Here is my review of a one night stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Heathrow Terminal 2 last night. This was the second night after it opened, though that wasn't the original plan - the opening was delayed a few nights. As mentioned, it's a bit of a risk staying at totally new hotels, there is a strong argument for leaving it a month or two so all the snags can be ironed out.

Overall I had a good stay, and I would certainly stay there again. Indeed I have a few forward bookings in the diary. The hotel's three big advantages are location, location, location. I didn't really have the problems that the other posters have reported, so the Wi-Fi worked fine, the air-conditioning was good, the bed was comfortable, the room was made up correctly and everything worked. I had a good night's sleep and no complaints. The biggest negative for me is that no rooms in the hotel have a bath tub, so I'll probably end as a price and time sensitive customer, staying at this place when my timings and the rates make it viable. It is a much more standard HGI than retrofit properties, which would include Hatton Cross, since that started life as a Jury's Inn.

The one complaint area that I certainly did encounter, however, was that the smell of the new carpet, paint and plasterboard was very strong, and it will take a few weeks for that to die down.

I was in between two flights at Terminal 5, arriving at the hotel at 23:00 hrs from Kraków, and with a 09:20 departure to Newcastle the next day. Therefore I got to the hotel via the tube. All in all it only takes a few minutes to get from and then back to Terminal 5, so a key reason for me to choose this HGI was met.

A) Reception areas

The entrance is as shown in post 55 above, and in summary is best reached from the arrivals level (level 1) in terminal 2. This confusingly brings you into the hotel on level 2.

The lobby area is not particularly amazing. This is a long and thin hotel so consequently the reception area (hotel level 2) just has the pantry and check-in desks, the bar and restaurant are on the lower level (hotel level 1), though the gym is on hotel level 2. The net effect of splitting off the bar and restaurant like this was to remove the buzz of the hotel lobby area.





I checked in online, this worked fine, though no Digital Key was offered at the moment. I selected a random room on the 9th floor, room 9029. See below for a room map. There are 13 main room floors, and one lift has a 14th floor option. As far as I could tell, at the moment floor 9 is the top one in service at the moment. Picking up the key took only slightly longer than normal, and I was given the usual Diamond greeting. I didn't ask for a different room, nor was one offered. All staff encountered were very eager to please.



This is the pantry area. They charge £2.50 for coffee here.




B) Room

Everything in the room seemed to work and here are some pictures of the room itself. I highlight the fact that is very close to the standard HGI model. I felt that the room was a reasonable size and slightly more spacious than the Hatton Cross 8th HGI. I particularly liked the chair and laptop desk as well as the wall desk. I think this room works well for a single business traveller who perhaps has some work to do on their laptop.

The bathroom was more spacious than the Hatton Cross HGI, otherwise it was pretty much a cookie cutter HGI. The shower area has been commented upthread, but it is fairly close to the HGI standard used all over the world, and also other Hilton group hotels such as Hamptons and some Hiltons too.

The rest of the room is fairly self explanatory. There is a iron, ironing board, small room safe, an empty mini fridge and there is a small kettle with tea and coffee supplies. I had a good night's sleep and it is extremely quiet in the room. I couldn't hear anything from any part of the rest of the hotel, though it could not have been even half full. And there was no airport noise whatsoever. For some reason, only one bottle of water was offered in the room, none was offered in reception.











Bathroom



There are some comments about the bathroom flooding - well I'm going to try to be as charitable as I can about this... There is a rain shower fixed to the ceiling (out of shot in the photo) which you can adjust it slightly; and a separate adjustable hand shower wand. It can also be fixed to the mounting too. You can set the wand to get the temperature right by holding it while adjusting the temperature, and thenswitch to the rain shower as needed. You will only flood the bathroom if you point the wand in the direction of the bathroom floor! If necessary, turn either the body or the wand in the right direction. I managed to have 2 showers without a drop of water getting to the rest of the bathroom.




C) Air conditioning and noise



The air conditioning is the same as the Crowne Plaza in Terminal 4. It is a little different to other systems, but it does have an off button on the top. The word "off" will appear on the display. To set the fan speed and temperature you press the middle button shown here twice, quickly. This allows you to get the air conditioning set to your preference. In my case a quick blast to bring the temperature down a few degrees, then left off overnight.



The a/c was fairly quiet, the room extremely quiet, it is very well sound proofed.


