I didn’t actually choose and book to stay at Heathrow Terminal 4’s Crowne Plaza Hotel in December 2018 – I had asked Qatar Airways to book me a hotel to allow me and Mr A to catch their first flight of the day to Doha, following the closure of Gatwick due to drone activity. The Crowne Plaza is just 5 mins walk, along a covered pedestrian bridge, from the check in desks in Terminal 4.  I’d had a reasonable stay in Crowne Plazas in Japan, so I happily accepted Qatar’s proposal to put me up there.

After pulling our bags across the bridge from the far left side of Terminal 4’s departures level, first impressions were very good because the lobby area looked very plush and new, with cool blue lighting illuminating the building’s internal walkways to the rooms.  Of note is the fact that only the left side of this building is the Crowne Plaza – turn right and it’s the Holliday Inn Express!

Check in was smooth; we were among the first delayed passengers to check in (later in the evening there were long queues of stranded BA pax. You need to tap your room key card in the lift, to make it go anywhere, but once I overcame that I got to my 4th floor room.

The hotel had only opened a couple of months earlier, so everything appeared fresh, new and clean. But the room was a mere facsimile of millions of big chain business-oriented hotels all around the world. It had neutral decor, a king size bed (with a cheap non pocket-sprung mattress, so it sagged badly), a small occasional table and lounge chair, and a writing desk beneath a huge TV (I’m no fan of big TVs in small spaces).

The bathroom was on the compact side, with a toilet, wash basin and a roomy shower cubicle. No bath and not much shelf space, cheap toiletries.

The room was quite warm and stuffy and I worried about getting dehydrated overnight. The bedroom window (which looked down into the atrium-type space by reception) was sealed shut, so my only hope of a ‘fresh’ night was to turn off the aircon.  A sagging mattress and stuffy air – I wasn’t looking forward to bed time!

The Crowne Plaza has a restaurant with a half decent menu, but we had meal vouchers from Qatar Airways which meant we had to eat in the Holliday Inn Express restaurant over on the other side.  Their menu wasn’t very inviting or healthy, and I ended up ordering a caesar said and fish’n’chips.  Mr A was served his main course within moments of it being ordered (then we found out it was meant for someone else!) and then, my starter and main arrived together; so there’s still some training to be done with the catering team!  However my fish had moist flesh and crispy batter, so all wasn’t lost.  We were quite keen to leave the rather soul-less dining room, to get back upstairs for an early night.

I slept OK; not too warm and no bad back from the dodgy mattress.

In the morning we didn’t take breakfast because we checked out at 05:00.

Overall the Crowne Plaza Heathrow Terminal 4 is a standard airport business hotel: nothing to get excited about, but nothing to annoy.  Staff were generally helpful, if sometimes a little cold. It’s USP is undoubtedly its access to T4, so don’t go there if you’re departing from another terminal. 6/10