London or bust

[SteveH2508]

And now for a short break:Brits will recognise this! :D

 

And here

it is in full.

[livylotte]

:D Classic!

[cos24]

I found the cost of the travelcard. It says it is 47.50 GBP per person for a 7 day pass for zones 1-6. That would come out to 332 GBP for 7 people.

 

Also, I saw that I could rent a full size van for 463 GBP and could get someone from the church to drive us..but with parking fees that you all mentioned..and I heard that there is also a fee to go into the city - that would probably add up fast.

[PennyAgain]

The parking and fees for driving into the best parts of London will knock your socks off. Fuel is also very expensive! A lot of places will not let you even park a full sized van. At all! They are considered commercial vehicles.

 

I think this trip is going to cost you a lot more than you understand at this time.

[handfordr]

I found the cost of the travelcard. It says it is 47.50 GBP per person for a 7 day pass for zones 1-6. That would come out to 332 GBP for 7 people.

 

Also, I saw that I could rent a full size van for 463 GBP and could get someone from the church to drive us..but with parking fees that you all mentioned..and I heard that there is also a fee to go into the city - that would probably add up fast.

 

Taking a minibus into London is a nightmare, typically much slower than the train options. There are very few places to park, where you can park the normal rate is about 4 to 6 GBP per hour.

Commercial vehicles are not allowed in the royal parks and buses are not allowed in an increasing number of districts within in the centre.

[SteveH2508]

Taking a minibus into London is a nightmare, typically much slower than the train options. There are very few places to park, where you can park the normal rate is about 4 to 6 GBP per hour.

Commercial vehicles are not allowed in the royal parks and buses are not allowed in an increasing number of districts within in the centre.

 

Also a lot of the 'on-street' parking (particularly in Westminster) is payable via mobile phone now.

 

Frankly, anyone who drives in the centre of London without needing to is mad!

 

You will spend most of your time in traffic jams and rest of the time trying to park - that's no holiday in my book.

[PennyAgain]

4 to 6 British Pounds per hour would cause me to faint dead away. Complete collapse! Horrors! I knew it was bad, but never dreamed it was that awful!

[Globaliser]

I found the cost of the travelcard. It says it is 47.50 GBP per person for a 7 day pass for zones 1-6. That would come out to 332 GBP for 7 people.

If you buy a 7-day Travelcard, it would be valid for peak hour travel (ie before 0930 weekdays) as well the rest of the week.

 

But do you need to go into London every day? How long would you be planning to spend there each day? If you're going into London all day every day, then you do need to ask yourself why you're staying out in Hanworth/Feltham. Could you do everything staying in town instead, and travelling out to Feltham when you need to?

 

Although I don't agree that I'm mad (thanks, SteveH2508!), I would agree that driving into central London should only be undertaken by people who either really really need to, or who know all the intimate details of what to do and how to do it.

[SteveH2508]

<snip>

 

Although I don't agree that I'm mad (thanks, SteveH2508!), I would agree that driving into central London should only be undertaken by people who either really really need to, or who know all the intimate details of what to do and how to do it.

 

I worked in Central London and needed to drive for several years. I ended up driving in on Monday and leaving the car there until Friday (I had my own parking space fortunately!) It was not my favourite way of spending my time.

 

I now live in Central London and do not own a car. We can get a lot of taxi-rides/weekend car-hires for what a car would cost. (We can also afford to cruise at least once a year now. :D )

[Globaliser]

If you know what you're doing, driving in central London is still usually the fastest way of getting somewhere, measured by door-to-door time. That's why taxis are in such high demand! But you do have to know all the rat runs and back doubles, when to use certain routes and when to use others, and where to park and what the parking rules are. You can sometimes get very stuck in traffic, but equally the Tube will sometimes strand you as well!

[cos24]

The plan is to stay in London for 7 days. At least 3 or 4 of those days we will need to be in the Hanworth area and we also wanted to do at least 2 days of London sightseeing. The other 1 or 2 days are open.

 

Maybe a daily rate on the tube,etc would be the better option if we stayed at the Jurys inn?

 

and used other public transportation from the hotel to hanworth and back each day?

 

Is 2 days of sightseeing suffucuent to get a good overview of the must sees in london?

[Globaliser]

It depends what you mean by a "good overview". In two days, you might have seen the surface, but not really begun to scratch it.

 

If you spent two weeks in central London doing nothing but sightseeing, you would probably have had a reasonable chance to touch all the "must sees", though probably still without seeing any of them in depth.

 

If you were to spend two months in central London, then you'd have had the chance to really explore.

[cos24]

I was searching for flight from Orlando Florida to London and saw an airline called flyglobesspan that fys into Belfast, but then the flight from Belfast to London Heathrow was free and I had to only pay 20 GBP in taxes. is that normal??

[cos24]

The free flight with 20 GBP taxes was with an airline called aerilingus??

[SallyUK]

Hi cos,

 

If you are going to switch planes to Aer Lingus to get to Heathrow, be careful with the baggage allowance. The allowance on our European and internal flights tends not to be the same and you could end up paying a lot in excess baggage fees. Given that this is essentially a freebie, I'd almost guarantee that they won't allow you your full transatlantic (two pieces of 23kg) allowance.

 

I'd definitely check out with the church's congregation for good local hotels. I'd also ask about local guest houses as they may give a reasonable priced alternative.

 

Globaliser/SteveH, thanks for the clip. That has made me chuckle.

[Globaliser]

I was searching for flight from Orlando Florida to London and saw an airline called flyglobesspan that fys into Belfast, but then the flight from Belfast to London Heathrow was free and I had to only pay 20 GBP in taxes. is that normal??

The free flight with 20 GBP taxes was with an airline called aerilingus??

Aer Lingus is the long-established national airline of the Republic of Ireland. It looks like there are some promotional "taxes only" offers from Aer Lingus at the moment, so this is likely to be what's been identified.

 

However, I'd be interested to see who's packaging this. Globespan's own website doesn't seem to offer such an option, and I'd want to know whether this would be a true interline ticket (I have my doubts) or whether you're just being sold two separate tickets with no connection arrangements or misconnection protection.

 

Added to which, I personally wouldn't fly Globespan even if they paid me to.

[scottbee]

The free flight with 20 GBP taxes was with an airline called aerilingus??

 

EI/Aer Lingus is a long established, national flag carrier of Ireland (although you're flying through Belfast which is in Northern Ireland, part of the UK - not Ireland itself). Either way, you will find out that luggage isn't free on an intra- flight on EI.

 

Both of these flights should operate from BFS (Belfast Intl), be cautious looking at Belfast flights, as there's also BHD/George Best(Belfast City). Likewise, Globespan operate from SFD/Sanford not MCO/Orlando Intl airport in Orlando.