The Location

Staybridge Suites London – Heathrow Bath Road  was only recently opened, and you can tell from the moment you walk in. There is a nice vanilla fragrance lingering around most of the hotel and all surfaces are nice and clean.

The Staybridge Suites brand offers a higher end self-service facility you would want if you are staying for longer periods and want to cook a few of your own meals rather than eating out every night. This may appeal to those who are coming to the Heathrow area for business purposes given the amount of business parks surrounding the airport, though the rooms are perfectly pleasant for those staying one night to then go to the airport the day after.

The hotel is located on Bath Road at the northern perimeter of Heathrow Airport. This has the advantage of being side-by-side to many other competing airports to keep prices in check, and it is also located within the Heathrow Free Travel Zone to save yourself money if you were previously considering a taxi or using the rather expensive Heathrow Hoppa buses, currently priced at £5 one way or £9 return.

 

The Building

I arrived late at night and the hotel was stunning from the outside. Sadly my photos do not do it justice! If you take off from the northern runway (09L) at night this hotel is very prominent. I tried to take a picture when taking off but these came out too blurred to be published sadly!

The Staybridge Suites hotel is twinned with Holiday Inn Heathrow Bath Road, though this part is only open from 17th February 2019 (just a few days after this stay!). Unlike the Crowne Plaza/Holiday Inn Express combo at Terminal 4, the interiors to these two hotels appeared to be separate to each other. This will need to be confirmed after the Holiday Inn's launch, but it would seem sensible to at least have a shared restaurant facility accessible internally, given the relative sizes of the ground floor areas of both.

During the day.

 

The Reception and Public Space

I arrived on a Sunday evening so there was hardly anyone there. There is a bit of a darker ambience to the lobby so I have had to brighten the photos a little.

 

There is a business centre for you to print or mail things if you need.

 

Meeting room with round table, which was locked at the time I was there

 

A slightly brighter lounge area with huge televisions on both sides.

 

There is also an outdoor seating area as you can see in the background but the doors were locked. Being mid-February I cannot imagine customers wanting to use it, except perhaps if you wanted a cigarette. In which case the building entrance was not that far away anyway.

The lift has a keycard swipe access, so that external intruders cannot easily reach customer bedrooms.

 

I was staying on the 5th floor. The decor around the whole corridor space was bright and simple without being too simplistic.

The Room

I was staying in room 531. At the time of booking I had booked the cheapest available standard room. At the reception they mentioned they had given me an upgrade due to my IHG Platinum Status, though they didn't mention what type of room was given…

 

To my surprise, it was a one bedroom suite! The windows are very strongly sound-proofed, as you would hope with airport hotels.

Internet speed from the sofa area, measured from an iPhone 8+.

Looking back from the sofa area towards the kitchen.

 

Kitchen facilities available for use. Stainless steel utensils, knifes, kettle, toaster:

 

Fine-tooth serrated knifes which were nice and sharp. I've stayed in my fair share of places where these were blunt and useless.

Pizza tray, oven mitts and towels.

 

Microwave oven. I didn't use it but I am sure it is adequate for most needs.

 

Bin, washing up liquid and sponges, dishwasher, dishwasher tablet

 

Small fridge with freezer compartment

Notice board which gives instruction on several things and includes events calendars.

 

Very large cafetière, though I did not see any coffee grounds, only instant coffee.

 

Onto the bedroom. The bed was a king size. Apologies that I did not get a picture of the TV on the wall in the bedroom. This means there are two TVs in the room – one in the sofa area and one in this bedroom area.

 

The bathroom was en-suite.

 

There is also a small cabinet behind the bedroom door.

 

 

The toiletries were by Gilchrist and Soames. Notice that shampoos, shower gel and moisturiser are large bottles, rather than the typical small hotel bottles you get. One bar of soap was also given but nothing else was on display. I would have expected something like a toothbrush plus shaving kit at least.

 

Internet speed from inside the bathroom.

 

Iron and board.

 

Given the kitchen facilities I wanted to check safety facilities. My room is the door on the left and the fire extinguishers and exit are on the right, approximately 15 metres away. I believe the fire exit reaches an external muster point in the car park below though I had no way to tell.

 

One foam extinguisher and two CO2 extinguishers. Always know which to use depending on the type of fire you're dealing with!

 

Other Facilities

On level 1 there is a gym room and a laundry facility. You need to use your keycard to access this floor.

Gym room, which had powerful air conditioning and music running when I was there.

 

Dumbbells with weights ranging from 4kg up to 22kg.

 

Multi-purpose machines to work just about every muscle in your body.

 

Treadmills, cycle machine, rowing machine

 

I unfortunately did not get to take a picture of the laundry room. I think there was a stag do or similarly large gathering of men in there which made it very awkward to try and take a photo!

 

Breakfast

Judging by my conversation with the front desk at check-in, breakfast is free for for all room rates. I was not billed anything extra for it.

As it was a Monday morning it was not very busy at all. The service area was this island area which had some cereal and continental style offerings.

 

And two sides of the wall there were hot servings plus teas, coffees and other sundries.

 

 

These sausages were some of the best I had had in a long time. The herb and peppery seasoning were spot on. Bacon was a good texture too. Not limp like many hotels serve and not crisped to the extent of most American styles.

 

The scrambled egg was damn good too. Creamy, buttery, and the egg was still soft but with a small amount of bite.

 

Porridge and toppings if you wanted something a bit more plain.

 

 

My Verdict

This hotel really surpassed my expectations. It holds a score on IHG's site of 5 out of 5, though bear in mind IHG sometimes censors bad reviews. I did check other booking platforms which had all-round positive review.

I naturally had high expectations going in though without expecting too much. This was because my room rate was £55 due it being a Sunday night combined with the recent 30% off sale. Normal mid-week prices are closer to £80-90 per night but even that is still pretty reasonable.

The location is within the free Heathrow transport zone which makes this easily accessible and the bus stop is right outside the building. There are about 4-6 free buses plus two chargeable “Heathrow Hoppa” buses per hour. The free buses reach any of Terminal 2, 3 or 5 in about 10 mins. Terminal 4 would require going to Central Bus Terminal (For Terminal 2 or 3) and then taking a free Heathrow Express train. Alternatively you can stay at the Crowne Plaza / Holiday Inn Express combination hotel.

The room I got, a One Bedroom Suite, was spotless and reasonably sized. Of course there is an element of luck involved because of my IHG Platinum status (see here for my beginners' guide to IHG points).

For this kind of price and the product you receive, I believe you cannot go wrong with this hotel. The official link for this Staybridge Suites is here.