Hello! We have an overnight layover at Heathrow, arriving at 21:35 on Jan 10, then leaving for the US at 14:30 Jan 11. My mil has never seen London in person. Would it be feasible to spend a morning doing a quick 2-3 hour walk of the main sights?
And would you recommend staying near the airport or in the city, given the time frame? Hotel recommendations are appreciated as well. Our flights will be arriving in Heathrow at terminal five, and leaving Heathrow the next day from terminal three
If your flight leaves at 1430, you will need to be at the airport by 1130. It takes roughly an hour to reach LHR from central London. So you need to consider the amount of sightseeing you could do, and then retrieve your luggage by 1030. Sunrise wont be until 0800 (ish). A quick walking tour, like Rick's Westminster walk might be possible if you stayed close by.
I would think so. If it were me, I would probably stay at an airport hotel since I'm sure you will be tired and jet-lagged. That way you could check in, relax, get some sleep and walk up early. Then just grab a train or the tube and head into the city.
I just posted this the other day for someone who was spending a day there, but Rick Steves has a walking tour of Westminster he recommends. You can find it in his guidebooks but it's also online (see link below). It takes you to all the major sites like Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and many more, and will give you a good look at London in the short time you have.
Luggage-retrieval time needs to be considered. How far will your sightseeing activities be from the hotel where you've store your luggage in central London? If you spend the night at the airport, how far will the hotel be from the Underground station you'll use on your return from sightseeing, and how long will it take you to walk, with luggage, from the storage location to the airline check-in counter?
Will everyone in your party wake up early enough and get out the door fast enough to have time for significant sightseeing? (I would not, with this schedule.)
I'm conservative about getting to the airport for a transatlantic flight, because buying a last-minute one-way replacement ticket would be so expensive.
It can be argued either way to stay at Heathrow or in central London.
If staying at Heathrow stay at a hotel by Terminal 3. The first tubes are at around 6am, so aim to be on a very early tube (in fact being a Friday to Saturday there is the all night 24 hour tube from Heathrow into central London).
You could get off the tube at Westminster. Even (maybe especially in the dark/dawn) seeing Westminster and Whitehall is special (I am an inveterate really early arriver into London used to be being there at 6 to 7 am. Walk up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square and take the bus #15 (destination Blackwall) down Fleet Street past St Paul's Cathedral to the Tower of London/Tower Bridge. Journey time that early on a Saturday 15 to 20 minutes.
Then the first Thames Clipper/Uber boat westbound is at 0844 to the Embankment or 0903 to Westminster (arrive 0903 and 0927 respectively) then from either pier take the tube back to Heathrow- you will be back by about 1000 or 1030 respectively. Plenty of time to check out and find your way to check in.
With a layover like that set your alarm clock early to take full advantage of the situation.
Having said all that there is engineering work on the Picc line showing for Kings Cross to Osterley (on the way to Heathrow) on the night tube/all weekend.
So if you find a hotel close to Paddington that night, then start your explore from Paddington on the Circle line to Westminster. Get that first boat back to Embankment, Bakerloo line back to Paddington, check out then Heathrow Express back (Earlybird £10 tickets are available for that date, cheaper and faster than Elizabeth Line). Same on the Friday night- Heathrow Express to Paddington on a £10 Early Bird ticket.
Here are the questions that need to be answered for better responses:
Will you have check in luggage or just carrry on?
Will you be able to get your boarding pass prior to getting to the airport for your return flight?
For your overnight layover, where are you flying in from?
Thank you for all of the responses!
We’ve decided we will stay in a hotel near T3, and play it by ear the morning of the 11th. If we wake early enough, we will use the Heathrow Express to go walking. Using the airport hotel, we won’t have to haul our luggage back and forth to the city.
