Hotelink to Gatwick Airport

Hotelink, Ltd. (Southways Park, Lowfield Heath, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 9TQ, U.K.; phone [01293] 552251, fax 531131, e-mail tmale@hotelink.co.uk or visit www.hotelink.co.uk), serves all London hotels. In May ’06 we paid £23 (about $45) per person for the transfer service, arranging it through our hotel. They told us to be ready at 10:30 a.m.
At 10:45 a 12-passenger Mercedes van pulled up to the hotel door. The driver took our bags and put them in the rear of the van. He then picked up passengers at two hotels nearby.

Our next stop was the Victoria train station. We pulled into a separate parking lot where a baggage handler was waiting. He took all of the bags to our car on the Gatwick Express, which was a short walking distance from the parking lot. Our bags were put in a special rack near our seats. We were handed our train tickets, which were included in our payment to Hotelink.

It took about 30 minutes to travel from Victoria Station to Gatwick Airport. We were met there by another Hotelink person, who took all of our baggage and directed us to follow. Once in the airport ticket area, he gave us our bags and directed each couple in our group to their respective airline.

From our hotel to the airport ticket area, we never had to touch our bags. In less than two hours, we had received our boarding passes and were on our way to the gate.

On the train with us was Terry Male, operations director for Hotelink. He explained that, previously, Hotelink was driving people to the airport. The trip was taking nearly three hours because of the heavy traffic. Two years ago they worked up the new system with the Gatwick Express.

PATRICK GRAHAM
Colville, WA