Travel LHR to Tilbury

[SbbquilterUT]

Looking for ideas of where to stay - arriving Friday afternoon at LHR from Reykjavik and plan to travel by train from the airport, thinking of staying near Fenchurch Street station.  Of course, Friday night in August so the hotel prices are pretty high.  Any suggestions for a different station along the line with hotel, nice area to walk out and enjoy the London evening?  Or hotel recommendations at Fenchurch Street station.  Finally, which train do we take the next morning to get to Tilbury?  

[Island2Dweller]

If you're starting at Fenchurch St, it's a very small station (by London standards) and there will be staff around to tell you which service to board.  There are also large departure screens - you won't go wrong.

I'd suggest going to Grays (the station before Tilbury) as there are taxis available there - whereas you won't find one at Tilbury itself.  The distance / cost of the taxi hop for the final mile or so to the cruise terminal will be about the same from Grays.

The Jubilee line intercepts the train line at West Ham station (a really easy interchange) so you can also look for any hotel in London that is near any Jubilee line station.

[Globaliser]

8 hours ago, SbbquilterUT said:

Looking for ideas of where to stay - arriving Friday afternoon at LHR from Reykjavik and plan to travel by train from the airport, thinking of staying near Fenchurch Street station.  Of course, Friday night in August so the hotel prices are pretty high.

 

I think it's probably too early to be sure of anything.

 

First, Friday nights in August in the City of London need not always be expensive, because business demand is low in August and low at weekends. So if you are seeing high prices, they may be placeholders or demand-testing prices. August is a long time away.

 

Second, it's too early to know whether your train will go from Fenchurch Street on the Saturday morning. That is the normal route, but Fenchurch Street is sometimes closed all weekend for engineering works on that branch of the train company's network, with trains typically diverted to Liverpool Street instead.

 

The nicest hotel near Fenchurch Street station is the Four Seasons, but there are at least five others (Citizen M, Doubletree, Leonardo, Novotel and Tower Suites). Tower Hill Tube is there as well, so for transport from LHR the obvious suggestion is to take the Tube, with a single cross-platform change at Barons Court from the Piccadilly Line to the District Line.

[Cotswold Eagle]

10 hours ago, SbbquilterUT said:

Of course, Friday night in August so the hotel prices are pretty high.

Compared to what? We are talking about one of the most expensive cities in the world at the height of the tourist season, and I think folk are still adjusting to a post-pandemic reality of higher prices. 
But as mentioned by Globaliser above, that area may have less weekend demand. I picked a random Friday night in August and saw rates (for example at the Indigo) with free cancellation around £250. I’d reserve something at that sort of price and hope rates might fall between now and then - keep checking and cancel and swap. If you get below £200, great. Around £150 would be an absolute steal 😀

The Four Seasons will be insanely priced come what may, though 🤣🤣  The night I picked it was close to £1,000. 

Edited December 24, 2023 by Cotswold Eagle

[wcGma]

On 12/23/2023 at 8:10 AM, Island2Dweller said:

If you're starting at Fenchurch St, it's a very small station (by London standards) and there will be staff around to tell you which service to board.  There are also large departure screens - you won't go wrong.

I'd suggest going to Grays (the station before Tilbury) as there are taxis available there - whereas you won't find one at Tilbury itself.  The distance / cost of the taxi hop for the final mile or so to the cruise terminal will be about the same from Grays.

The Jubilee line intercepts the train line at West Ham station (a really easy interchange) so you can also look for any hotel in London that is near any Jubilee line station.

