Which Hotel Should You Pick at Frankfurt Airport?

Frankfurt Airport is famous for making no sense at all.  Ah, you arrived in “Terminal B”?  Well, walk seven kilometers to Terminal Z.  Where’s Terminal Z?  Go to Terminal A.  On the other side of B.  Now turn upside down, take a four or so, then upwally almost past frizzton and before you know it, somehow you’re…right back where you started.

I don’t know what that last bit meant either.

My tip for navigating the airside part of Frankfurt Airport is to just blindly follow the signs, don’t try to make sense of them.  Many of you are in fact reading this while inside FRA hoping for that One Tip that will get you out.  Sorry, don’t have it for you, but I’ll be by in the Spring and will be sure to say howdy.

All of the above refers to the airside (i.e. past security) part of the airport.  Landside is slightly less confusing.

Slightly.

On a recent trip I found myself in need of a room at FRA.  There are many “Frankfurt Airport hotels” but only a few that are actually connected to the terminal.  The rest require a surprisingly long shuttle ride.

I had a fairly large amount of Hilton points sitting around and found out that both the Hilton Frankfurt Airport and the Hilton Garden Inn are connected to the terminal.  Since I’d just be spending a quick night before departing for New York the next morning on Singapore Airlines, I took a 30,000 point redemption at the Garden Inn instead of the 40,000 Hilton Frankfurt.

Getting There

From the terminal, or really when the awesome departure board with the old-school flapping numbers is behind you, take the escalators up to the mezzanine above the departures level.  There will be a walkway taking you towards the parking garage.  Take the walkway to the left, the walkway to the right is for the Sheraton.

You’ll find out soon that you’re walking toward the train station, which is ok.  Keep going, you have a long walk ahead of you.  If it’s at night, a long, trippy walk.

The Frankfurt Airport Center in the sign above refers to a shopping area above the train station (hauptbahnof).  Like everything else, follow the signs and ignore that you’ve walked miles and miles.

You’ll eventually get to a cavernous metal hall that is awesome and reflective at night.

There are moving walkways as well.  If you get bored, open your camera’s shutter for a long exposure and set it on the handrail.

Eventually you’ll stop seeing signs for the Garden Inn and just see signs for the Hilton (pointing to your right).  Just keep going.  And then you’ll see it.

The detail-oriented readers will point out that this is in fact the Hilton and not the Garden Inn.  Now, I’m not a branding expert or anything, but at a certain point wouldn’t you kind of hesitate putting a Garden Inn directly to the left of a Hilton?  And I mean directly to the left as in they share a corner.

You can actually see the Hilton’s entrance in the reflection.

Oh well, I guess that’s why I don’t own hotel chains.

How was the actual hotel?  Geez, get to that part

Alright, sorry.  I enjoyed this hotel, is the short version.  The rooms were well-sized, maybe slightly bigger than the typical European hotel room, and in great condition.  They had a few different restaurants, and the beer from the bar was excellent.

I’m trying to take better hotel pictures for you, so please tell me how I’m doing!

The bathroom was nice and had Neutrogena amenities, which were different from the standard Peter Thomas Roth stuff.

Combine all that with free wifi and lower rates than the Hilton next to it, and you have a winner of a hotel.  My official Andy’s Travel Blog recommendation: the Hilton Garden Inn Frankfurt Airport.