the boys and my husband in one and me in the other...
If you're interested in seeing what the family room at the Gatwick Hilton looks like, have a watch on YouTube. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel (holiday obsessive) for more holiday videos, coming soon...
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