Which hotel at Heathrow has the best swimming pool?

You may well have spent many hours awake at night wondering which Heathrow Airport hotel has the best swimming pool.  Good news – I’ve done the work for you!

For reasons too complex to explain, we decided to spend Friday at a hotel at the airport despite living fairly close.  This was in advance of a very early morning departure to Austria yesterday.

The kids decided that they wanted a hotel with a pool, so the search was on.  I reached out to a few people for guidance whom I know spend disproportionate numbers of nights at Heathrow hotels.

These appeared to be the candidates:

Sofitel London Heathrow (Terminal 5 )

Hilton London Heathrow Airport (Terminal 4)

Park Inn by Radisson London Heathrow

Marriott London Heathrow

Sheraton Skyline

Crowne Plaza London – Heathrow

The first two are connected to terminals whilst the others require the Hoppa bus or an Uber to get back to the airport.

On further investigation, the Sofitel Terminal 5 pool was clearly a non-starter:

….. as was the Hilton Heathrow Terminal 4, at least in terms of keeping two little kids busy for an hour or so:

The Park Inn Heathrow, on the other hand, turned out to be a real contender – take a look at this.  I was a little put off when I discovered that the hotel has 895 rooms which meant that it could be very busy.  I was also told by a regular guest that the pool is far more utilitarian than the official pictures suggest.

Down at the Marriott on Bath Road, things looked a little less interesting with only three lanes (and simply having lanes makes it tough for kids who just want to mess about):

The Sheraton Skyline pool was also a contender but unofficial pictures make it look smaller than the official website:

In the end, though, my winner was the Crowne Plaza London – Heathrow which is where we spent Friday afternoon.

The pool at the Crowne Plaza Heathrow is huge.  The first two pictures are library photos because it was busy when we were there:

The shallow end is 1.2m, running to 1.5m at the deep end.

There is also a 35cm deep baby pool attached to it, so the parents can be in the adult area if preferred:

There is also a small jacuzzi and a cold plunge pool adjacent to the main pool:

I’m not going to review the hotel itself, because it is about to undergo a full refurbishment.  The rooms and corridors are definitely ‘tired’, although spacious.  The meal we had at Orwell’s restaurant was surprisingly decent (and they had a kids buffet) and there was also an Indian restaurant and an Irish bar which served food.  

If it’s a kids pool you’re after, however, I’m sure the Crowne Plaza is the best option at Heathrow.

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