The Moxy London Heathrow Airport opened for business on Tuesday 10 April 2018 and here's my review of a one night stay on Thursday 12 April. This hotel is one of the largest in the Heathrow area, with 437 bedrooms, and is currently (April 2018) the third Moxy in the London area, the other two being predictably at Stratford and Docklands by London City Airport. I can see that this is likely to be, on any given night, the cheapest Marriott in the London area, and quite possibly the cheapest Heathrow airport, alongside the Premier Inns and Travelodges.



I should say at the outset that I am not a regular Marriott customer, certainly not reaching the 10 night Silver threshold on Marriott Rewards - I usually stay at Hiltons. Indeed I often stay at the Doubletree Heathrow, which is almost over the road from the Moxy, and I've watched with interest the construction of the hotel over the last year. With room rates being modest for the night in question - £56 public rate, and I got a bit cheaper than that on a corporate rate - I duly booked a room in its opening week, my first stay at a Moxy. This, incidentally, is something I try to avoid, after a stay at a Novotel in Manchester on its opening night, when there was zero running water anywhere in the hotel and I ended up having a shower of sorts via a large box of Evian bottles brought up warm from the kitchen. Always best to give it a few weeks to sort out the snags....

Now I realised this was a concept hotel of sorts, and I've stayed in a few W hotels to know the form, but it really has to be pointed out that this hotel is not going to work for some, perhaps many, travellers. To quote from Marriott's own press release:In other words you can expect music being played at much louder than background levels in all public areas, an unorthodox lobby, an official hotel scent, strange furniture combinations, fairly small bedrooms with minimal facilities, silly signs, very limited evening dining options and a frankly contrived atmosphere by designers trying a bit too hard. On the other hand, the hotel was in a good location for my purposes, and I slept well. Breakfast was included in the rate and was of a higher quality than I expected. And it has to be said, a very reasonable room rate. At weekends the room rate falls below £50 on public rates. In essence this is the dystopian vision of what the world will look like when the millennials take over the planet single handed. (The other hand will be needed for the cell phone).

Location and access (brief)
The Moxy Heathrow is on Bath Road just over 2 miles from LHR terminals 2 and 3. Google map reference:
https://goo.gl/maps/GJHroXsqE1m

It is well connected with buses going to Heathrow Central Bus Station 24 hours a day, the bus stop, known as Waye Avenue is right outside the front of the hotel. The routes to Heathrow are 105 and 111, which between them run every 5 minutes or so and costs £1.50, you must have a contactless or mobile payment method before boarding (see below for details). Two hotel Hoppa services use the hotel, H7 goes to Terminal 2 and 3, which I don't recommend unless you have a lot of luggage, but there may be a case for using H56 for Terminal 4 - £4.50 per passenger each way, children are free. A Uber / cab would be around £12 or so from T2/T3. From central London either go to LHR T2/T3 or take the tube to Hounslow West with a bus from there. There is a large car park at the hotel, which charges guest £10 per night. Much more detail at the end of this review and the Hoppa service has a website though it hasn't been updated for the Moxy at the moment.


Area
The hotel is in a reasonably safe mixed residential area on the main A4 highway to Heathrow. Next to the hotel is a Tesco Express - a compact supermarket open 06:00 to 23:00 hrs - it has a reasonable range of food, drink, newspapers, toiletries, medicines, tobacco and alcohol. Beyond that is a series of fast food shops covering pizza, fried chicken and Indian cuisines. There is also a family run Portuguese restaurant just down Waye Avenue called Moniz, which is popular with locals and terrific value. On the other side of Moxy are 2 large KFC and Starbucks units, both open to 23:00 hrs.

Check-in
The first thing to find when you enter the hotel is the reception desk, since it's not entirely obvious. The reason being is that the entire staff complement is located in a single central hub area, covering check-in, check-out, food and beverage services. Staff multi-task between the roles. So it's some way from the door, in this photo the black mat is at the door entrance and the check-in area is on the left at the far end.

The public area on this ground floor is large, if not huge. Check-in for me was friendly and efficient, and I was offered (but declined) a sangria like cocktail drink.

Room
There seems to be three bedroom types but based on one standard sized room throughout. So either a queen or two twin beds in it. There are also 23 family rooms which seem to be two linked rooms, where one room has a queen bed and the other room has had the bed removed and replaced with a sofa-bed. Presumably for children or for a junior suite effect. With over 400 rooms the same size and just 23 double rooms this is presumably going to make it difficult for Marriott's status customers to get much chance of an upgrade, particularly as they do upsell rooms via email after booking.





