Arrival time of VS017 and EWR hotel

I have a trip to Washington later this month but work commitments currently mean that the only way to get there is to get the last flight out, economy class, to New York (VS017) and then the first plane out the next morning. That means not much sleep at EWR so I want to do what I can to make the night as easy as possible. Couple of questions:

1/ I've been looking at the actual VS017 arrival times over the past two weeks and it always seems to be late! Generally by at least 40 mins and occasionally longer. Even when the Virgin website shows it takes off before the scheduled departure time its been 30 minutes late at EWR. Can anybody who has used this flight explain why?

2/ Any suggestions for the most convenient airport hotel to use at EWR?

3/ Any other tips for making the EWR as easy as possible?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Nottingham Nick]

A warm welcome to V-Flyer / Britflyer.

AFAIK, the closest hotel is The Marriott,, which is on airport and will mean you don't even have to leave the area - if you don't want to.

There are quite a few handy hotels on Glimcher Realty Way right opposite the massive Jersey Gardens Outlet Mall.

One of them is The Courtyard by Marriott, but there are quite a few others.

You won't have a lot of time for shopping, but all of the hotels round there have comp shuttles from the airport.

As for the arrival times... I have no idea, other than to say that at this time of year, there are some mighty strong headwinds when you are flying west.

Nick

all hotel shuttles go from the P4 area off the monorail, both To and From hotels. There are many hotels in the area. The Doubletree was nice, as was the marriott, the Hilton is also a nice choice. Since ALL hotels (including the marriott) have the shuttles from P4, the choice is yours.

When overnighting at EWR, we've used the Marriot which was fine on the occassions we had to do this.

VS.