Review: the Thistle Heathrow Terminal 5 hotel and the driverless pods to the terminal (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of my review of the Thistle Heathrow hotel and the driverless pods you can use to get from the hotel directly to Terminal 5.

In Part 1, see here, I did a brief review of the Thistle Heathrow hotel.

In Part 2 I will talk you through how the pods work.

Paying your £5

You can pay your £5 per person for the use of the pods at reception at check-in or check-out.  You will be given a business card with the code hand-written on the back.

Turn around 180 degrees from reception and you see this sign:

Straight out the door:

Head off towards the tree at the top of the picture:

And you reach the gate where you input the code:

Once through the gate you can clearly see the station just off to the left:

Touch the screen and your own private pod will soon appear:

This is how they look inside:

And off you go (the full route is in the video):

You enter the side of the Terminal 5 car park on Level 2:

Your pod automatically parks itself in an empty spot:

The lifts are ten seconds away.  Jump in, press Departures and you come out in the taxi drop-off area.  Turn around and you can walk into the terminal:

You enter at the far left (north) end of Terminal 5.  Even if you have a Gold card, you might – if in a hurry – prefer to use the Fast Track security lane which is directly in front of you and then pop into Galleries North instead of using the First Wing.

At 8am, it took me under 5 minutes to walk through the terminal, through Fast Track and clear security.  In my case, I took the escalator down outside Galleries North and went into the Plaza Premium lounge to check it out.

Can you use the pods for free just for fun?

Yes, as long as you start in Terminal 5.  Simply go to Level 2 of the car park, head to the pod station and select Station B on the monitor.  A pod will arrive and whisk you off to the car park by the Thistle.  You can then jump out and use the monitor to order yourself a pod back to Terminal 5.

There is nothing to pay unless you try to leave the car park and enter the Thistle Heathrow.

And I made a little video ….

If you need additional video instruction on how to get to the pods from Thistle Heathrow, do take a look at the video below.  Even by our usual standards I think Anika has excelled herself here with the editing 🙂  We have speeded it up by around 3x – they don’t really go that fast …..

You can subscribe to our YouTube channel via this page – this is the same link to visit if the video does not automatically appear below.

You can learn more about Thistle Heathrow and the pod scheme on the hotel website.

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