The room is small, 16m², which is not a lot even by London's standards, but it didn't feel too claustrophobic. And the reason for that was that the WC/shower room was particularly compact, the 42 inch TV was built into the wall and the desk area was just a small piece of thick glass. There are no cupboards, no storage areas and no room safe, no kettle or fridges. I was frankly surprised there was a hairdryer. Instead there are 2 coat hooks and 4 clothes hangers on the wall. With all those impediments taken away this did at least give some sense of space. I am not convinced by the lack of a desk in particular, but the easy chair was particularly comfortable.



To my pleasant surprise, the external window opens (top leaning), which is very rare among LHR hotels. The air conditioning was a bit noisy but effective and not normally needed given London's weather and the ability to open the window.

I personally found the bed to be comfortable and I had a good uninterrupted sleep. The room itself was very quiet indeed, with the window shut, I could not hear a thing from the hotel corridor, the other rooms, the highway just metres from the room, or any noise from one of the world's busiest runways just under a mile away. There are blackout curtains.



There are also 4 UK plugs, 1 Euro plug and 4 USB sockets in the room, including plugs either side of the bed and 2 USBs on one side of the bed (well, this was one thing they were not going to get wrong!).

The toilet / shower room was pokey but workable, the shower area not too cramped. The water was very hot (I think they only had a handful of guests while I was there) and reasonable water pressure. The shower head is removable from the wall, and accepts that some people are tall! There were plenty of towels, and the soap / shampoo bottles went under the label of Muk.



This is the room layout, my room faces the A4 road, the other side faces the car park, there aren't any views worth aiming for here, I guess the car park side could be quieter but it is a well soundproofed hotel.



Lobby area
Calling the large public area on the ground floor a lobby doesn't quite capture it really. It is divided into several zones, some clearly more intended for eating, others for working on laptops MacBooks, games areas and sofas for relaxation. There are also 4 small rooms in different corners, one set up office style, others had less formal seating. Through out there were all manner of games (chess, backgammon, Scrabble, packs of cards), a snooker table, and a large number of quite expensive hardback books featuring diverse topics such as London photography, Dame Vivienne Westwood's autobiography, Concorde, classic advertising. There is also a airline crew room (presumably they are aiming for the Virgin contract) though I didn't see inside that.





The seating was equally varied from sofas to deck chairs, with no attempt at an overall look.





Gym
Though there are some Heathrow hotels with better, or least more equipped gyms, nevertheless I thought this was quite a good effort, given that many of the hotels at the cheaper end of the market such are Premier Inns don't make any such provision. There are a variety of machines (cycling, running, rowing) and exercise facilities, and the gym is quite spacious. It's on the ground floor.





Ironing room
I wonder if they had these rooms just for people to take photos, but I can only oblige. There is one of these rooms on each floor. The shirts are affixed to the wall, just in case anyone had any ideas. There isn't a laundry room unfortunately.


Lockers
I've seen in some commentary that the target audience is entirely used to DIY and that seems to be most clearly represented with a self serve locker area by the lifts, rather than a hotel run provision. This has some advantages in terms of rapid access, and it's free of charge.



Wifi
The wifi speed was fairly constant at around 7 Mb/s, which was a bit disappointing, not least because it is advertised as being high speed. That said, for some reason many Heathrow hotels have slow wifi, even when the hotel charges extra for the service.


Music
There is no avoiding the music. Well, there is no music in the bedroom or room corridors, but that's about it. It's played quite loudly at night, but it is turned down in the morning / main part of the day. It's difficult to avoid the impression that one is living in a curated Spotify Playlist, they go more uptempo in the evening. Here is what you may listen to at breakfast.Evening dining
I don't think this is the hotel's strong point, luckily there are local alternatives. They hotel sells a reasonable range of drink and snacks, it also has a limited range of hot food also available, plus a few chicken salad style dishes in the fridge. The drinks aren't that cheap, not massively expensive, the salads were on the dear side. I think it's best to see it as a bar which can do a bit of food rather than a dining experience. With Tesco Express, numerous fast food and restaurant options locally and more elaborate restaurants in neighhbouring hotels, I can't see the Moxy as being the ideal choice for eating in.





Drinking is another matter, they even have their own IPA.





