Sleeping In A Jumbo Jet Engine – One Of The Coolest Places I’ve Stayed

I have been fortunate enough to have done a lot of awesome things this year – and without a doubt, one of my favourite experiences from the entire year was sleeping in a jumbo jet engine!

Yes, you read that right. An engine.

And you thought the robot dinosaur hotel was going to be the coolest place I stayed this year!

This post contains affiliate links. Please note if you buy or book anything through my links, I may earn a little commission that helps keep this site running, at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for your support!

The jury’s out on that, but this place gives it a serious run for its money. Welcome to Jumbo Stay, a hotel in a jumbo jet next to Stockholm Arlanda airport!

A very sad update: Jumbo Stay has closed down! 🙁 There’s a chance they could find a buyer so I’ll update this if they do, but at the moment it’s shut. I am gutted!

Jumbo Stay is in a decommissioned Boeing 747-212B built in 1976, which has been used by various airlines during its time in service, including Singapore Airlines and even Pan-Am! It was retired in 2002, and became the hotel it is now at Stockholm Arlanda in 2009.

I found out about the jumbo jet hotel years ago, long before you could even stay in the engine, and it’s hovered near the top of my list of places to stay ever since. It’s incredible enough on its own – staying on a plane is a genius idea!

While the rooms look fairly basic (it’s actually listed as a “hostel” as they have dorm rooms on the plane, but a few private rooms as well), the novelty value definitely wins out on this one.

Even better, you can stay in the COCKPIT! There’s an entire cockpit suite which looks absolutely amazing and remains on my list, because I will absolutely be going back there with Ash one day. (Or not now, apparently.)

You can also stay in the “wheel house” and the black box suite, so there are a bunch of really fun options! My top choices are definitely the engine room and the cockpit suite, though!

This time, I was on a solo trip, and while I could have booked a cheaper room on the plane, there is no way I could turn down the opportunity to stay in the actual engine! Especially being on my own, as the engine room is a single room.

I’ve got to admit, the hotel website doesn’t give the best overview of the jet engine room, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from my stay. It makes it look tiny and I suspected I was going to feel a little claustrophobic. However, it wasn’t at all! There’s LOADS of space in front of the bed; even space to walk around.

I arrived late at night and hopped on one of the free shuttle buses that takes you between terminals. One of the stops is next to the Jumbo Stay hotel, which is perfect.

My key was left in a key box at reception – so firstly, I need you to look at this reception! What an entrance!

I had to have a little explore of the plane, of course. The corridor is just rows of rooms, and I never got to see inside any of them. There are also a couple of bathrooms with toilets and showers at the front and some more bathrooms at the back. Plus at the back there’s an emergency exit with another plane door.

If you’re interested in what the rooms on the plane are like, my friend Kylie stayed there last year and wrote a full review too!

There’s also a wee canteen area next to the reception at the front of the plane – at night, this was closed off by a curtain, although I did have a quick peek! In the morning, it was all opened up properly.

One thing that was a bit odd is that you have to take your shoes off at the door. I guess it’s to preserve the flooring better, but just seemed a bit strange for this type of set-up.

Sleeping in the jumbo jet engine

So, what’s it like sleeping in a jumbo jet engine?!

The “room” is fairly basic, with space for your bags in front of the bed, and the bed inside an insulated round hole! Again, there was more space in the bed than I anticipated; it was basically a double bed, with plenty of space to sit up and move around. There were a couple of plug sockets, including one at the end of the bed, a TV by the door, and a fan.

Maybe obvious, but there’s no toilet – you need to go up onto the plane to use one!

And the view? YES, you can see some planes from your bed!

But it’s not exactly a prime spot for planespotting.

I actually got a really comfortable night’s sleep but it did feel strange when I first got into bed.

Breakfast in the plane canteen

I’d read very mixed things about the canteen and the breakfast on offer. It’s all very basic, with just things like cereal, fruit, yoghurt, tea and coffee. I don’t think breakfast is always included as they did have a price up by reception, but it was included with my room.

I don’t think I’d have paid extra for it to be honest, but it was a decent start to the day.

It’s also worth noting that it’s available from 3am, to accommodate for people with early flights, which I thought was pretty good! It’s totally self-service.

