On this page (5 sections)
Where it is, and the two walkways
The Hilton Garden Inn London Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3 stands on airport ground between the two central terminals, and its whole point is that you never go outside to reach them. A covered walkway runs from the hotel into Terminal 2, the Queen's Terminal, and the walk to the check-in concourse is under five minutes with a roof the whole way. It is the only walkway hotel serving Terminal 2, and the only one within a short indoor walk of Terminal 3, which has no walkway hotel of its own.
Terminal 3 is reached through the central-area pedestrian underpass, the same subway that links the two terminals, about an eight-minute walk from the hotel. Between them, Terminals 2 and 3 carry the Star Alliance carriers (Lufthansa, United, Singapore Airlines and the rest at T2) and most of oneworld plus Virgin Atlantic and Emirates at T3, so this one hotel covers the check-in desks of a large share of Heathrow's long-haul departures. Confirm which terminal your airline uses before booking, because the walk only pays off for a Terminal 2 or 3 flight; from T4 or T5 you would be on the wrong side of the airport.
Rooms and the day-room option
The hotel runs 369 rooms in the usual Hilton Garden Inn grades: king rooms as the base, junior king suites with more space, family rooms, and twin rooms, with accessible versions of the core types. They are mid-scale and consistent rather than luxurious, well soundproofed against the aprons, and pitched squarely at the traveller who wants a clean, quiet night close to the gate rather than a destination in itself.
One use worth knowing about: the Hilton Garden Inn sells day-use rooms, which turns it into one of the few genuine layover options for the central terminals. On a long connection through Terminal 2 or 3 you can walk in from the terminal, take a room for the afternoon to sleep or shower, and walk back, skipping the shuttle-and-security round trip that an off-airport hotel would force on you. For an overnight before an early flight it does the ordinary hotel job; for a six-hour gap between long-haul flights it does something most airport hotels cannot.
The Apron Restaurant and the Runway Bar
Dining is the Apron Restaurant, open for breakfast and evening meals, with the standard Hilton Garden Inn all-day menu rather than anything ambitious; breakfast is not always in the room rate, so add it at booking or pay at the hotel. There is a fitness centre for guests. The honest note is the usual one for a captive-market hotel: the food is convenient and priced for it, and the terminal's own restaurants a few minutes' walk away undercut most of the menu if the budget is tight.
The feature that sets the hotel apart is the rooftop Runway Bar, which looks straight out over the aprons and the runways. For an aircraft enthusiast, or anyone who would rather spend the evening before a flight watching the movements than sitting in a windowless bar, it is a real draw, and it is open to non-residents as well as guests. It does the job a hotel club lounge does elsewhere, as a place to sit with a drink and a view, without the club-room price or the access rules.
Parking, and why the hotel has none
The Hilton Garden Inn has no guest car park of its own, and that is a consequence of where it sits: on the airport, between two terminals, on land with no room for a hotel multi-storey. For a driver this changes the booking. The cheapest way to leave a car for a week is the airport's own long-stay parking, pre-booked and reached by the transfer bus, priced for the trip rather than the night. An off-airport park-and-fly operator is the other route, taking the car at a nearby site and shuttling you to the terminal, from where you walk to the hotel.
Two things to plan for. A taxi or a lift dropping you at the door pulls into an airport forecourt, so it pays the £7 Heathrow drop-off charge like any terminal drop-off, not a hotel that waves cars through. And if the whole reason you wanted a hotel was to leave the car with it overnight and fly, a Bath Road hotel with its own car park, or one of the hotel-and-parking bundles, fits that better than this one. The Hilton Garden Inn is built for the traveller arriving on foot, by train, or by taxi, not the one who needs somewhere to leave a car.
Who it suits, honestly
Book it when the walk is the point: an early Terminal 2 or 3 departure where you would rather wake up a covered five-minute stroll from check-in than set an alarm for a shuttle, a late arrival into T2 or T3 with no appetite for a taxi, or a long layover that a day-use room turns from dead time into a shower and a sleep. For a Star Alliance flight from T2 or a Virgin, American or Emirates flight from T3, no other hotel is closer without leaving the airport.
Skip it when a cheaper bed does the same job. If you are driving in and leaving the car, the Premier Inn hotels on the Bath Road are cheaper and come with their own car parks, at the cost of a shuttle ride you do not have here. If you are flying from Terminal 4 or 5, this hotel is on the wrong side of the airport, and the walkway hotels at those terminals are the Premier Inn and Hilton at T4 and the Sofitel at T5. Set the options side by side on the Heathrow hotel guide and let the terminal, the budget and whether you are driving decide.