I have made a few trips between the UK and my Bermuda base recently. On my most recent flying visit, I decided that rather than run the gauntlet of the M25 first thing on a Monday morning, I would book an airport hotel the night before and start the day at a more leisurely pace. The main reason I chose the Sofitel was its highly convenient location, we were not planning to get to the airport until the evening, had to return our hire car and the last thing I felt I would want to do would be faff around with airport hotel buses. No need to do this with the Sofitel as it is connected to the North Terminal by a covered walkway.

There were about five or six staff at the desk, but some of them were working in twos so presumably were trainees. The desk to the far left is a dedicated check in for people who had booked "Executive" rooms, however I was grateful to find that they would take the next in line from the regular queue if they had no executives waiting. It did seem to take an unnaturally long time for some people ahead of us to check in. I had no idea what they could possibly be talking about; we just wanted to get our key and go. Overall the process probably took about ten minutes, which is not a silly amount of time but perhaps a bit longer than normal.

We were allocated a room on the first floor and took the lift up. For security, the lift requires a room card in the slot but we found it a bit temperamental, the guy who checked in ahead of us was still trying to make it move when we arrived. Eventually we were on our way. Our room was a corner room and as we had chosen the cheapest rate available we were not surprised to find that it was pretty small but nor did we mind for an overnight airport stay. Like the public areas of the hotel, it was very tastefully decorated, modern and everything still looked brand new. Except for the TV, that stood out as being pretty old fashioned and it had a small screen. There was a minibar in the room but it was empty, you have to request for it to be stocked, we preferred to have an empty fridge so we had somewhere to put the soft drinks we had brought with us. The bathroom was an average size hotel bathroom, it was an attractive grey marble but most importantly the shower over bath was easy to operate and there were no water pressure or temperature problems.

We both had a good nights sleep, the bed was very comfortable and we did not hear a peep from the corridor or neighbouring rooms. Next morning we remained in our room until check out time of 11am. As the terminal is so close by, my husband wandered over to the Marks & Spencer's food store (handily situated at the end of the walkway more or less) and picked up a few things for breakfast that we had with the complementary tea and coffee in the room.

Overall, I was very satisfied with the Sofitel. It is stylish and very comfortable but for me the best part was the convenience of being able to walk to it from the terminal building and not have to bother with the buses. If you need to stay in an airport hotel, then I think this hotel provides a good start or pleasant ending to any trip.