Catherine Foleyvisits Yotel in Gatwick Airport
THE STARSHIP Enterprisecame to mind as I made my way to a cabin in Yotel at Gatwick Airport's South Terminal in the UK. This new concept in airport accommodation allows guests to rent rooms for intervals of four hours or more, costing from £25. The rooms, measuring either seven or 10sq m, are designed for weary travellers who want to sleep or just chill in their own private space. There's minimum fuss here, and no sense of a large team of people manning desks, checking and taking phonecalls, and arranging taxis for guests. It's quiet and zen-like. You start to feel you'll be nodding off in no time.
It was Friday night when I checked myself in at the small hole-in-the-wall booth at the hotel's entrance: automatically a glass door slid back and I was given a plastic card key to my cabin by an attendant at "the galley". Without any more fuss, I was directed to my room around the corner. There was a hush about the place, a soft purplish glow bathed the corridor. If Captain Jean-Luc Picard had come walking towards me, I might not have blinked.
Inside my cabin, I pulled the blinds over the door and the wide window and turned to survey the space. It was a little oasis of quiet. It felt like a railway carriage, minus the rattling and jostling of couplings, cups and trolleys. The double bed was raised in a couch-like position, folded into a sage green recess. I pressed a button on a console of switches to my right, and slowly the 2m x 1.3m bed unfolded to fill the "premium double cabin" space, with a firm but comfortable mattress and dressed with a duvet, percale cotton sheets and big soft pillows. There was space to walk around the bed to the little bathroom unit, which I could see through the glass-walled partition. I hung my coat and jacket up in the storage space in a recess beside the television.
I ordered some refreshments from the galley, stored my suitcase in one of the bedside tables, unfolded a study desk and chair, and availed of the cabin's free internet access.
The idea behind Yotel is to blend first-class accommodation with Japanese "capsule" style hotels at minimum expense. Once I was in bed, I turned on the 23-inch flat-screen TV and briefly surfed through all 50-plus channels. The mood lighting is "designed to help you chill" according to the brochure. I pressed the button beside an icon for the sun and all the lights came up. There was a dimming control also, which was perfect for watching late-night TV. Then it was time to fall asleep. As I drifted, I pressed another button beside a row of ZZZZs and the lights went down. I pressed the sun icon again to have another look at the symbols. One little icon, a pair of feet bracketed by an outer pair, which I recognised as the universal symbol of love-making, set me wondering. Might the bed fold into itself again? Might the lights morph into disco-strobe mode? Would the bed begin to vibrate, or might the handsome young man in the aubergine singlet, on duty at the galley outside, come to offer to pair his feet with mine? I was tempted to press the little discrete icon but weariness, caution and a fanciful desire to prolong the mystery stopped me.
In the morning, I woke at 7am, refreshed after a great night's sleep. As the feeling of being in a comfortable capsule or a beautiful railway carriage persisted, I wondered if a ticket inspector might knock on my door to announce our arrival. Like all travellers, a sense of arrival at a new point of departure slowly dawned. There were faint sounds of stirring from the other cabins. It was as if we were about to pull in to Le Gare du Nord shortly. I'd also give the thumbs up to the "monsoon shower", which was refreshing and not aggressive.
The ergonomics of the room pleased me. And with no seats or tables in the little foyer area for hanging around, there was no time for lost souls to loiter. The glass door slid open once more and I emerged from my capsule. Sad to leave, I waved goodbye to the crew member in the galley and stepped back into the real world. Once you've tried it, you'll become an advocate.
Yotel aims to provide "your own mini private space . . . We like to think that you feel cocooned at Yotel." To get there, take the elevator from ground-floor arrivals in Gatwick to the floor below.
Over the next week, curiosity got the better of me, and so, on my return through Gatwick, I made a detour to Yotel to ask about the intriguing little feet icon. This is for "romantic lighting", according to the helpful galley hand.
Well, of course, and that's as it should be, isn't it?
WhereGatwick Airport's South Terminal and Heathrow Airport's Terminal 4 in the UK with a new branch opening at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam this summer.
RoomsA premium room is a 10sq m double room with a bed measuring 2x1.3m; a 10sq m twin room comprises two large single-bunk beds, and a 7sq m standard room has a large single bed (2x1m). The twin 10sq m rooms are designed for wheelchair access.
RatesCosts begin at £25 for a four-hour booking in a standard room and £40 for a similar booking in a premium room. The prices per hour thereafter are from £6.50 in a standard.
FacilitiesFree WiFi access, 24-hour in-cabin food and drink, automated check-in and check-out, on the spot or pre-booking and a full entertainment system with more than 50 TV and radio channels and a 5,000-track jukebox.