Premier Inn: The First Hurdle

Ellis Caird

Created: 16-11-24

"Never has history witnessed two men navigate their way to a relatively nearby Premier Inn with such difficulty" - Future Historians

Our train arrives in Gatwick. We get off and head to the nearest exit. Liam has told me, and I quote, "The Premier Inn is about a 10 minute walk away". We're outside. We start heading in the general direction of the A23 since the hotel is on this road. Immediately met with a ramp down that didn't look very friendly to pedestrians. No bother, we redirect towards the multi-storey car park. We are catfished by a set of two lifts that had 'No Entry' stickers in place of buttons. We find a real lift and descend. We descend one floor and exit the lift. We soon realise we're still a floor too high up and so double back on ourselves to be greeted by the taunting faces of those who were, just moments ago, our descension acquaintances. The doors take an awkward amount of time to close (with us on the wrong side of them). We soldier on. Undeterred by frequent and abrupt endings of footpaths, we take refuge in a lovely little family run restaurant from which Liam ordered a homemade 'McChicken Sandwich' and I had the chef's special 'Large Chicken Select Meal'.

We decide to stop completely winging it and see what route Google Maps will tell us to take. Shouldn't be too long; we had headed towards a road for which the Premier Inn was about half a mile down.

1 hour 13 minutes

Even Liam and his near Olympic levels of speed walking was not up for that. We figure we must be able to cut through the airport so we head back. Liam has stopped turning round to check if I'm still there at this point. That ramp that didn't look friendly to pedestrians? That'd probably be something to do with the "No pedestrians on the ramp" signs on either end of it. We go up the ramp. Now as fugitives, we take what I consider to be one of the greatest modes of transport known to man.

Just prior to that travelator was a sign for the North Terminal, which is where we were trying to get to and where we now foolishly thought we were after travelating. We're trying to get out of this new building we're in. We're not even sure if we should be heading up or down. We head to some nearby lifts. Usually people who get catfished go on to be more wary and less immediately trusting in the future. Yeah these lifts just straight up had holes where the buttons should be. We find real lifts. We go up even though I have been repeatedly saying there is a road below us that we need to be on. We go to a new set of lifts to get us back to a place we'd already been about 3 times by now. We finally go down to floor 0 and make it outside.

10 minutes of walking later and we can see the Premier Inn! We can also see the frequent shuttle going back and forth that would have taken us from where we were (not the North terminal) to the North Terminal, very much near where the Premier Inn is. Liam only now recalls reading on the directions for this place that we should have taken a shuttle. We approach the Premier in and get within touching distance but can't actually find a way into the compound where the buildings are.

Liam spots a sign on a roundabout to a Premier Inn so we follow that. It's a bit suspicious since the direction is not towards the giant Premier Inn we are standing infront of but we press on. A short stretch of road later and we see a different Premier Inn. This one is in fact the one we are staying in and not the one we had been blindly following for the last 20 minutes. If we were 2 (un)wise men trying to find the birthplace of Jesus, I think we would follow the sun. Good news is Clarity did, in fact, book our hotel rooms. I think surviving a feat such as this means our flight and layover in Shanghai tomorrow will go off without a hitch.

Me and Liam are currently still friends.