Airport hotel or early start?

[LLamb]

We are 20 min from Manchester airport and now always stay the night before. It’s part of the holiday and I don’t have to deal with m62/m56 stress!
Although this and next we flew from Gatwick so definitely stayed over. 😀

[ziggyzag]

Always stay the night before, too many horror stories of people missing flights because of traffic accidents etc

[Johngela13]

We live 30 mins from Aberdeen airport and still book a hotel for night before - it just feels less risky and means we do not have to get up early. If we were driving the morning of the flight we would have to include a contingency for RTAs or (god forbid) out own car breaking down. That said, it does depend on the hotel costs but we usually manage to find one in the £60 range.

[choccielover]

Hotel for us but that’s because I like to start our holiday asap

In your situation I’d go t in the morning, but head off early

[nats1211]

We live 90 minutes in good traffic from Gatwick. We’ve done a 10 am flight and left at 4am which gave us 3 hours travelling and it was fine. We’d worked out we needed 2 hours to do non motorway so knew we could come off and make the flight.
This time we’ve booked a premier inn the night before 3 miles out of the airport. Was much cheaper, free parking and even if we slept in and woke up at 8 (very unlikely) we’d still make our plane so much easier. Might be worth checking out hotels within 5 miles or so?
When we flew from Manchester in 2017 we paid £115 for a hotel about 8 miles out (a Mercure) and 2 weeks long stay parking.

[taylaboo]

We always go down the day before and stay over. We got stuck in traffic once and nearly missed our flight. Its a 3 1/2 hour drive so we have a minibus and driver to pick everyone up and drop everyone off. We have dinner and a couple of drinks in the Premier Inn after doing the twilight check in. Lovely way to start the holiday.

[Guest]

We are only 1.5-2 hours from Heathrow and Gatwick, but we still always get a hotel for the night before just in case. I get stressed enough on travel day without adding to it. My next flight is at 4pm but I am still staying at a hotel.

[7SeasSailor]

I'll never forget the time that there was a diesel spillage on the approach road to Gatwick and police stopped the traffic. They allowed one vehicle at a time to use the roundabout at your own risk and then closed it entirely for the clean up. Traffic was backed up along the M23 and further. There was a lot of upset people that day particularly those who had not left any margin for delays on the road. I was front of the queue and allowed to risk the drive which I managed ok. I vowed then that I would never get caught out like that again.

[Thorpy]

We're 45 minutes away from Manchester. We always used to drive on the day. The problem being the ideal time to arrive for most of the mid to late morning flights is slap bang in the middle of rush hour. I commute in that traffic so we'd always make sure we were at the airport for about seven am whatever our flight time. It was always an early start but that was accepted as part and parcel of the trip rather than the hotel cost.
in 2014 we went out of Glasgow for a 4 figure saving, so that covered a hotel. We liked it and have since booked in a hotel in Manchester.

We use Runger lane Premier inn, and for us the cost is offset by getting a buffet breakfast with kids eat free at about £20, rather than paying airside prices for all 4 of us. With a parking bundle deal it makes the hotel practically free... although we do eat there the night before, which is a cost we wouldn't normally have.

As well as the benefits outlined by others, the big one for me is that it makes leaving the house much less stressful as it removes all the time pressure in the "have you checked such and such, have you definitely got this and that" conversations. You just sort it instead of having a go at each other because it's making us late ! If you're late to the hotel, so what!
Then you don't have to turn up 3 hours before departure, you can actually work to the hard deadline of checkin closing and not spend quite so much time waiting about in the airport. (if you don't want to!)

[Gemini157]

It seems most of you would opt for the hotel the night before, which is what we have always done. It is only because others are in the mix that I am undecided.

We shall have a couple of family meetings to iron out all this sort of stuff soon, then we can make a decision
Thanks everyone for your input.