I have spent a stupid amount of time in airport hotels in the past year and have learned that the term 'airport hotel' can be very misleading. Some, like the Sheraton DusseldorfAirport really are right at the airport whilst many can be a 10-15 minute cab ride away. As for shuttle busses that take you almost an hour to get from the hotel to the airport, there are far too many of those knocking about. My advice - for what it's worth - is to make sure you know exactly what you are getting when you book an airport hotel. A good price can be spoiled by discovering that the shuttle bus only goes once an hour and a taxi can cost you half the room rate just to get there. The Sheraton at Dusseldorf airport is exactly the best kind of airport hotel
Why were we there?
Back at the end of January, we needed to arrange a business meeting with about 10 people from across Europe and I wanted to combine it with a trip to a trade-show in Cologne. I wanted to make everything as easy as possible for everyone so I persuaded my boss, who
lives nearby, that we should base the meeting around Dusseldorf Airport. The advantage was that everyone we needed had access to direct flights to Dusseldorf and the boss could actually go home and see his wife and kids - something he doesn't manage nearly often enough. We threw all the arrangements together very quickly and decided to book rooms for everyone at the Sheraton Dusseldorf Airporthotel.
The Hotel
I had a sneaky suspicion when I saw the photos on the hotel website that I'd been there before many years ago when the hotel was called the Arabella. I had happy memories of a very early flight being made slightly less painful as a result of staying so close to the airport that you really do just roll out of bed and stroll into the departures area. The entrance to the hotel is directly in front of the main airport building and the hotel itself sits on top of the multi-storey short-stay car park. Take a look at the photo that Ciao provided - basically, the Sheraton is the top floor of that oval building and all the lower floors are car parks.
Sure enough I later discovered that the Arabella had 'morphed' into the Sheraton (a more internationally recognisable hotel brand) so I was very pleased. What I remembered from my previous stay was that the hotel had a turfed roof garden and when I'd opened my curtains to see how the weather was looking, I'd been charmed by a mother duck and a group of young ducklings taking a stroll outside my room. I also recalled that against all the odds given its proximity to the airport that the hotel was remarkably quiet.
With people arriving from different cities on different flights, we agreed that we'd all aim to meet in the hotel lobby at 11 am on the Monday morning. Arriving at the airport I walked straight out of the arrivals area and saw the sign for the Sheraton on the ground floor of the car park. There's a lift that takes you up to the top floor where it opens onto the hotel lobby. I wanted to send a couple of emails before we left for Cologne so I asked the receptionist for help. Unfortunately the guy on reception told me that he couldn't give me a code for the Wi-Fi service unless I was checked in and he couldn't check me in because the rooms weren't ready. It looked like a Catch-22 until he handed me a card with his own personal Wi-Fi access code and invited me to use it since it was the only way round the problem. 10 out of 10 to him for using his initiative.
With my emails sent and the rest of my colleagues assembled we all left our cases with the hotel and headed out to look for the railway station. What can I say? We messed up massively by assuming that the station just outside the hotel was the main railway station. As a result of this (the real station is actually a short mono-rail ride away) it took us about one and a half hours to get to Cologne instead of half an hour.
The Rooms
When we returned in the evening we checked into our rooms. The rooms are laid out as a double donut around the outside of the oval car park building with corridors radiating out from the lobby zone. I had a room on the outside of the donut and on the airport side. I could look out at the air traffic control tower which was eerily close by. If I'd had a torch with me I could probably have waved a few jets down by leaning out of my window. My room wasn't very big but it was nicely decorated and had everything I needed for just one night. There was a double bed set up for one person with all the pillows in the middle but with a bedside table on each side. The colour scheme was in shades of ginger, green and cream and everything was in good condition. The curtains were perfectly light-tight which is important for an airport hotel where people are often sleeping at strange hours. The furniture included a wardrobe with a safe and an iron and board inside, a desk with a chair, a TV over the mini-bar, a small tray with kettle and tea and coffee and a small chest of drawers. There was also a suitcase stand. The bathroom was small but pleasant with sparkly black basalt counter and floor and with bright white tiling. Everything was effectively squeezed into quite a small space.
The Lobby
We met in the lobby to have drinks before going out for dinner. We grabbed a bunch of sofas close to the reception desk and whilst one colleague checked with reception how long they thought it would take to get to the restaurant, I went off to order drinks for everyone. An old colleague of mine used to say that he really liked airport hotels because almost everyone is there on their own and everyone's on their way to somewhere and more likely to chat to other people than in a regular hotel. Sure enough, whilst I waited to give my order, a couple of people at the bar started chatting and asking why I was there, what were we doing and so on. The barman said he'd bring the drinks over and I escaped back to my group.
The lobby at the Sheraton is really big and has the bar area, a computer zone in the middle and a quieter seating area where we had gathered. Everything was nicely decorated and the furnishings were of a good standard. The lobby has a pleasant and welcoming vibe.
Breakfast - yes please!
Breakfast was included in our room rates so I popped by the next morning. I'm not normally very sociable at breakfast time but I was glad that I went because the breakfast buffet was exceptional and the views from the restaurant were excellent. Suitably fed, I grabbed my things from my room and checked out, leaving with feelings just as positive as I'd had on my first visit many years before. We held our meeting in the conference facilities at the airport which were so good that we definitely plan to use Dusseldorf airport and the Sheraton again.
Recommendation
I spend what can fairly be described as 'too much time' in hotels so I'm pretty jaded about the hotel life. Therefore when a hotel touches me and leaves a good memory, I have no reservations about recommending it to others. This place isn't cheap (from memory it was about £150 per night but we had all the rooms invoiced together so I can't swear that's correct) but for great location and outstanding convenience, it can't be beat. We had originally planned to hold our meeting at the hotel but for some complex reason that the boss never satisfactorily explained, we used the conference centre over at the airport which was absolutely excellent.
Pictures of Sheraton Dusseldorf Airport
Small but nicely decorated - even the cushion covers are monogrammed.
by (33%):
28.04.2009 11:33
Great work, airport hotels should be judged as suspiciously as some city airports.
26.04.2009 22:48
Be grateful I'm not a hotelier...the television in every room would show nothing but 'The Shining'.
26.04.2009 17:11
An excellent review (will be back with E) - I love hotels :o)