Barbados TravelAdvisor

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If you have a hankering to join the mile-high club but you're frightened of flying, Holland's brand new Honecker Hotel could be just the ticket.

A vintage four-engine plane that's been converted into a luxurious five-star hotel, it boasts a whirlpool, sauna, bar, kitchen, flat-screen televisions, wireless Internet - and it doesn't even leave the ground.

Instead, the 1960s jet is perched on the edge of the runway at Teuge airport, just east of Amsterdam, so visitors can watch other planes take off and land while remaining on terra firme.
Bedroom in plane hotel

Luxurious: The plane's 40-metre long suite costs £301 a night for two people

Plane hotel

Colourful history: In its previous life, the plane was used to ferry former East German officials between Cuba, Russia and China

Its 40-metre long suite costs €350 (£301) a night for two people, and can host as many as 15 for a conference meeting.

The brainchild of Dutch entrepreneur Ben Thijssen, the hotel is a converted Ilyushin 18 - one of the Soviet Union's most popular and widely-used airliners - and was a government aircraft for East German officials during its previous life.

Used to ferry former East German officials like Erich Honecker through the Cold War period, it travelled to Cuba, Russia, China and Vietnam before being retired in 1988.

Mr Thijssen discovered the plane in the village of Harbke, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where it had enjoyed an earlier incarnation as a restaurant but was quickly turning to scrap.

He snapped it up for a bargain-basement €25,000 (£21,551), and has since shelled out €450,000 (£388,000) in renovating it.