D) Wifi

Wi-Fi was fairly good for me to and here is a speed check that I did on it. At the moment it's completely open, no login required, and no premium offer. These results are not that impressive, but nevertheless by the standards of Heathrow hotels, this is one of the better results I've seen. However the hotel was fairly empty at the time.




E) Room Service menu



There is a also a restaurant and a separate bar on level 1 of the hotel, plus there are options next door in Terminal 2 itself, including a branch of M&S. The restaurant menu is similar to the room service menu, but they did have some specials too. The bar also serves food. Last orders around 22:00 hrs.


F) Breakfast



In the morning after a good sleep, I had breakfast in the main restaurant on level 1, the floor below reception. Breakfast was a good buffet offering, close to the HGI standard for Europe and fairly similar to Hatton Cross. Unlike Hatton Cross however there isn't an egg station in the middle of the breakfast area but the breakfast team will provide you omelette, scrambled, poached or fried eggs on request - there is a mini menu on each table. Overall the breakfast offer was better than Hatton Cross, I felt, in that the staff were proactively eager to please, there is plenty of space and there is a view of T3 from the dining area. Indeed a Qantas A380 pulled on to stand while I was there. There is a waffle maker next to the coffee machines. Breakfast hours are 06:00 to 10:30.















G) Gym

The gym is on level 2 which is the same floor as reception, but it is not well signposted. It is between the check-in desk and the walkway, just past the toilets. As far as I can tell, no one's used any of the equipment yet but it was a reasonably good setup for Heathrow, though there are better LHR hotel gyms, most notably Hilton T4 and the Moxy.








H) Laundry rooms

Self service laundries are part of the specification of HGIs, which as a dedicated Hand Baggage Only traveller is something that I find very useful on longer trips. For this hotel there are two rooms, on the 5th and 10th floors, this is the 5th floor option. It seems to accept £1 coins direct, unlike Hatton Cross which uses tokens, and the cost is £2 for the wash, £1 per 15 minutes of spin drying.




I) Aviation geeks and room selection



The photo above was taken at breakfast. For aviation geeks you need to be on the highest floor possible but in the lower room number so 13001 would be the best room 3029 would not be a good room, view wise. I'll put room numbers on this map when I get a moment, but the left hand room is room 01, then it goes clockwise so that the right hand room is 20, the red dot is room 29 and the final room on the bottom section, would be 32. Rooms 01 to 14 will have good views of Terminal 3's gates 1 to 7, and beyond that, runway 09R / 27L. Lowest numbers would be best. Rooms 15 to 20 would have a more limited view, whereas rooms 21 to 32 won't have a view, other than that off the departure area of Terminal 2. This is based on my knowledge of the airport, so any further reports to confirm this would be useful.




[b]J) Connectivity to other terminals[b]

See post 55 for access details to the hotel. Note that the hotel and terminal / carpark have different floor numbers to each other, so level 1 in Terminal 2 is for arrivals, and access to the hotel, this turns into level 2 once in the hotel.

For Terminal 2, you just go out of Reception on hotel level 2 through the walkway to the carpark, this turns into Terminal 2 arrivals level 1, and for departures you need to take a lift to level 5. This will take under 5 minutes, walking all the way.

For Terminal 3, there is a passageway through to the terminal. There are several ways to do it, but to keep it simple, go to hotel level 2, walkway through the car park, then take a lift down to the tube level. Now some lifts only go to level 0, but that's OK, there is a tube access, but the signage is bad in this scenario. Just walk a short distance alongside the lifts with the main Terminal 2 building on your right side and you will then see the escalator down to the tube, and with it the passageway to T3. At this point it is all well signed. 10 minutes, walking all the way.

For Terminal 4, best to use the rail service. Again there are several ways to do it but the best is to follow the instructions above for Terminal 3, but before you get there you will see signs for "Trains", and that's for the free Heathrow Express and TfL Rail services. Due to a potential 15 minute service interval, you best allow 30 minutes, but it may only take 15 minutes. Go to the special machines that will issue free tickets for the inter-terminal services.

For Terminal 5, best use the tube. Follow the directions for T3, however you are only going on one travelator to get to the tube (Underground) station, then a tube to T5. Today it took me 16 minutes from the hotel reception to the First Wing in T5, but that was with only a 4 minute wait for a tube. So you best allow 20 minutes or so. You need an Oyster card, contactless payment card or Google Pay, Apple Pay (etc) on your smartphone. It's a free service but these operate the gates for you.