Gatwick 10 am flight to barbados - twilight checking and hotel?????

[mckenzie]

We dont live near Gatwick but i wondering if we might be better off checking into a hotel the night before and doing the twilight check in. Any thoughts please?

TIA

We did it, but it means that you have to carry in your hand luggage anything that you needed overnight before your flight. But well worth doing IMO, especially if you don't live near the airport.

I have stayed a couple of times for LGW. The Europa hotel is very good, its just full of airport stopovers, the room was clean and quiet and the transfers were very good. With a weeks parking I think we paid £80.

Whats twighlight check in? For a 10am flight just get up at 7am, get bus to LGW and you'll be there for 8am, happy days

Twilight check in is basically getting rid of your luggage the afternoon/night before your flight. IMO its quite handy if you have DCs, its one less thing to worry about and makes for a less stressful start to your hols and a longer lie in!

yes but flier I want my hair straighteners with me , id rather leave the dcs at twilight check in

mckenzie - we are flying from Gatwick next Sunday and are going down the day before to do a park and stay. Our flight has changed to 11.20am, but we are going to do an online check in before we leave home on the Saturday and we only have to check on about 2 hours before then.

mosschops I know - I took mine in hand luggage lol

thanks for the replies. I've not read the whole Virgin booklet yet about online check in etc. Best do that before we make our decision huh?

I was just comparing 3 hour check in with suitcases tuesday morning to 1 hour check in with hand luggage having dropped suitcases the night before.

On-line check-in is somewhere in between 3 hours and 1 hour in fact, I am sure it is 1.30 mins before (I was only reading our e-tickets yesterday too , I have not yet printed them off and the main computer they are on isn't turned on so I can't have a look for you).

also, you can't be sure that you will be able to do online check-in. We were not able to do OLCI and I think it was because we had young children that had to be seated next to us.
Do you have young DCs?

We always do the Twilight check-in the day before, then drive back home & celebrate the start of our holiday with a Frankie & Bennies meal. Tis a nice way to a relaxing start to the holiday. The next day we just taxi up to the airport with our handluggage and waltz straight through security as we already have our boarding cards. Can't recommend it highly enough.

thanks for the extra replies. Pesto - we live over 1 hours drive away so it'll have to be a hotel for us so trying to justify the extra £.

thanks for the extra replies. Pesto - we live over 1 hours drive away so it'll have to be a hotel for us so trying to justify the extra £.

The Aurora hotel is good (my work use it all the time), and only takes 20 mins max to get to the airport. For lower cost, do the Ibis or the Travelodge.

In the holidays, you really need to leave 2 hours to get through security etc, as they normally start boarding longhaul 45 minutes in advance, and the lines can be long

Definitely do the hotel thing. You will find that airport hotels will include 2 weeks' parking with your overnight stay, so worth it just for that alone!