Sofitel T5 LHR

I thought I'd make a post specifically about the Heathrow terminal 5 Sofitel, as there wasn't much about it on Reddit when I looked before booking.

First and foremost, it's walking distance to T5 and the rooms are pretty nice, so for late arrivals or early departures where you know you won't have the time/patience for shuttles, it's handy. I booked a few weeks in advance and it was £189, which was a fair whack more than my normal Travelodge spend rate, but not prohibitively expensive for my purposes (I was expecting closer to £250, tbh)

I had an early departure so was coming from central on the Liz Line. The lift takes you straight up to departures, so that's where I started from and the signposting is non-existent. Heathrow info directed me back outside to the external lifts to take those to level 1. Unless you're in the right spot, there's again no signposting. So just FYI, you should go all the way down to Zone A (furthest left if you're facing the terminal from outside) to take the external lift down to level 1. If you take any other external lift, you will get off at 1 and walk to your right. This will again NOT be signposted but you can kind of see something down at the end that you hope will be the walkway to the hotel, and it is.

It's less than 10 minutes walk ( though if you're a slower walker, you'll delight in the automatic doors en route that open so slowly that speedy airport walkers will audibly curse at them). You then enter yet another poorly signposted area where there's some weird car park service. You will take an unnecessary lift down to check in because the escalators flanking it appear to work only five minutes per day. As you queue at check-in at 16:00, someone from the hotel restaurant will politely-but-weirdly proffer you their menu. Staff at the desk are very pleasant and professional and will direct you to your room, which will be necessary because rooms are not numbered intuitively.

Rooms are nice, clean, and quiet with good amenties. The outlets behind the bedside tables have those old rounded plugs so no one can run heaters or power tools in the room. This will be annoying for any 21st century travelers who like to plug their phones in next to themselves as they sleep, and there are no bedside USB ports to use instead. The light switches are also a bit weird.

Overall, even though the whole experience feels vaguely like it was planned by pod people who'd only read about humans in a book, I'd certainly stay there again for the convenience. I've also stayed at the Premier Inn T2/3 that's just off property and had a very good experience with that, so if you're not as tight for time or if money more of an object, I'd say that one's actually a bit more user-friendly despite the extra distance and lack of direct access.