Pre-flight hotel stay or morning drive?

[Merryweather17]

Manchester is not too bad to get to at the weekends, it also has a nice range of hotels at the airport that are reasonably priced and often do free breakfast (not sure about PI though). I am staying at HI in a few weeks as we are flying at 10 on a Wednesday morning so would need to travel in the (early) rush hour to get there and parked up, when we go in august we are flying at 1pm on a saturday, we can then leave home around 8am and should still be there in plenty of time. It all comes down to preference, use the airport website to check for hotel and parking combos as these can (sometimes) be very reasonable and help justify the indulgence in an airport overnighter.

[scoobydooby]

We are only 90 minutes from Manchester but always stay the night before. M6 not to be trusted. Ever. I also don’t want to be getting up in the middle of the night on a long travel day. When the kids were kids we’d make a day of it and use the pool at the Radisson and plane watch but now we tend to leave work at 3.30pm and get there about 6. Just time to eat and watch a film and get nicely into the holiday mode. We still stay at the Radisson though. It’s hard not to once you’ve tried it. Super convenient. I prefer T2 Meet and Greet to the hotel parking though as it’s a faster escape home on the return.

[ginger ninja]

I would definitely stay the night before. Have done it when flying from Birmingham, we are only 20 mins from Manchester so not stayed in any near here but there is lots of choice.

[bex85chelt]

We drove the morning of around 2 hours at it was fine we left a similar time I think for a ten ish flight and got there in plenty of time. For us it was partly down to cost but also kids were in school the day before so we'd of had to drive in rush hour or if you wait till after your having a late night so not gaining as much

[Smilesonfaces]

We are also only an hour from Manchester airport but we stay overnight in a Premier Inn. You can usually get one for less than £40 and it makes your holiday a day longer !

[Hel22]

We live about 80 mins away from Manchester and always stay night before. This time we will be travelling to airport hotel early evening due to school/work but still better for us than risking incident on M6 the morning of flight that prevents us getting there. Personal choice of course but the M6 route for us is notorious for having incidents that potentially close the road for several hours at a time.

[angel_eyes]

I expect you are all right in not risking any possible delays on the way in (that cross Pennine journey certainly can be a doozy!). I will take a look at the hotel suggestions given. I had also been considering the Meet & Greet parking at the airport so thank you for feedback on that too. Thank you, everyone, for your input.

[7SeasSailor]

I'm another one for the hotel stay the night before. It just needs somebody else to have a shunt and you end up sat in a traffic jam miserable as sin, clock watching and knowing that it could have been avoided.

[Web Owls]

We're only 90 mins away from Manchester Airport,but always stay the night before flight. We 're staying at the premier inn north.We find it takes away the early morning drive stress.

[16offtodisney!]

We fly from gatwick ( 2 hours away) we always hotel it, the first time we flew to Orlando there was an accident near the airport, and it took 6 hours to get to the airport, we just managed to get there and literally walked straight on the plane! , i was so stressed, i now just think that for a £40 premier inn room, it stops me stressing, and my holiday starts a day ealier! Win win