Sofitel London Gatwick — Hotel in Crawley

This is, by far, the WORST hotel experience I have ever had. The hotel’s policies are secretive and manipulative. We even suspected this may happen and asked for clarification, to which we were given a false answer.

We check in, and we ask where the car can be parked. They give us directions to the car park. Before going, we ask a very specific question. “Are we able to go in and out of the car park freely?” We are told yes, as long as we validate the ticket every time we leave. Kind of a pain, but fine.

After being parked for 2 hours, it’s time to use the in and out privileges and visit friends. We go to validate the parking ticket. Then we’re asked to wait while they get a manager. Turns out, because we hadn’t been parked for 3 hours (but had been for over 25 minutes), there was a mandatory fee to Gatwick Airport of THIRTY POUNDS. That’s not free in and out privileges.

The managers sat and explained their policies, fine, but they made no reconciliation for this. We asked if there was a cost to the consumer for entering and exiting the parking lot, we were told no. The hotel knew full well that they owned a car park where the only entrance and exit was within a toll zone. When asking for directions, they told us where to turn to avoid the toll. Turns out you don’t avoid it if you have a life.

This is not a difficult situation. The hotel could be upfront about costs to their customers. They can argue all they want it wasn’t their fee, but they bought a car park somewhere customers do have to pay more. And they knew that. When asked how the car park works, they had the opportunity to apologize for a fee outside of their control and let the consumer know. They failed.

There is never a reason to tell your customer something untrue. When we asked where we can park, the answer wasn’t “if you’re using hotel parking, it’s the first right and left.” It was, let me come show you where to go. We had no opportunity to even choose to use this parking lot was never provided.

This is on top of initially checking in and receiving a room with water leaking through the roof, water damaged carpet floor, and mattresses stained with blood. If you can find any other hotel or accommodation, take it. This is written on hour 2 of my stay. I dread the next 40 hours. They have staff out helping take customers to their rooms (without a concierge, so for free). Don’t be fooled by this veil of friendliness. It is to rush you to your room with stained beds and towels and huge accumulations of dust by the tv and bed frame. This hotel’s deception meant either paying a 30 pound fine or being 75 minutes late to a meeting. Thanks a lot.

(More written after longer stay): Yep, it got worse. Family member tripped on leaving the elevator because it was significantly misaligned. 2/3 hand towels were dirty. Counter was dirty. Shower head is very short, and it’s designed to be very difficult to get in and out of. For an airport hotel that knows most people will travel with luggage, there was shockingly few spots to put the luggage. The walls are thin and you can hear your neighbors and service all night. The mattress stains were worse than previously thought, and a pillowcase was...

It was our first time at the Sofitel. We were a family of 2 adults and 1 child (age 3) and we checked in the day prior to our departing flight from Gatwick, North Terminal. We parked in the long stay car park and hopped on the airport bus to the terminal before walking over too the hotel, which took no more than 30 minutes. Check-in was straightforward with a slight hiccup in that we had requested a child's bed for our son at the time of booking, and the room had been set up with a cot instead, but this was remedied in less than 10 minutes. Unusually, I hadn't done much research into the hotel at all beyond its location and access to the North Terminal so I was a bit disappointed that our room was internal facing as it did make me feel a bit claustrophobic, but it was my fault and it wasn't an issue for a 12-hour stay. However, the room had everything we needed and was clean. The main issue for us is that we ate at the Vivre Restaurant and the service took a very long time and the three meals were all pretty poor, my partner had the beef burger which was just about edible, but the other two were disgusting. Generally, the mood in the restaurant was pretty stressful with lots of mutterings by other customers about the service and food. I also ordered a draught beer and my advice would be to go for something bottled instead as it was completely flat. We should have complained really, but we decided that we didn't want to dwell on a negative as we started our holiday, so we paid and left. I would say that the staff were all really pleasant and were doing their best, despite being run ragged, which was a factor in why we didn't complain at the time. Back in the room, we did experience a bit of noise from the surrounding rooms, but sleep ended up coming very easily following a pretty long day, which was helped by the very comfortable beds. We opted to take breakfast in the airport, so we can't comment on the hotel breakfast, but I would not have been overly hopeful after our dining experience. Check out was easy and once again the commute from hotel to the North Terminal was an absolute breeze. If we were flying from the North Terminal again, we would consider staying again because it was so convenient and the accommodation itself was good. We paid using Tesco Clubcard Vouchers and so for the money (i.e., just the taxes) it was incredibly good...

This was the most perfect way to kick off our holiday. We paid for a fly and stay package, everything was super easy to arrange. I needed an extra night's car parking (15 nights in total) not a problem at all and sorted with 1 quick email. When we arrived we parked the car behind the hotel, then checked into the hotel (a very quick and pleasant experience) and took the lift to the 8th floor to our luxury room with runway views. The room itself was wonderful, very large and extremely comfortable bed, fully stocked mini bar fridge (free to use with our room category, imclufed wine, beer, soft drinks, juices and water) tea/coffee making facilities, nice large shower, free bathroom amenities (shower gel, shampoo, Conditioner- i had forgotten to pack toothpaste, bit one quick call to reception and they had delivered two dental packs which included 2-1 toothpaste and mouthwash amd a toothbrush! Brilliant), There was good sized flat screen TV, a fruit plate on the table with chairs, and then the real star of the show... the huge window with the best views of the Runway! My husband could have sat in that window all night and watch the take offs and landings. However also with this class of room, you have access to the Club Millesime Lounge (only a couple of doors away) and again incredible views over the airport and runway. So we went there and had drinks and snacks, all included whilst being served by the wonderful Margo for our duration. After some time here, we headed back to our room to find a wonderful surprise of a "happy anniversary" plate with chocolates and gateaux which was a really lovely gesture. We then took our luggage over for an early drop off through the tunnel that directly links the Sofitel hotel with the north Terminal (3 minute walk) but if you were flying from the south terminal it also links to the monorail and its only around 6/7 minutes travel time, which meant after a really good night's sleep in a very comfortable quiet room, we simply woke up and then headed directly to security and the departure lounge. We declined the free breakfast, although it smelled amazing, but as we had already paid for Club lounge access we had decided to eat breakfast in there. Overall I would 100% stay here again, it felt like our holiday started 1 day earlier. ...