London, Edinburgh, York Itinerary help

Since you are already at the airport why not just catch a connecting flight to Edinburgh? I see a 1:20pm flight that same day.

Hmmm….. That’s a thought - just brings about some of the same initial concerns (our flight being late etc… ) but definitely an idea. I will need to see how a flight compares in price to a train ticket.
Thank you!

I'm guessing you have already made your flight reservations. It's too bad that you don't have a multicity ticket that could have flown you into Heathrow and home from Edinburgh (or vice versa) with York in between. It would have removed at least one train trip and hotel change (with the associated loss of sightseeing time.) As it is, given that you dont arrive til noon, I think the prudent thing would be to spend one or 2 nights in London. This way you don't have to worry about making a connection, should your flight be delayed or should there be a slowdown at Passport Control, baggage pickup, etc. Given your plans, one of the PIs near Kings Cross would be an efficient location. You can get all the way to KC from LHR on the Picadilly Underground line. There are 3 PIs within 3 blocks of KC. We have stayed at the St Pancras PI, directly across the street from the British Library and a block from KC. And of course, that is the station you would use for the train to York or Edinburgh. KC underground station contains several lines which will get you to most of the usual tourist spots efficiently.

You can use the National Rail website to find trains to your destinations. When you select the train you want, the site will direct you to the website of the train company for booking. Buying an advance ticket for these longer distance trains can save quite a bit.

I believe the Spring bank holiday isn't til May 25 next year.

Thank you CJean. Yes - we do have our flights. The initial thought was just to visit London, with a day trip or two, but other ideas began to form. And we could still do just London but I began to think that the train rides could be scenic, to and from Edinburgh, and we could possibly go up along the West Coast and back down along the East Coast, working in York along the way. Certainly a more adventurous, and possibly ambitious, itinerary.

Train tickets are not generally released until 12 weeks before travel (LNER and Lumo on the east coast sometimes open up to 6 months ahead on weekdays).
Buy 2x Two Together Railcards (at £35 each) to get 1/3 off all Off Peak Travel (even to and from Heathrow on the Elizabeth Line when you use paper tickets).
Down the West Coast Edinburgh to Euston can be as low as £42 before railcard discount (on Advance, train specific, fares) or £27.95 with discount.

Kings Cross to Edinburgh is around £50 to £60 each Advance Fares before railcard discount.

From March (when TfL contactless fares increase by over 11%), a physical ticket will be the same price as contactless so a railcard Elizabeth line fare to any Zone 1 station (on or off the Elizabeth Line) will be £10.50 saving you £5.30 each immediately, each way.

Sounds like a nice trip and I think your itinerary makes sense. Just to note on the train rides- I wouldn't say either one is particularly scenic, with the notable exception of the bit by the Northumbria coast on the east coast mainline. The west coast mainline does go thru the Lake District but you don't see a whole lot and it goes by very quickly. It also takes longer that way. If it were me I would just take the east coast mainline both ways.

For getting in from the airport, unless you wind up staying somewhere west I would always take the Elizabeth Line. It's so much faster and a lot more spacious. The Piccadilly line makes so many stops and there's no real space for luggage. You also have 5G the entire time on the Elizabeth Line if you want to go on your phone to pass the time. With the Piccadilly line once you get underground there's no signal (tho depending on your provider you may have brief access to wifi as you go thru some of the stations).

@CatVH- the West Coast rail line takes around 45 minutes longer than the East Coast on a typical journey (when you change at Carlisle or Lancaster)- 5 hours as against about 4 hours 15.
You also have the scenery of Dumfries and Galloway/Lanarkshire on the way between Edinburgh and Carlisle, which is much under appreciated.
It also takes 45 minutes for the 69 miles from Carlisle to Lancaster through the Lake District.

If you’re taking trains, getting the Two Together Railcard that’s mentioned above is fantastic. It’s not accepted during rush hour (you don’t want to be packed in and traveling with commuters anyway, right?), but the more you use the pass, the more you save. We used ours quite a lot on a trip two years ago, and will be getting that Railcard again for later this year. Taking the Heathrow Express train into London upon landing on our first day, and applying the Two Together Railcard savings when booking the Heathrow Express before leaving the U.S., practically paid for the cost of the Railcard itself.

To avoid a short stay in London, thoughts on going straight to York via train? So doing York, Edinburgh, and ending in London. There are a lot of London to York trains so you could just book the next one when you arrive in London. I find the first day at waste anyway as we are jetlagged, so I always try to get to a destination I want to stay at.

