Bucket List / Experience Goals
Stay In A Plane Hotel
Ticked off in October 2016
Spend the night aboard a retired Boeing 747, sleeping in the cockpit or stepping out onto the wing.
The adventure
At the entrance to Stockholm Arlanda Airport sits a jumbo jet that will never fly again. Jumbo Stay is a Boeing 747 that once carried passengers across the world and now has hotel rooms where the rows of seats used to be. You walk up the steps and through the same door that generations of travellers used, but instead of a seat belt sign there's a reception desk.
The cabins are compact and cleverly fitted into the fuselage, and the prize room is the cockpit suite, with original instruments, windows wrapping around the nose and a view over the runways. Out on the left wing there's a viewing deck where you can stand exactly where the engines' thrust once roared. Watch other planes take off as the sun goes down, then fall asleep where pilots once flew through the night.
Why it’s epic
- A real Boeing 747 jumbo jet converted into a hotel and hostel right at Stockholm Arlanda Airport.
- The cockpit suite, with panoramic windows across the front of the aircraft.
- A wing-top viewing deck with views of the airport.
- Perfect before an early flight, as the terminals are a short shuttle ride away.
What it is
Jumbo Stay is a hostel in a converted Boeing 747.
How to do it
Book a room at Jumbo Stay.
Top tip
The cockpit suite is the best room.
Need to know
- The cockpit suite is a single room and books up early, so reserve it well ahead.
- Many standard rooms are tiny with shared bathrooms, closer to a hostel than a hotel.
- Arlanda is about 40 kilometres north of central Stockholm, so it's best as a stopover rather than a city base.
Plan this trip
- Rough cost
- £750 to £2,000 per person, including flights from the UK
- Time needed
- 1 night
- Best time to go
- All year
- Fly into
- ARN airport
Standard rooms cost about the same as an airport hotel; the cockpit suite is the premium splurge.
Do it yourself
Some of these are affiliate links: if you book through them I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. More about this.
My experience
Ticked off, but the full story is still to be written up.
Over to you
Is “Stay In A Plane Hotel” on your bucket list, or have you already done it? Tell me in the comments, and if you've got a question about it, ask away and I'll answer.