Seeking assistance with planning transit from London to Tilbury. We will be arriving LHR the day before our cruise at terminal 2 from USA. After reading several posts, I am looking at 3 options. One—stay at Heathrow and get I believe it’s called Bolt ride or Uber or taxi to London International Cruise Terminal Tilbury the next morning. Two— take Elizabeth line train to Liverpool street station , stay overnight at Novotel and take c2c line train from Fenchurch station to Grays taxi to dock. Three— take Elizabeth line train to Stratford stay overnight hotel there and take c2c train to Grays. Alternately we could take taxi/Bolt to Tilbury from either Novotel or Stratford to the docks. Please advise costs taxi from LHR to docks and how difficult trains will be with luggage (1 carryon size and 1 slightly larger). Are there lifts at Liverpool, Fenchurch, Stratford Grays? We do not want to haul luggage up a few flights of stairs. 

[Globaliser]

41 minutes ago, wcGma said:

Two— take Elizabeth line train to Liverpool street station , stay overnight at Novotel and take c2c line train from Fenchurch station to Grays taxi to dock.

 

Do you mean the Novotel that's near Fenchurch Street station? If so, I wouldn't take the Elizabeth Line or go via Liverpool Street, because Liverpool Street is quite a long way away - about two-thirds of a mile. You'd be better off taking the Tube from Heathrow to Tower Hill, with a single easy cross-platform change at Barons Court. There is always a risk of disruption (as I said above), but having Liverpool Street / Novotel as your primary plan doesn't make that much sense.

 

I personally wouldn't stay at Heathrow (unless arriving there late in the day), or at Stratford, which is a dump.

[wcGma]

Thank you. It's the Novotel Tower Bridge near Fenchurch. 

[Globaliser]

It's worth noting that it's Fenchurch Street station (and Liverpool Street station) - if you leave out half the name of a street or station, you're liable to end up in the wrong place.

 

There are lifts at Tower Hill Tube.

 

AIUI, there's a lift at Fenchurch Street station but you have to go to the main station entrance on Fenchurch Place to use it. (That's a little irritating if you're staying at the Novotel, because there is a station entrance on Cooper's Row that's literally 50 yards from the hotel's front door, but I think that you have to walk up the stairs to platform level if you use that.) The shortest walk from the hotel to Fenchurch Place (via New London Street and London Street) does involve about a dozen steps; but if you walk around to Mark Lane then it's step free to the station entrance.

 

A quick poke around Google Maps suggests that at Grays, platform level is the same as street level on both sides of the station, and there's a pick-up area on each side.

[davekent]

15 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Do you mean the Novotel that's near Fenchurch Street station? If so, I wouldn't take the Elizabeth Line or go via Liverpool Street, because Liverpool Street is quite a long way away - about two-thirds of a mile. You'd be better off taking the Tube from Heathrow to Tower Hill, with a single easy cross-platform change at Barons Court. There is always a risk of disruption (as I said above), but having Liverpool Street / Novotel as your primary plan doesn't make that much sense.

 

I personally wouldn't stay at Heathrow (unless arriving there late in the day), or at Stratford, which is a dump.

Stratford is an area of East London where normal working Londoners live, work and play. I would not recommend staying there to a tourist wanting to get a brief glimpse of the history and architecture of historic London. It does however have one of the largest shopping centres in the UK, the Olympic stadium and surrounding park, a top quality London football club, the unique Abba Voyage extravaganza and some decent pubs and micro breweries in the area.

 

It is basically still hanging on as a working class district of London and I suspect that the throwaway line Stratford, which is a dump says more about the person making the comment than it does about the area itself

[Globaliser]

8 hours ago, davekent said:

... I suspect that the throwaway line Stratford, which is a dump says more about the person making the comment than it does about the area itself

 

Well, this is my end of town - but hey, what would I know?

[davekent]

25 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

Well, this is my end of town - but hey, what would I know?

At a guess averaging more than 3 posts every day on here for close to 20 years presumably pretty well everything?

 

I'm an admittedly exiled East Londoner having spent most of my first 30 years in East Ham then a shorter period in Leyton and continuing to travel to the area multiple times a year ever since I certainly accept the problems and issues the area has always had but I am not so ready to write it off so comprehensively

 

Anyway apologies for this little spat and for hijacking the OP's original post so dramatically! Everyone enjoy there trips!