King's Cross car rental

Don't do it. GPS or not, is your Bloomsbury hotel/b&b saving a parking space for you? I don't recall seeing parking lots in the neighborhood. If not, where will you park? How long will you be in London? Even if you find a place to park the rental, you are going to be paying steep prices for a car that just sits there while you take the Tube. Drop the car outside London and take a train/Tube in. When you leave, rent the next car as close to your destination as you can.

Sorry for not being clear on this. I would rent a car at Heathrow, go to Scotland and points north and then return the car at King's Cross station. Stay in London for three days and then back to King's Cross to pick up another rental for 4 more days, returning it to Heathrow before flying out. We would be going to Windsor and then the west of England after picking up the second rental. We have driven in big cities before and in France and Germany but not in the London area. I know this probably doesn't make a lot of sense, and I am only considering it since London has to be in the middle of the trip due to Trooping of the Colour. Would it be terribly scary to try this?
Thanks so much!

Before you use two cars, do the math all the way to the end, both with one car and two. Toss in parking fees and the daily cost of keeping the first one vs the better deal on the longer term rental with just one.

You can get to Windsor quite easily via suburban train rather than driving, and from Kings Cross you would be going around or through quite a bit of London to get out to the southwest/west where Windsor is. Also, if you are going from Kings Cross straight to Scotland, why not take the train to Edinburgh and pick up the car there rather than driving 400 miles? Granted, if your plan is to stop at various sights all along the way, a car would make lots of sense, but your post did not indicate that. Although Bloomsbury is outside the formal congestion zone, that in no way means it is not congested. And you will be driving on the left--Ed could probably do it in his sleep, but I would have to have a gun to my head before doing it. Of course it is your trip and you must do what you think best, but my recommendation for what it is worth is to make use of a car only in rural areas and small towns.

Thanks so much! That is what I thought about driving in London. I new it would be awful. We will be sightseeing on the way to Scotland and thus need the car for the four of us. If we were doing London at the beginning or end, I wouldn't have a problem. It's the royalty events that are putting a kind in everything. I guess it would be better to return car the first time to Heathrow, take the tube in to Bloomsbury hotel, do London, take the tube back to Heathrow and rent the car for the 2nd time at Heathrow.

Cindy Please don't consider driving to Windsor, especially on a busy day. My experience is that three of you may enjoy it but the fourth may well drive around in circles for the time. Also - Bloomsbury is most definitely, positively, within the Congestion Zone. I do not understand where that idea may have come from. Everything east of Hyde Park and south of Euston Road - Pentonville Rd, and City Road, north of the River and west of the East End is within the CZ.

Cindy, your best option is to use the train to get to Scotland and then rent a care there. If you do want to drive north through England into Scotland, then picking up and returning the car well north of London, and using the train to get there and back, is a good idea.

If you are there for the Trooping of the Colour (doh - you did say so, how many times?) isn't that normally a Saturday? If so, the CZ is off after work on Friday evening until early Monday morning. Doesn't mean that it won't be way hard to get parking that day - it will - unless you know secret places.

I suggest that you drop off your rental car and pick up a new one a few days later at Luton airport - north of London but easy to access via fast rail (to/from St Pancras), with free airport shuttles connecting at the Luton end. I did something similar to this last month, and it took a few connections (rail->airport bus->car rental shuttle) and about 2 hours but was worth it. The rental desks at Luton airport stay open late (unlike "city" locations), although there is an extra charge for the convenience of a premium location. Or if your car rental company has a location in Watford, that is also easy to access from central London via train. Making these extra connections with luggage and kids can be tedious and take a couple of hours, but will be much less stressful than dealing with driving or parking in London itself.

Hi Cindy, if you are planning on going to the Garter Ceremony you need to request tickets several months ahead of time. Then you will need to line up at Windsor a couple of hours before it starts, then they will start letting people in about an hour before it starts, if you are close to the front on the line outside of the castle you will be able to get a good spot on the grass by St. George's Chapel and will be able to sit down. You will be only a couple of feet from the Royals when the procession comes down the hill.