An Inspector Calls: Clean, convenient and clinical Bloc - the bolthole at Gatwick Airport

Rating: 2 Star Rating

The entrance to Bloc - a new low-cost hotel at Gatwick Airport's South Terminal - is sandwiched directly between the men's and ladies' lavatories on the arrivals floor.

Which is fitting because this turns out to be something of a stinker.

Reception desk is one floor up next to the entrance where passengers go through security - so you won't get any closer to the runway than this.

Purple patch: Bloc is certainly convenient for passengers - but is it a comfortable place to sleep?

Purple patch: Bloc is certainly convenient for passengers - but is it a comfortable place to sleep?

'Say Goodbye to the 4am Wake-Up Call!' is one of the inducements to stay here. After pre-paying in full (£89) when booking earlier in the day, I'd asked for a room with views of planes landing and taking off - and been told that a note would be in the system.

It isn't. 

Never mind. I take the lift to the sixth floor and then trudge along a long dimly-lit corridor looking for Room 652. Eventually, I run out of rooms, retrace my steps and spot another passageway off the main one. Through two more swing doors, left a bit, right a bit and I'm there.

The tiny room is sweltering. Near the comfortable big bed dressed nicely in Egyptian cotton is a tablet built into the wall, from where you control the lights, blinds and air-con. The air-con isn't responding.

I turn on the TV and that's not working, either. There's no telephone and so the only thing for it is to go downstairs again, carrying my bag and just about holding my nerve.

'Can I change room, please?'

'That won't be possible because we are completely full.'

But I'm informed that a handyman will come up. He does, too.

Does the job: The Inspector had a perfectly passable - if a little uninspiring - stay at Bloc

Does the job: The Inspector had a perfectly passable - if a little uninspiring - stay at Bloc

What's more, he fixes the air-con, but is defeated by the TV. 'Trouble is that we're oversubscribed tonight,' he says breezily when I suggest it would be simpler to give me a different room.

'So what are you going to do about it?' 'I'm going to start by getting a new remote for the TV.'

Off he goes, returning a few minutes later, with a new remote, which he waves in front of the screen and it fires up. Peace at last. Total peace, actually. You don't hear a sound from outside.

It's a cleverly designed space, too, with enough room for a couple of suitcases. Modern, slinky, sophisticated, even.

There's a wet room, which is not ideal if you want to use the bathroom after taking a shower.

You're provided with an inch-square piece of soap and a miniature tube of shower gel. In the morning, I mistake the latter for toothpaste, but no harm done.

There is nowhere to eat at Bloc - not even a vending machine - but you get two bottles of water and there's a coffee shop just opposite the entrance. You're here to flop and fly - and the flopping is meant to be cheaper and chicer than at other airport hotels.

What seems sure is that flights are taking off earlier and earlier, otherwise Bloc wouldn't be here at all. Or is that similar to saying that policemen are all getting younger?

Travel Facts

Bloc Gatwick
Level 3
South Terminal
RH6 0NN

020 3051 0101
www.blochotels.com

Doubles from £84 per night.

Rating: 2 Star Rating


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