Thanks all for the continued input.
Juxtapose - can you elaborate on - “There are a lot of London to York trains so you could just book the next one when you arrive in London.” Your idea is a good one, to head to York straight away, and you’re suggesting that we would wait to book our train ticket once at LHR vs. an advanced purchase, due to possible delays etc… There is a train that we could catch from LHR to York? And the train from York to Edinburgh, and Edinburgh to London - book in advance?

I'm in a similar situation for my trip in February. Flying into London and visiting Newcastle and Edinburgh, among other places (though not London). I decided to fly to Newcastle. I was able to buy a relatively inexpensive (separate) ticket that (I think) includes lounge access. I decided I'd rather not schlep into the city to get the train, in the winter, after a transatlantic flight. Instead, I will collect my bag, transfer to my departure terminal and use the lounge to freshen up. I gave myself a good amount of time (several hours) for this. As another commenter mentioned, the first day is a bit of a waste anyway, so my hope is to wake up ready to go on the second day.
There are no direct trains from Heathrow to York, so you'd have to get to King's Cross.
Another option is to move London to the beginning of the trip and just stay there for five (or however many) nights before moving on to the other cities. The trip to LHR from York at the end of your trip might seem like less of a schlep.

There is no train from Heathrow to York, but there are at least 3 an hour from Kings Cross to York.

As I write this at 1643 there are Advance (train specific) fares on every remaining train tonight- the 1700 (a peak hour train, leaving in 17 minutes) is as low as £40.20.
Such fares are almost always available until 2 minutes before departure.

That is before railcard discounts.

But to keep things simple you can buy (before you leave home) a 'London Zones 1 to 6' to York Off Peak Single ticket- then just take the first Piccadilly line train to Kings Cross then on arrival there the next available train. The fare covers both trains, costs £80.80 and is valid for all weekday trains leaving KC between 0907 and 1459, and 1859 onwards; any train at weekends.
If you have any national railcard that fare becomes £49.95 each.

That way you aren't messing about trying to find fares on a machine or a booking office. Because of the underground portion it does have to be collected from a machine as a paper ticket at Heathrow.

It might also be worth revisiting your flights. If you didn’t buy the cheapest basic economy non-changeable, it’s possible you could change your round trip to multi-city. It’s probably worth a look, if you haven’t.

Thank you everyone. Letting all of this sink in relative to the train travel and organization of the travel legs.
Would anyone be able to comment on the lodging options I’ve mentioned for each leg of the trip? I’ve received a few comments regarding the Premier Inn. Trying to select comfortable options fairly close to the train, where possible.

We also appreciate great food - whether it’s a well known foodie spot or little known hole-in-the wall with an interesting menu. If anything comes to mind near a mentioned hotel option, would love to hear about it. 😊

In York there are two Premier Inns on Blossom Street, next door to each other. They are literally round the corner from the railway station and very handy for exploring the City from.
Having said that I intrinsically consider the Bar Convent (directly across the street) to be a significantly better option, depending on budget.
For history and convenience to the station then you can't beat the Milner Hotel (but it is on a wholly different price point). It is the old Railway Hotel, but is now renamed the Milner in honour of William Milner who was killed in an act of heroism at York Station in the Baedeker raids of WW2.

Hello all. A quick update - it had been suggested to see if I could change our airline tix to fly into EDI vs. LHR. We hadn’t expanded our vision of this trip when 1st booked. 😊
I’m so excited to report that I was able to make this change at very little cost. This saves us the coordination of flying into LHR and making our way up to Edinburgh. We will fly into EDI, then train our way back down to London with a stop in York. I’m thinking of booking a day trip in Edinburgh, through Rabbie’s Tours, to either Alnwick Castle, The Northumberland Coast & Borders OR St. Andrews & Fishing Villages of Fife (about $80/person). Could also consider renting a car for a day and go to some of these locations on our own time? Would love any input re: this idea.
So we will have (5) nights in both Edinburgh and London (with a day trip to the Cotswolds) and (2) in York. Still more into smaller village vibes but have never explored Edinburgh and London, and not looking to have a car (except for maybe for a day in Edinburgh).
So any comments on the day tour(s)? THANK YOU!

Would anyone be able to comment on the lodging options I’ve mentioned for each leg of the trip?

I have stayed at all of the Marriott properties you noted. For York, while I am not a big fan of the Moxy’s brand of attracting the young hipster crowd, the hotel is in a great location, was clean, and while the rooms are small compared to typical US Marriott, it is my go-to hotel when I go to York. Each time I stayed there, I found the rates via points or rates to be quite reasonable.

