The Balkans were getting ever closer with my arrival at the Ibis Luton Airport, although I accept that the immediate surroundings remained stubbornly attached to Bedfordshire.
The reception area.
There’s the old room style in these rooms, but it was clean and organised. I don’t use TVs in hotel rooms, but the room isn’t exactly blessed with the latest state of the art television and they seem to have kept the old one for some sort of heritage value.
The view from the room was good for plane spotting and I liked that they had given me a room far away from the lift, as that’s usually much quieter.
It was fortunate that I wasn’t looking for a pint of anything given these slightly sub-optimal technical difficulties.
I went for a non-alcohol Becks as my welcome drink and it tasted of ditch water. I understand that this is a national hotel chain and purchasing decisions are sometimes potentially complex, but they could do much better here given how good non-alcoholic beer has become.
I thought that I’d watch some planes.
There were also police chases to watch, as Luton thoughtfully provided some ground-level transport entertainment.
I set my alarm for 03:30 as I had an early morning flight, but I woke up naturally at 02:57 and so I just went with that. It was already busy outside the Ibis with people heading to and from the airport, with the weather being cool and inoffensive.
I like this hotel, although the pricing is often a bit decadent so I opt for other locations, but it was clean, the team member were friendly and there were no noise disturbances either internally or externally. The big convenience is that it is just a ten minute walk to the airport, which was handy given that I was still a little tired and so all really rather lovely.