Pre flight day/night in London or Edinburgh

I’d be tempted to go for Edinburgh as it’s a much smaller airport and I always prefer that. You could have a pleasant day in central Edinburgh and see many of the big sights. However, if something goes wrong, there are probably more replacement flights from Heathrow. And yes, you could come back to London, change train stations and spend that day happily in Windsor.

If you arrive at Edinburgh at 1030 you'd be very lucky to be on a train to York before 12 noon (the 1130 would be very tight unless you arrived early), thus arrival at York would be at 2.30pm at best.

The rail fare advantage of Edinburgh is that there is a fixed price Off Peak Single of £61 valid on any train you would be on. Buy that ahead of time and you can just leap on the first available train- 1130, 1200, 1207, 1230 etc. And at that time of day the trains should be relatively quiet.
From London (unless you gamble on a specific train) the equivalent fare is £168 before 0930 then £72 after 0930- 30 minute less journey time.

Going back to Edinburgh you should get an Advance Fare for around £28. £5 to £10 more to London.

Another thing to think about is the type of plane for each flight.

Chances are the plane out of Edinburgh will be smaller. Perhaps a single aisle.

Edinburgh is a great city. It is, of course, further than London.

What about open jaw...into one city and out of the other?

Oh my goodness Stuart, that advanced any train peak time ticket from London is a lot. I had no idea we were looking at that amount. The BA and United flights we were looking at arrive 6:35-6:40am if on time. I’m trying to remember how long it took us to get into central London last summer. We took the Piccadilly line right to South Kensington and our flat. I’m not sure how long to expect to go to KingsX, find our train and head to York. Maybe Edinburgh with its size is the best option, even if we are a couple hours later getting to York to start the trip.

Frank, isn’t that type of ticket more expensive? Not familiar with booking those at all. In my limited flying experience, I’ve only done round trip out of the same city.

Oh, another thing to consider is we are arriving on a Sunday in May. Would love to be able to arrive on a weekday, but that day works best as we planned in conjunction with the work schedules/ vacation time of my kids.

Frank, isn’t that type of ticket more expensive? Not familiar with booking those at all.

I'm not Frank, but in my experience, it usually is approximately the same cost. Of course, it can vary but it's certainly worth checking. I'm probably going to do that next year when I take my 2 grandkids to London. We will fly there and potentially fly out of Paris (or possibly Amsterdam). :-)

That’s good to know mardee. I’ll start looking into it.

Open jaw tickets are often similarly priced to round trip. To book, you would select the ”multi-city” option on the airline’s website (On the United site, select ”advanced search” first and that will take you to a page where you can choose ”multi-city”). You would enter IAD to EDI for the first flight and LHR to IAD for the second flight (or IAD to LHR and EDI to IAD).

Oh wow you guys, this might just be the way to go. I just plugged in multi ticket on Google flights, flying into LHR from IAD, departure on a random Saturday in September, flying out of Edinburgh back to Dulles on a Wednesday ten days later. Cost of the ticket was $~670. Now I know it’s fall and not spring pricing, but I am encouraged by this option. I won’t be able to dummy book for our real time bc it’s a seasonal flight and I can’t go out that far yet. It’s with United both ways, non stop. That could put us into York a bit earlier (with the earliest £72 ticket we could get) and then fly out of EDI after seeing a bit of that city. Thanks for helping me work through this so far!

You would allow 1 hour from leaving Heathrow Tube to arriving at Kings Cross.

So say you arrive on time. "Hopefully" clear immigration and collect any checked bags about 7.15 (maybe a tad optimistic depending on the day), stroll unhurriedly to the tube, leave maybe 7.30. Arrive Kings Cross 8.30. I would then go next door to St Pancras (well use the St Pancras exit from the shared tube station) and get myself a leisurely breakfast at one of the many very good restaurants/cafes while waiting for 9.30 to tick by.

Say just after 9.00 stroll over the road to Kings Cross. They should start boarding the 0930 at around 0910/0915.

If it was a nice day there is also now the redeveloped old railway lands behind Kings Cross- now a thriving new quarter of London. There are many eateries there as well. The railway lands (whatever it's new formal name is) is a really nice place just to while away time.

If I've then got the off peak flexible single at £70 odd pounds get the 0930 train. If the flight was late and I got to Kings Cross after 9.30 then just get the next train out and grab a take out breakfast from the train catering car. Get the 0930 and you're still in York by 1130, close as makes no difference.

That definitely sounds like a good potential plan. We are hoping to all just have carryon luggage again so we won’t have to collect anything checked. Fingers crossed we can pack for hikes in the Dales efficiently!

So if we did this route and spent the pre departure day in Edinburgh, I looked at some of the train timelines and arrival times. If we dropped the car off at Arnold Clark as soon as they open at 8 am, do the paperwork and have them shuttle us back to the station (they kindly agreed to this), we could possibly get a train to Edinburgh at maybe 8:55 arriving at 11:20. Drop off our bags at the hotel, eat a nice lunch and sightsee the rest of the day.

I’ve used the search feature and saw many members of the forum speak well about the premier inn york place. The PI Royal Mile has good reviews, too. Is there a better choice for this day/ overnight? The flight out of EDI -IAD has historically been at 12:30 pm, so not too early to get to the airport, thank goodness.

I know it’s not much time, but I’m beginning to like the thought of seeing even just a few special places of Edinburgh. What are the tourism crowds like at end of May? If you had seven hours or so, how would you spend it? I read a couple of day itineraries say go to the Castle first, don’t go in, walk the Royal Mile, see St. Giles’ Cathedral, go to Holyroodhouse. Is there a RS audio tour for Edinburgh? I would love to hear of other suggestions, and I will start looking at previous trip reports now that I am starting to get a handle on this.

The bulk of my planning is going to center on the 5 days in the Yorkshire Dales, so thinking about what to do with just a few hours in Edinburgh, it’s a relief lol. I swore to my kids this was going to be a less go, go, go kind of trip, so I need to keep that in mind, too!

Thanks for all of your suggestions and advice!

We were in an Edinburgh about 2 weeks ago and it was BUSY. Very crowded walking the Royal Mile. But we loved it there.

If you intend to aim for the 0855 train out of York, please buy a flexible ticket, not a cheap Advance Ticket. I am thinking of Mardee's perfect storm at Carlisle returning the car- where a slow desk clerk, heavy traffic and a taxi which cancelled on her all came together- meaning she came within an ace of missing her 0910 train.

In the case of York I don't know the peak traffic on the road to Poppleton.

In Carlisle I do know the traffic very well. While I was a bit taken aback by how heavy it was on the day, it really wasn't hugely unexpected. I'd been up to the car hire depot an hour before Mardee, at 0700, and even then it had been slow and building, much the same way as it always has been, and at one time I used to do the road to the car hire place several times a week at 0800 so know it well. Even at 0600 it can be very unpredictable. I had hoped the new western bypass might have cleared the traffic a bit, seemingly not- the same as it hasn't in the middle of the day.

Also your AC shuttle may not run straight away to York Station. For all I know your clerk will be efficient, the shuttle turn up straight away and the traffic light, and you get to York Station by or before 8.30 but it may not.

I remember reading about mardee’s close call! I would love to have the stars align and be able to make that specific train, but you have given me (and silver linings lessons for me bc of mardee’s stressful situation) we will definitely opt for a flexible ticket to make things easier. We are also going to be brand spanking new drivers there, so I want to add xtra time for anywhere we go by car! Thanks for the advice on this!