The Edinburgh Courtyard was in a good location and we enjoyed our stay there right before Covid.

For London, my favorite neighborhood is the Tower Bridge/Bermondsey neighborhood. There are two Residence Inn’s within a couple blocks of one another. The RI on Bermondsey is my preferred compared to the RI on Long Lane (the RI location on Long Lane is newer but when we stayed there, the hotel just opened and was poorly run, but that could have simply been the staff and management team had a rough opening as everything from reservations, cleaning, breakfast was chaotic and messy-but they likely got their act together.). The RI on Long Lane does have a few 2 BR rooms if you wanted to share, but the bedrooms don’t have windows and we couldn’t use points for the 2 BR rooms.

For what it’s worth, I usually head straight to York when I land at Heathrow. There are many trains to York, the only disadvantage is that I would normally wait until I arrive at the train station to book my ticket before boarding. You pay a bit more but I wouldn’t want to risk flight delays etc nor do I have any interest in waiting around for a train if I gave myself too much of a buffer. I have also stuck around London for the first day/night, see London and then get a good nights sleep and head to York the next morning. You can book that train in advance although when I do this, I usually grab a hotel near Kings Cross to be in easy position to head to Kings Cross on my first full day.

Have fun.

That is really great news about the change in flights! I think it will make your trip so much smoother. Arriving in EDI is also faster than arriving at LHR (usually). And the tram or bus into town (depending on where you stay) is easy.

A Rabbies day trip from Edinburgh is also a good idea. While driving is fine, for only one day I would probably do the tour as opposed to car rental, which would take a chunk of time to pick up and drop off. I haven’t done the ones you mentioned but just choose that day based on your interests.

I’m not any help on lodging - I tend to stay in quirky. But in York I did enjoy the Bar Convent isn31c mentioned. It’s very convenient for the Railway Museum and train station and a little less so for Yorkminster - but not at all like a Marriott. I also enjoyed this walking tour https://avgyork.co.uk/ and evensong at Yorkminster.

It will be a great trip!

We did a Rabbies day tour to Loch Lomond and the Highlands. Because that area is closer to Glasgow, we took an early train there and then the Rabbies day tour from Glasgow. It was easy.

Thanks all for this added input. I am now nailing down hotels based upon recommendations. I have shifted my nights by adding a night to York so - (4) Edinburgh, (3) York and (5) London. And will plan a Day Tour from both Edinburgh and London. We will not have/rent a car. Will train from EDI, to York then on to London.
Then I will look at a few activities like Ghost walks 👻, afternoon tea, Harry Potter Studio Tour (?), theater, boat ride (?), and of course restaurants!!
Again, all of your input and wisdom is very much appreciated!

Hi again - relative to hotel choices and the Marriott offerings (thank you Jay MN for your thoughts):

Flying from PHX to JFK and non-stop on to EDI. Arrive @ 8:30am on a Friday, May 15th. (4) nights in Edinburgh.
1) Considering the Courtyard Marriott but I just noticed Marriott’s Old Town Chambers @ 329 High Street. They have a 2-Bdrm 2-ba Ste with kitchen. Definitely a higher price point but looks to have some really nice views of Old Town and character with some stone walls in the suite (who knows what you actually end up with). Wondered if anyone has any experience with this property?
Next - train to York on Tuesday, May 19. (3) nights.
1) Not sure if Courtyard has any advantages over the Chambers property from EDI and to Waverly?
2) Will likely stick with The Moxy by Marriott using points. Any requests I should try to make at this property?
Then on to London on Friday, May 22nd, via train for (5) nights.
1) I am currently considering the Marriott Residence Inn @ London Bridge (Long Lane) in either a Dlx Studio (2 Dbls & 2 ba) or a 2-Bdrm Ste. I believe that there are no windows in the bedrooms in the 2-Bdrm Ste. Ugh! I think the beds are out in the room, with windows, for the Studio.
But my question, I’m also considering (2) rooms at the Premier Inn County Hall:
- any experience with either property?
- and as we’ll be coming in via train (assuming that will be @ King’s Cross), am I better off to go with one property vs another? And we’ll be flying out of LHR.
Thanks so much for any follow-up.

Very happy you were able to rearrange your itinerary. Sounds like a great trip.

We've stayed at the Premier Inn County Hall as well as the Premier Inn Waterloo (just more or less across a plaza & street) Both were fine. It was awkward to see much from our County Hall window---a little view of the Eye. Our Waterloo window looked down on the street and across the Plaza to County Hall and another, closer building. We will probably stay at one or the other a fourth time...