Breakfast
In theory breakfast is £12.50 per person however all the room rates I got for the night in question included breakfast. Moreover due to the layout of the area I think it would be difficult for the hotel to patrol payment of breakfast in the current set-up. It's a continental breakfast with a few hot items, notably omelettes, baked beans and porridge tubs. There was a reasonable selection of cereals, granola, bakery, cut fruit, yogurt, sliced meat and cheeses. It's entirely self service, including seating and hot drinks. The quality of the breakfast items was relatively high, in my view, with gluten free options available. The bakery items in particular were a step up from the usual hotel fare.







Checkout
The check-out experience was quick and easy. with a conventional printed receipt. Check-out is at 12 midday, i don't think this is the sort of hotel where you would get far asking for a later check-out, but note the use of self service lockers.

Overall
Good:
+ great value for money
+ good night's sleep in a quiet room
+ good location and transport options
+ good quality breakfast
+ makes an impression - not just another hotel
+ gym
Now of course the three most important aspects for a Heathrow hotel are all hits, so that has to be highlighted. It was also a pretty much snag free stay on the whole, all I noticed was a 2 of the 6 lifts being out of service.

Not so good
- if you are the wrong generation this hotel may not work for you at all and some people may actively hate this hotel (loud music)
- regardless of the above, it seems an unlikely place for a quiet or relaxing stay in the public areas
- limited facilities (desk, room safe, kettle, storage space) and yet a high tech TV system
- limited dining options apart from breakfast
- low number of staff made the place somewhat anonymous.

I would certainly consider staying their again if the price was right, but the lack of a proper desk and chair would be a major drawback.

Hotel website
https://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/tr...throw-airport/
Address: 804-834 Bath Road, Heathrow Airport, Hounslow, England TW5 9UH
Telephone: +44-20-3318 8100

Other recent detailed reviews of Moxy hotels in this forum:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...outhavens.html
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...th-2017-a.html
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Additional transport and access details.
To / from T2 or T3 - use bus 105 or 110 to/from the Heathrow Central Bus Station - it's the last but one bus stop at the bus station. You can use alternative bus services and change at Boltons Lane (to Moxy ) or Mondial Way, probably only worth doing late at night. Normally it will take 10 to 15 minutes to get to T2 or T3 from the hotel or vice versa.
From T4 to Moxy - best take the tube to T1/T2/T3 and then the bus as above from Heathrow Central Bus Station.
From Moxy to T4 - Due to the loop on the tube it doesn't work so easily in this direction, so instead go Heathrow Bus Station as above, then take the Heathrow Express or Elizabeth Line (opens late 2018) to T4. Allow 30 minutes. There may be a case for taking the Hoppa bus service instead since that's door to door.
From T5 to Moxy - Take the tube to T1/T2/T3 and then the bus as above. Alternatively take the 423 from T5 to Bolton's Lane and then the 105, 111, 81. 223, H98 to the hotel.
From Moxy to T5 - Either go to T2 or T3 and then the tube to T5. Alternatively any bus to Mondial Way, then the 423 from there. I use this TfL link to see if a 423 is within the next 10 minutes or not, the 423 has a 20 minute service interval. Allow 30 minutes, but it may take 20 minutes.
https://tfl.gov.uk/bus/stop/490004149W/mondial-way/

From Central London - Several options: Heathrow Express to T2/T3 then the bus as above. Or the Elizabeth Line when it opens. Or the Piccadilly line to Hounslow West. Cross over the main road to take bus 81. 223, H98 to the hotel door.
Nightbus - There is a night bus N9 that runs from Aldwych, Trafalgar Square, Harrods, High Street Kensington and Hammersmith to the hotel and then Heathrow T2, T3 and finally T5. It starts at about midnight and finishes at 06:30 approx, and runs at 20 minute intervals or better. It takes an hour from central London. If on an early flight you may end up on this service from the hotel, which provides a direct link to T5.

Fares
Travel on buses, trains and tubes is free in the Heathrow travel area, but for the tube you need a contactless payment card, or an Oyster card, or an Android/Google/Apple/Barclay Pay app. This is to operate the gates, it doesn't result in a charge. The Moxy however is 2 stops past this travel area, so you will need to have one of these payment methods to use the buses for the section between the hotel and Harlington Corner (Holiday Inn Ariel). It's a flat fare of £1.50. So pay when you get on the bus when departing from the Moxy, but when arriving at the Moxy pay only on the last bus that gets you to the hotel.