So, any opinions on Heathrow?

[thewayne]

It looks like we're going to be doing a ten day river cruise from Prague to Berlin in a few weeks. One of the flight options is a six hour layover at Heathrow, and I thought that might be enough time to spend a three hours or so in London. I assume that we could take the tube in and back and wander around a bit.

The question is: would it be worth it or should we just aim for a shorter layover and just get some food and charge our devices? I have two concerns: our carry-on baggage and going back through Customs and security. I assume that if we stay in the airport that we won't pass the Customs barrier and that won't be an issue. But it would be an opportunity for me to get another stamp in my passport, a silly thing, but it is a virgin and UK would be its first stamp.

Fortunately it's only a two hour flight from Heathrow to Prague.

I wish we had more time. I think it'd be awesome to spend the ten days in Scotland and England, but the river cruise sounds absolutely incredible. I know we'll be shepherded around, but we'll be going to some great places and the photo opportunities will be tremendous. And the boat has WiFi! I can post pix en route!


Gotta remember to check with Verizon on adding international to our plan. That, or buy burner phones when we get there, might be cheaper and we could use them for future trips.

Comments

[chirssly.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, international flights and domestic flights at Heathrow are in different terminals and require a shuttle to get between. So you'll be going through security at least just to change your flights. You might need to go through customs, I don't remember. So you'll need more time than you think.

I could be wrong and confusing it with Gatwick though, it's been a few years since I went to Europe.

[moiraj.livejournal.com]

I have sent your question on to my aunt, who worked for British Airways for thirty years and is still working in the travel industry. She's allergic to staying in one place for more than two days at a time, though, so she might not get back to me in time to be of use to you.

[moiraj.livejournal.com]

My aunt says the timing is too tight and she wouldn't risk it.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That was pretty much my opinion. We have a similar thing on our return, 5 1/2 hours at Newark. We might venture out on that one since it won't require clearing Customs again.

[wuglet.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd advise against going into London as well. Customs and International transfer will take a lot of time, there are likely to be long queues, and Heathrow is not well known for handling queues efficiently (it's OK-ish on the domestic side, but I've heard stories about the international one...).

Also, with the Tube or the Heathrow Express it's about 30 minutes into London (same back, obviously), and London traffic is a BITCH. Even on foot you need almost double time to get anywhere because there are so many people walking around.

That being said, 6 hours in Heathrow are alright; after all the formalities and hassles, it's easy to find a nice spot for food, coffee, etc., and perhaps do some shopping. ;)

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Aw, poop. =:/ Still, that does sound like one amazing trip, regardless. You are, of course, required to take along the DSLR and a couple suitable lenses. ^_^

Mm, between getting out of the place (and then, back in, with enough time to spare), it'd pretty much be an opportunity to see Paddington. =:) (The Heathrow Express is much faster than the Tube, but stupidly expensive. Of course, if you really want to try something silly and hugely fun, maybe see if there's any helicopter charters operating out of Heathrow - half an hour spinning around the fairly remarkable landscapes of London could be quite good fun. There's one outfit nearby that operates such quick trips, but out of a couple small airports, for £140 a person. Not free with the cornflakes, but feasible)

I checked with Three, but unfortunately, their roaming deal doesn't include the Czech Republic or Germany yet. (But does include the US. I'll have to look at what AT&T's PAYG offerings are like these days, and how they compare with Three - I'm a very light user on the iPhone, but I go through plenty of data on the iPad. Mm, hafta check that roaming applies to data-only plans too)

Local SIMs are the way to go, unless Verizon's gained some sanity with their international roaming - they're available pretty much everywhere. The devices are new enough, I hope, for LTE? (I'm wondering about Verizon's CDMA heritage, with older CDMA-only phones being useless pretty much anywhere outside the US)