Rental car and departure day help

If I were in your shoes no way would I want to fight the M4 to drive to Heathrow from Bristol on my departure day. It is a renowned route for traffic problems.

If your flight is at 2 and it sounds like you are returning to North America, US or Canada, you need to be there at least 3 hours ahead - that's 11am.

If you drive you'll want an hour to gas up and turn in the car and get to the terminal, so that's 10am.

A 2 hour drive so that's 8am. Or 2 hours or a bit longer by train after you get to the station.

The one thing in your favour is that you will be on a Saturday...

Any fudge time? 5 folks, any who drags their feet?

But again, if you get to London the day before, leaving the car at Heathrow and heading somewhere to get your head down, then to get to the airport for 11 with hauling luggage around and half an hour to an hour by Heathrow Express or Underground (depending on terminal), which couple of sites do you want to "check out" before?

One other thing, all 5 of you will need, at the moment and it hasn't changed for many months, a negative video proctored or in person covid test before you can check in, and in the last 24 hours to get into the USA.

What are your plans for that?

Lucky for me my kids and husband know how to hustle so if we have a set time to be there we are usually 10 minutes early. This is why I want to make sure I have a realistic plan rather than something that I just hope works out in the end.

The plan for London would be to leave our luggage at the hotel while we do a little walking tour. No big plans just seeing some of the walkable sites. We would then head back to our hotel with the plan being we would leave for the airport by 10:00 am.

In regards to testing, I haven't looked into that too much. Things keep changing so my plan was to look into that a little more when we got closer to the trip. We might be able to take the test at my son's mission home (We will need to return to his mission home in Bristol to pick up his large suitcase. If we get a large enough car we could try to take this very large suitcase, but I don't think that is really feasible) They have to test all missionaries before they leave and they might be able to help us out. If that doesn't work hopefully we could figure out somewhere to test in Salisbury.

We have rented a car twice in the UK and driven all over S. Wales and England.
Nigel is right, avoid driving to Heathrow on your departure day.

Also, take care when driving after a transatlantic flight. I usually plan a very modest amount of driving after a flight.

I see no reason to not rent in Heathrow. Of course, if you are staying in Bristol, you might not want a rental car, since having a car can be a problem in a large city. If you are not in Bristol long, no worries.

On renting a vehicle for 5 persons, you must rent a vehicle large enough for 5 as well as their luggage. You might need a van for that.

Further, be sure to have a navsystem or a GPS or cellphone where you can use google maps or another navigation system.

Another person in favor of NOT driving to the airport on departure day. Too many things could go wrong. Dropping the car off the day before and spending the last night in London doesn’t give you any time the departure morning to see anything. As Nigel stated, you need to be at the airport 3 hours early and you need 40 minutes to an hour to get there, meaning leaving your hotel by 10am. We try to stay near the Gloucester tube stop since its easy to get to airport from it.

There are ExpressTest testing centers at the terminals. If you decide to use one, ensure you make an appointment. ExpressTest also has sites around town, such as Victoria and Paddington stations. Some Boots stores also test, but you still need an appointment. Personally I wouldn’t depend on your son’s missionary friends to help with testing since you are not their responsibility. It would be nice if they did. Also ensure you have your departure tests scheduled well in advance. If you wait too long there may not be enough time slots available for your group with the 24 hour prior to departure timeframe you have to work with.

Thank you everyone for your responses. I am still a little confused about where we should rent our car from.

We arrive in London on June 7th, but don't need to pick up my son until June 10th we will not be staying in Bristol. We are headed down to Cornwell that day. Right now I have two options:

Option 1. Take the train from London to Bristol. Rent a car at the train station. Drive to my son's mission home and pick him up. He has a very large suitcase he has been living out of for the last two years. We would leave it at the mission home so that we could rent a smaller car to handle the roads down in Cornwell. Once we picked him up we would then head to our hotel for the night that is close to Wells. On our return trip, we would swing by the mission home in Bristol, pick up his suitcase, drop off the rental car and then ride the train back into London. This would be on June 17th and we fly out on June 18th at 2:10 pm.

Option 2. Rent a car in England that is large enough to accommodate my son's large suitcase. Pick him up in Bristol and head off to our hotel for the night in Wells. Then on June 17th drive back to the airport dropping off the car then either taking a taxi to a hotel close to the airport or taking the tube into London to stay the night with the possibility of walking around that night and early the next morning to see some sights. (The reason to do this is my son has only driven through London he hasn't been able to really stop to enjoy it.)

In regards to the testing. Do we need to test exactly 24 hours before or just the day before? For example, if we found a testing site in Salisbury and we took our tests at 8:00 am on June 17th would that work for our flight that is the next day June 18th at 2:10 pm?

Once again thank you for taking the time to help out.

Re testing, guidance says: “ All air passengers 2 years or older with a flight departing to the US from a foreign country at or after 12:01am EST (5:01am GMT) on December 6, 2021, are required show a negative COVID-19 viral test result taken no more than 1 day before travel, or documentation of having recovered from COVID-19 in the past 90 days, before they board their flight.”

My reading is that anytime the day prior to departure should work. We intend on taking it within 24 hours just to be certain.

poor kid. He's been so close to London all that time and never seen it and you're going to only let him have an hour or so? poor guy. Maybe he'll fly back on his own to see it.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger.

Be prepared for traffic, traffic and more traffic in and out of Cornwall. The motorway ends at Exeter and then everybody and his brother's cat funnels down to the less than fabulous A34.

Be patient, be patient. When it grinds to a halt be philosophical. Other than back roads (it isn't much bigger than one itself) the A34 is really the only way in or out.

Be patient.

By the way - just how huge is this "large" suitcase?

Jaimeelsabio thanks for the information about testing. That will be helpful will my planning.

Nigel He is serving a 2 year mission but his area doesn't include London so he isn't able to see any of it. Of course, he went up to Bath to play miniature golf. He said the buildings were cool, but he wouldn't go back there just to see that. Youth, I am sure he will appreciate it when he gets older. Thanks for the tips about being patient. We have been having construction by our house which means sometimes it takes 30 minutes to get home and sometimes an hour and a half. It is frustrating, but when you know what to expect it isn't as bad.

How about renting the car at Slough? It is a city not too far from Heathrow or London. It should be easy for you to pick up and drop off. There are also some hotels for the last night.

It has very frequent trains from Paddington, some 1 -stop train. You can pay the train fare using a contactless debit/credit card.

Another option is Hayes and Harlington, which is also served by the Crossrail.

Thank you for the suggestion. I hadn't thought of that it is a really good suggestion. I will have to do some research into it.