OK, fine, so Heathrow's not exactly a vacation hot spot, but since its opening last year, the hotel has earned rave reviews from travelers faced with long layovers or early a.m. flights. Often compared to a cabin on a cruise ship, guests profess love for the property's comfy beds, free WiFi, rain shower and accessibility, in that you can book a room for as little as four hours.
As one reviewer put it: "Far better than the transit lounge benches!"
We're used to things moving slower than planned in the world of Yotels, or perhaps for hotels in general. After the capsule-extraordinaire style Yotel Gatwick finally opened up earlier this year, we had been expecting the new Yotel Heathrow to be hot on its heels. We were once even reporting that it'd be open in summer. Yep, the summer that's definitely finished now.
But don't worry, it's all exciting now: the Yotel Heathrow is taking bookings. And it will open very soon: tomorrow, in fact! The new capsule hotel inside Terminal 4 at Heathrow airport is, like the Gatwick Yotel, bookable for a minimum of 4-hour blocks. There are 32 cabins, both premium and standard, starting at ₤25 (US$51) for a four-hour stay in a standard room, and going up to ₤82 (US$165) for overnight in a premium.
Perhaps with the excitement of the pending opening, the Yotel booking website is moving very slowly: we couldn't find any available cabins left for opening day, but let us know if you do.
Competition is heating up at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, where every hotel chain seems to want to open a hotel. The Hilton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has been hanging out there for a while, but it's about to get a heap of company.
For one, the Yotel chain of airport capsule hotels plans to open a 56-room Yotel in Schiphol by the end of the year. It will be after passport control so transfer passengers can stay there without immigration problems, and passengers departing from Amsterdam with early morning flights will be able to check-in and go through passport control the night before.
Not so close to the departure gate but still near the airport, the Marriott chain will open a 318-room hotel under the Renaissance brand in 2009. Marriott considers Amsterdam one of Europe's most important hubs for air travel and wants to get a slice of the market for both air passengers and people doing business near the airport. There will be a shuttle bus from the new hotel into the city center, a journey of about 15 minutes.
Here's part two of a video that HotelChatter's UK Correspondent Benji Lanyado shot at the infamous Yotel Gatwick. Yesterday, after demonstrating that at least three people can fit inside a Yotel room, we teased you with the hint of a possible bed retraction and guess what? It works! Benji's full review of this new fad and the new capsule airport hotel chain (with excellent pictures) after the jump.
Here's part one of a video that HotelChatter's UK Correspondent Benji Lanyado shot at the infamous Yotel Gatwick. The good news is that even though this room is teeny tiny, you can still manage to fit three people in there. At least standing up.
The bad news is you will have to wait to tomorrow to see the stunning conclusion of the video and read Benji's full review (teaser: there's a reclining bed).
Yotel has made a big splash on the airport hotel scene with its capsule hotel rooms that you can rent hourly or for a night. The first one opened in the UK at the London Gatwick airport with others expected at Heathrow this fall and Amsterdam in early 2008.
But at the Amsterdam Schiphol airport, Yotel will get some competition. Luxist reports that a new brand CitizenM is hoping to open there as well by 2008.
Citizen M is a new Dutch hotel group which takes its name from the idea of mobile citizen. The rooms include a super king-size bed, a wall-to-wall window for plenty of natural light, a flat LCD television, ambient lighting and a rain shower.
Each room can be customized with mood, light, temperature and music preferences. The lobby is stocked with Vitra furnishings and canteenM offers a 24-hour choice of sandwiches, salads, sushi, warm dishes and more.
Rates at the 230-room hotel will start at 69 Euros a night. Sadly, we don't think you can rent hourly so at least Yotel has got the advantage there. But remember, Yotel has a four-hour minimum that starts at 25 Euros for a standard cabin. The regular cabins are about 80 Euros.
Gatwick Airport's Yotel has been open for business for a few weeks now, so we're curious about how this sushi-spin-off capsule hotel is working out. And so far, the response is mixed.
From the first day, the Gatwick Yotel started getting spontaneous bookings from passengers stranded by flight cancellations, as well as a steady stream of guests wanting to spend a few hours there before checking in for an early morning flight (and thus getting ahead in the queues at the security checks). And for anyone crashing for just a few hours, the Yotel capsule seems to have been perfectly acceptable.
But for anyone expecting a bit of comfort, the jury's still out on that. A UK Times reviwer--who, it must be pointed out, is well over 6 feet tall, and perhaps even a touch claustrophobic--didn't exactly rave about his overnight experience at the Yotel. Booking into a standard cabin, he was unhappy when he sat at the table to use his laptop and then discovered the only place left for his luggage was in the shower. He also complained that the airconditioning was ineffective, and the room service menu was unavailable. Perhaps these are only teething problems, but it's a bit of a dampener on the long-awaited Yotel experience.
By the way, still no word on Yotel Heathrow: there was talk before of it opening this summer--any updates out there on this?
This week we are focusing on the latest news and reviews on the London Hotel Scene. We'll be looking at budget hotels, Wimbledon hotels, The Concert for Diana hotels and more. So if you've got a London hotel story or query, then c'mon now--fill us in.
They'd better be worth the wait. Yo! Sushi's capsule hotel spin-off Yotel has been flickering in and out of the headlines for years now but finally seem ready to open this weekend at London's Gatwick Airport. They want to become "the i-Pod of the hotel industry" which means we need something really pretty hip and on-the-money.
Where: Arrivals Mezzanine Landside, Terminal 4, Heathrow Airport, Hounslow, Middlesex, United Kingdom, TW6 3AF
