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London transportation and hotel question

Posted by on

We are traveling to London on a first time visit at the beginning of May. I am refining my itinerary and am reaching out for answers to a few questions. Thank you in advance!!

  1. We are taking the train for a visit to Windsor and plan to see the castle and town. (I have checked that the castle is open on the day we are visiting). Do we need to buy train tickets in advance? What about Castle tickets? Also, how much time should we allow if we plan on leaving around 9am?

  2. We are in Bath for 2 nights at the end of our trip. Do we need to purchase these train tickets in advance (traveling in the afternoon)? We will be returning to LHR by coach the evening before our flight the next day (as I believe that is the recommendation on this forum). Do we need to purchase those tickets in advance?

  3. I have two hotel reservations and will cancel one. Premier Inn at Waterloo and Luna and Simone. The cost of Luna and Simone is not significantly higher and includes breakfast. I am mostly looking for input on which might be a better location.

Posted by
9261 posts

I’ll let others answer queries about Bath and Windsor Castle.

Luna and Simone is fine. Nice area. Would be more of B and B atmosphere than the Waterloo PI.

Posted by
27 posts

Train tickets are significantly cheaper if purchased in advance and/or you are traveling out of peak times.

For instance I did a quick search. On Thursday, tickets from London to Bath on a peak AM train are 104 GBP, while by 10:30 am they are 38 GBP per adult. If you book several weeks out (sorry, not sure what the cutoff is), those same prices drop to 24 GBP

Posted by
1530 posts

I would say you should buy the London/bath tickets ahead of time, but the tickets to Windsor could be bought on the day. I've done that day trip and the trip to Hampton Court many times from London and always just bought at the station the day of.

Posted by
8135 posts

Ideally the coach tickets from Bath to Heathrow should be purchased ahead of time, and doing so is a bit cheaper as well. Just by a few pounds, so pocket money, but doing so ensures a seat on the coach. It's unlikely in early May it would be full but you never know.

Posted by
14821 posts

For your day trip to Windsor, you actually don't even need to "buy" a ticket. You can use your contactless credit card between Paddington and Windsor. You tap in with your card to go thru the barrier to get to the train. You change at Slough for the little spur line to Windsor but you don't go thru a ticket barrier until you leave the station at Windsor where there are reminders to tap out again. Each of you will need a CC to do this.

I did this last May and it worked well.

I was also using my contactless card on the Tube which was very easy. I'd started with an Oyster card I had from pre-Covid with some money still on it. I used that up and then used the contactless payment the rest of my time in London.

https://www.gwr.com/your-tickets/smart-tickets/contactless-payments

Posted by
8913 posts

Both of those hotels are in good locations. I’ve stayed at Premier Inn Waterloo and really liked its location for walking, bus, tube and train. The other hotel also has those options as well.

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