The canteen area is cool as well, right at the front of the plane, and the walls are lined with photos of the plane in use by each airline it’s been owned by. I loved looking through these, like a time capsule of what I was standing in!

A family sat opposite me and it turned out they had stayed in the cockpit suite! I almost cheekily asked if I could come up and have a look, but they did show me photos and it looks absolutely fantastic! All the control panels are still in the room, and you sleep in front of them. Where else in the world could you do that?! There’s also an outdoor balcony with furniture so it’s a great set up.

Walking on the wing

One of the highlights of the jumbo jet hotel is that you can walk on the wing!

You don’t actually have to be staying in the hotel either – I met people out there who had stayed nearby and spotted the plane and walked over to check it out. One of them had just been in Edinburgh for the whole of August performing at the Fringe, and she was from Osaka so we were sharing stories of how much we loved each other’s cities!

She was more than happy to take a few photos of me on the wing, too. Which is lucky because my selfies were terrible!

There are benches out there to sit with your tea or coffee, but I have to be honest, these weren’t in great condition and needed replacing. I planned to sit out there and didn’t bother in the end.

On that note, a lot of the exterior was run-down, and the outside of the plane desperately needs a lick of paint. It was clearly sponsored by LycaMobile at one point (Ash’s Dad has photos of it in 2018 looking very fresh) but most of the paint has faded and hasn’t been replaced with anything else. I think they could really do with investing something into this, as it’s such a cool place to visit but it does look shabby and a little neglected from the outside.

(With the update that it’s closed down, that explains why they weren’t investing in it…)

Despite this, it was still a great place to stay!

P.S. you can also walk underneath the plane, which is also really cool.

Those are the wheelhouse rooms with the steps up to them.

Staying at Jumbo Stay

Because of the location, Jumbo Stay is really popular for people either arriving late or who are booked on an early morning flight. I was planning to fly on to Helsinki but decided to book a later flight so that I could make the most of my stay. After all, I didn’t want to turn up in the dark, leave in the dark, and not actually experience much of the plane.

(I also ended up spending half a day in Stockholm itself, which I’ll write about separately because there was a very specific reason I decided to do that!)

Getting to Jumbo Stay is really easy too, as free shuttle buses between the terminals and car parks run regularly and stop at a few hotels on the way, including the jumbo hotel.

My stay in the jumbo jet engine room cost 850SEK, or around £60, which I thought was really worth it for the novelty!

A stay in the cockpit suite is – understandably – a bit more expensive at 1850SEK, or £130ish, though having just done a quick search for next year, it’s coming up more than that, so you could pay up to 3000SEK for two people. I would definitely still do it for one night as a one-off though!

The dorm rooms are much cheaper, starting at just over £30 for a bed in a four bed dorm, but two bed dorms are also available.

It’s worth mentioning that I booked the engine room a few months in advance, and the cockpit suite is often booked up well in advance, but there’s usually plenty of availability in the rooms on the plane.

Overall, this is easily one of the coolest places I’ve ever stayed!

I actually visited because I was planning a trip to Helsinki and Tallinn, but when flights to Helsinki came up cheaper with a connection in Stockholm, I immediately knew it was the perfect excuse to FINALLY stay in this hotel! And I’m so glad I got the chance – even more so, now.

If you want to stay in a plane, there’s one in Malaysia that looks amazing! There’s also a hotel in Amsterdam with a cockpit in one of the rooms. You’re not actually staying on the plane, but it looks pretty cool.

Stay tuned for more posts on my northern Europe trip, including one on the artsy metro stations of Stockholm!

Read more northern Europe posts:
⭐ Discovering The Incredible Metro Station Art In Stockholm
⭐ Churches, Parks & Saunas: What To Do In Helsinki If You Only Have One Day
⭐ The Perfect One Week Norway Itinerary For First-Timers
⭐ 26,000 Steps In Tallinn, A Beautiful Baltic City Break
⭐ How To Spend A Festive Winter Weekend In Riga, Latvia
⭐ #tbt: That Time We Took A Day Trip To Scandinavia
⭐ Christmas In Kaunas: Feeling Festive In Lithuania