MSC Splendida Postcard #1 – The journey to Heathrow

I thought a few quick lines about our journey to the airport would make an excellent start so here goes with a quick diary of our day.

Because our start and finish points are not the same, the official start point being Heathrow Airport and finish being the  port of Southampton a little planning was required before hand.  After a bit of research we decided to drive the car to Southampton Airport, park there and then catch the train from Southampton Airport Parkway to Heathrow. The parking cost £30 for the four days and the train was £76 for the pair of us. Fortunately I have a company car so any motoring expenses have already been taken care of.

The last leg of the journey involved a coach trip from Woking to Heathrow which today was over 35 minutes late due to traffic on the M25, luckily for us it didn’t rain while we waited as there wasn’t really anywhere to shelter.  After eventually reaching Heathrow it was just a short walk to our overnight accommodation which was the Sofitel Hotel right next to Terminal 5 and connected by its own walkway directly from the terminal building. I managed to book this using some Avios points so it ended up costing us nothing.

Our room for the evening is really cosy and looks out onto a small courtyard. We haven’t stayed here before but from first impressions I think we will again if flying early from T5. It’s really clean, the bed is really comfortable and also very quiet considering you are right next to the runway.

After a quick drink we decided to go off and do a quick circuit of the hotel and then around the departures hall before going back to the hotel for a bite to eat. There are some really nice sculptures in the hotel and there are more  to be found in the T5 Fine Art Gallery.
We dined early in one of the two hotel restaurants which is called Vivre. Tasty food and good service made the dining experience really pleasurable and then it was back to the room for an early night to prepare for an early start tomorrow.