Day of return to airport

[mike4scuba]

Flying from gatwick for the first time as we usually fly from manchester
On day of travel we are driving down the night before and staying in the hotel over night
Now the day we come back we will have had a long flight and never sure if I can get to sleep.
It's a long drive back so what do most people who do this do
Was thinking of driving north of the m25 on the sunday morning we land and finding the first services to park up and have a nap in the car

[duchy]

Why not book a day room for a few hours , decent breakfast(something you don't get on the plane flying east) , snooze in a proper bed and hit the road refreshed.

[Guest]

If you can pick up a Premier Inn at a good price,book 2 nights for your return, obviously you won't be using the first night but you can then check in as soon as you land and go and chill for the day/night then drive home the next day, we're doing this when we arrive back in Manchester in January.

[cismwynn]

We flew from Gatwick a number of years ago and then had a 200+ mile trip home after we landed. The drive was really awful and I vowed to never do it again. If I had that sort of distance to cover again after a return flight I would 100% book a hotel - even if I had to pay for two nights.

[archibald]

Watch for parking charges if you snooze too long - a friend got a ticket for napping! We have a 5 hour drive back this time, flight arrives at midday, so we're booking a Premier Inn about 2 hours away. Either we stop for a nap, or the night, or we just drive straight past and take the £29 hit.

[snowbelle]

We book a day room , We have stayed in the BLOC at Gatwick, The Hilton and last Month splashed out for the Sofitel .

Thank goodness we did as we had a terrible flight home and neither of us slept ( cabin was far too hot, lots of people up and about all night so it was noisy and could'nt get comfortable in the seat)

It was fantastic to get to the Sofitel have some breakfast, have a shower and fall into bed the room was so nice and quiet and had blackout drapes we slept solidly for 5 hours then another quick wake up shower and on the road.

It took a fair while to get home as we hit traffic and heavy rain for most of the journey but we felt a lot better driving more alert.

Quite a few service stations only allow a max of two hours stay now so I know I would be constantly waking up if we slept in the car.

We use Dayuse.com

[snowbelle]

Originally Posted by archibald

Watch for parking charges if you snooze too long - a friend got a ticket for napping! We have a 5 hour drive back this time, flight arrives at midday, so we're booking a Premier Inn about 2 hours away. Either we stop for a nap, or the night, or we just drive straight past and take the £29 hit.

See more...

DH friend got stung for £150 for falling asleep in Mcdonalds' car park near Gatwick ,that was an expensive Big Mac

[15isto2]

The BLOC dayrooms are superb especially if you get one with no windows so its brilliantly easy to sleep

[mike4scuba]

what are these BLOC dayrooms. never heard of them.

is it this

daybreakhotels/GB/en...Direct+Traffic

[Budmiester]

As few others have done in the past I flew a good few years ago into Manchester and then drove home to Scotland,never again I was absolutely exhausted and I’m certain I fell asleep at the wheel on more than one occasion despite me having plenty of rest stops. Now I either fly back to Glasgow or I book a hotel room and drive back later.