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The Sofitel London Heathrow connects directly to Terminal 5 via a covered walkway and is the only 5-star hotel at Heathrow Airport. This hotel also offers parking-inclusive packages, and we have compared this Sofitel to the Airport Hilton at Heathrow Terminal 5 in case you are debating which hotel is best.
Location
To get to Sofitel London Heathrow Terminal 5, you can follow the yellow signs at the main terminal, which have Sofitel labeled. Incidentally, the Sofitel is accessible from the same set of lifts as the brilliant Terminal 5 pod parking.
The signs lead you to a double lift, which also takes you to the short-stay car park. The lift also links arrivals and departures. Once you exit the lift, a Sofitel sign is right in front of you.
You then follow numerous rather depressing corridors that wind through this particular airport building and eventually lead out into the hotel.
I’d say that the walk takes maybe 5 minutes from the lifts to the hotel. There are no steps, so wheeling your case to the hotel is easy. When you finally reach the hotel, there are escalators and a lift to take you down to the Sofitel reception area.
If you arrive by taxi, you won’t need to worry about all these corridors and lifts as there is a drive-through entrance on the far side of the reception from the airport tunnels. When you leave the hotel for Terminal 5 and your flight, you will have to do the long corridor walk in reverse.
It is incredibly convenient to be able to access terminal 5 from this Sofitel hotel. It saves on taxi fees and time and removes much of the stress from the check-in process.
It’s so easy to walk to Terminal 5 from the hotel. You don’t need to cross any roads, and all the walkways are covered so you have no worries about the wonderful British drizzle spoiling your day either. Just walk down the corridor and take the lift to the departures floor of London Heathrow Terminal 5.
Style & Character
The hotel itself has a cavernous and busy entrance with orchids and fountains. The feel is more like a 1990s office than a hotel. The entire ground floor is a mass of huge covered atriums with four levels of rooms that look down over these internal atriums.
In the middle is the external entrance to the hotel, the reception desk, and to one side are the lifts and escalators that lead to the main terminal building and also the exclusive Sofitel long stay parking area.
There are lounges, restaurants, and coffee bars that populate the rest of this ground floor, all interconnected by massive, airy marble corridors. Think of the 1990s shopping mall, and you get the general feel.
The lounge areas on the ground floor of this hotel are massive, with a mish-mash of seating and even a piano stuffed into one corner. None of it makes a lot of sense. There’s a coffee bar, and you can take your coffee or muffin to one of the many lounge areas, but there is no coffee bar specific seating.
There’s a restaurant in one part, a club lounge up some stairs, and a spa somewhere, but the feel is disorganized, as if the communal spaces haven’t been properly thought out, and many lounge areas seem desolate with potted palms and uneasy chairs that looked out of place and lonely. Then again, perhaps I’m expecting too much from an airport hotel.
Rooms
The rooms above are split into six wings adjoined by open-air walkways that sit around the high glass atriums. Hotel rooms either look outwards to the airport or inwards over a part of the hotel. For example, some rooms overlook the restaurants, others the marble foyers and reception areas.
Our room (room 6108) looked out to the roadway coming into the airport. Since none of the rooms look onto the runway or planes, there is little to choose between the inward-facing and outward-facing rooms.
The room we had was pretty standard for an airport hotel; it had plenty of space, upgraded finishings and amenities, and superbly quiet quadruple glazing (double glazing, then a gap, then double glazing again).
The blackout curtains were excellent, and the bed was large, so it was easy to get a good night’s sleep. The black marble bathroom had a walk-in shower, a bath with a TV screen in the wall and offered ESPA toiletries.
Service & Facilities
There was also a spacious 24-hour fitness studio with free access for hotel residents, which we didn’t try and a spa somewhere in the hotel.
Club Millésime executive club lounge at the Sofitel London Heathrow Terminal 5 is the hotel’s exclusive club lounge. This is a landside airport lounge, so you can use it before going to the departure hall at Heathrow Terminal 5, if you’ve booked club lounge access. We have reviewed this lounge in more detail separately.
Guests at the Sofitel in a luxury room or suite automatically get access to Club Millésime. Guests in standard rooms can upgrade to use the lounge for around £75 GBP per person. This lounge was a Priority Pass lounge for a while but is no longer available with your Priority Pass.
Food & Drink
La Belle Époque is the best restaurant at Sofitel London Heathrow, and it has two Rosettes. It serves a distinctive fusion of British and French cuisine for a unique dining experience. The setting is on the ground floor of the hotel in one of the many atriums that the rooms at this hotel look out upon.
The ridiculously high ceiling has been brought down with fun cylindrical lighting and an awning that makes the restaurant feel more cosy than the rest of the gargantuan atriums in this hotel. This effort in design gives the restaurant a welcoming and warm feel and makes it a delightful place to enjoy an evening meal.
The food we tried was outstanding, the staff were both kind, and they seemed to be incredibly proud of the food they are serving.
Highlights included the poached Scottish lobster with tempura frog’s legs (sad for the frog but superbly tasty for me!), the delicious confit of Norwegian sea trout, and the Granny Smith apple mousse at the end, which seemed to have absorbed the flavor from a thousand apples. If you are doing an overnight stay at London Heathrow, a meal at La Belle Epoque meal is simply a must-do.
There’s also a buffet-style restaurant and a coffee bar named Tea 5 tea salon, where you can buy Starbucks-type food and drink and then take them to one of the many lounge areas nearby.
Conclusion
The Sofitel is the best luxury airport hotel for all terminals at Heathrow. It is the only five star hotel at London Heathrow. It is, however, designed like a soulless 1990s shopping mall and is not the kind of hotel that you’d want to spend more than a night at.
that said, whichever terminal you’re departing from, this is the most luxurious option at London Heathrow. if you’re spending more than a night in London, we’d reccomend taking the train to Central London, where there is a huge array of amazing luxury hotels.
If you are waiting between flights, you can apparently book a room at this Sofitel for day use only.
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