Layover in London

Personally I'd say it's not enough time to get into London and back again. Do you know whether you have to change terminals at Heathrow? Because if you do that will eat into your available time.

I don't know if we have changes or not. Maybe it would be best to not try to get out. Unless we have a change in our flights, which happens all the time, and we end up with a longer layover.

You will always need to go through security at Heathrow, so that is not an 'extra' time for entering the country. Immigration is the main time killer, and that tends to be worse in the summer, and could be even worse if the EEA citizens have to go through with you, depending on how things go. Plus as you have indicated it would be an hour in and out to Central London.

It does look like it takes almost 2hrs to taxi from LHR to London City. There is an Express Train that takes 15 mins, but that is expensive with return tickets 37 pounds each. Weekend tickets are cheaper if bought in advance. How about taking an Uber to Windsor Castle and Town? It is only 7 minutes away. There are tours available.

“Front of the plane” means Business Class, or First, either of which costs a lot more.

Even with that advantage, 6 hours is really not enough time. And since the Elizabeth Tower (which houses the bell known as Big Ben) is covered with scaffolding, you won’t see that anyway.

You might go ahead and pass through immigration to see how long that takes, and then decide if you wish to leave the airport. Windsor is quite close by taxi and more doable than London.

You will go through security again when you transfer between gates in any case.

I agree with Lola, you really don't have time to see London, but Windsor may be do-able. It's a pretty town, IMO, and if it's nice weather you can stroll around a bit and perhaps feel that you at least got to see a glimpse of England vs. the inside of an airport.

Depending on when you arrive, it can sometimes take more than 2 hours to exit the airport from landing. Getting through in under 45 minutes is possible, but not to be relied upon.

You will need to be back at the airport 2 hours before your onward flight.

Heathrow to the Houses of Parliament can just about be done in an hour if you know where you are going and there are no holdups to any part of the journey and assuming that you take all your luggage with you, as you don’t have any spare time to put it into storage. Presumably you won’t have any checked baggage? You maybe jet lagged and not firing on all cylinders.

I wouldn’t want to risk missing my onward flight for a maximum of 30 minutes in central London.

Windsor is a much quicker journey than central London from Heathrow. If your flight is late, Windsor will be a push.

have a long layover in London. 6 hours actually.

This assumes your inbound flight is on time, correct?

When you allow time for exiting the plane, immigration formalities, getting to ground transport, traveling, returning, security , getting to your gate maybe 45 minutes ahead for the boarding process, to me it looks like that 6 hours shrinks quite a bit. And what are you doing with your baggage? You are dragging it with you or going through the process to store it and retrieve it, at a cost of ~$10 per bag for 3 hrs.

A day pass to a lounge seems a reasonable alternative to consider. ( unless you have biz class tickets and are thereby entitled to the lounge)

in response to the baggage issue. Wouldn't our bags be checked all the way through to our final destination? That is how it is typically on flights we have been on. I don't usually take my bags out at my layover spot. But then, it has been a while since I had an international layover. I will, however, take a look at Windsor and see if that might be something worth trying out. Again, all this assumes that our flight is on time. If it isn't, this is a moot point and we will be sitting at our gate awaiting the next flight.

Your checked luggage was not what I had in mind.

It was whatever stuff you brought on board in the cabin.

Find a nice restaurant in the terminal and relax. Then, look in the shops.

There have been times when it took 2 hours to get through passport control. On one trip, we remained on the plane for 45 minutes waiting for the busses to take us to the terminal, then had to go through passport control. It’s not always terrible. Last month, I was through passport control in 15 minutes. As Lola stated, the clock and much of Parliament is covered in scaffolding and Jennifer is right on about time time it would take on the tube to get there.

I would only add that front of plane or back of plane is only a minor concern. Maybe an issue if needing to shave 10 minutes off a tight connection, but not in your case.

At best, you could expect maybe an hour in central London; if you have an early arrival (very possible) and a quick entry through immigration, maybe two hours.

You would need to figure out what exactly you want to see ("Big Ben" is mostly covered in scaffolding for the next couple years) it would mostly be a "walk and see"; no time to go into Westminster Abbey for example, maybe enough time to pop into a Pub for a pint, a walk down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square or along the Thames or similar.

As for transport, The Heathrow Express gets you to Paddington Station quick, but then you need to get to Central London. The Tube (Piccadilly Line) will get you there directly (can make a quick change as well) in about the same total time at much lower cost.

I would not call six hours a layover; I’d call it a comfortable amount of time to change flights, have a meal & stretch my legs without leaving one of the world’s busiest airports.

As has already been pointed out, being first off the plane means flying first or business class. We always fly long haul in business or first and it doesn't make that big an impact on time transiting through the airport. Taxiing time can be quite long, transiting through the terminal to immigration can be long and even if you were among the first off you still have to compete with all the other passengers from the flights that arrived before and at the same time as you so the likelihood of being in front at immigration is actually quite slim. Even being expedited through the UK/EU family line at immigration still often leaves us with an average of an hour from landing to collecting our luggage.

Don't forget that you have to be back at the airport at least two hours before your flight to Greece so with a potential 1.5 / 2 hour arrival time, the transport to and from Heathrow to central London and the two hour pre-flight time you'll have pretty much zero time to do or see anything. Whilst 6 hours is a bit of a slog you can occupy yourself for that long at Heathrow.

I agree that you really couldn't do this or preplan as you don't know what would be happening upon your arrival--late flight, long lines at immigration, problems with transport into London, etc.

I had a long layover last year at Gatwick. I technically could have gone into London for about an hour but didn't think it was worth it. What I did instead was find that a couple of lounges would allow me to buy entry. It was worth it. Comfortable place to sit, free wifi, free food and drinks (including alcohol), TV, etc. Some lounges even offer showers.

Check with your airline to see if they offer lounge access for a fee or this website describes lounges available in each terminal.

https://www.heathrow.com/airport-guide/terminal-facilities-and-services/lounges

If you are changing planes at Heathrow you won't have to go through immigration so make sure the lounge you choose has airside access.