London Anniversary- Dates (Part 1)

I'm afraid I don't have anything constructive to say, but let's hear it for Nancy's DH! What a fantastic anniversary gift!

What a fabulous DH! Congratulations. I hope Nigel will chime in but from my POV I think any of the dates you've listed are fine. Shouldn't affect your booking a Hilton. If you base out of London, you can visit Windsor, Oxford, Hampton Court Palace via train as day trips. As far as the Chelsa Flower Show causing alarm. Well, it does attract a crowd but nothing like what the Olympics will do next summer. However, since you are locked into Hilton's book now to relieve your angst. I was in London this past May. One day of rain but otherwise blue skies and sun. Had a free room because of points so we stayed at the Hilton London Metropole Hotel. Big. Lots of meetings going on. Nice rooms. Easy access to the tube. Neighborhood was fine. My only complaint was no free wifi. Fee to use was about $15/day. Kept thinking that those monies must be earmarked for Paris Hilton's bail. That said, just across the street is a Costa coffee shop with free wifi and excellent coffee. Very relaxing place to start the day. If you like theatre the Old Globe schedule should begin performances in early May. Fabulous experience. Your other Hilton options are the Park Lane Hilton near Hyde Park or Waldorf Hilton. Have a wonderful anniversary in London.

May is usually a nice time of year in London and England. Good flowers in the parks. So i would just pick dates that you can get FF. good not to be there on the Bank holiday. For 10 days I would try and avoid two wekends- more stuff is available during the week. You need to figure out how you want the Flower show to fit into your plans.

Read Rick's section on travel passes carefully. You would certainly want a 7 day Oyster pass but I haven't heard anybody say the travel pass with the London Pass is worth the cost. If you plan to be a busy sightseer, you may find the London Pass to be a good buy. I've seen the London Pass on sale during the winter. With this pass you need to really do your homework to see what makes sense. You need to really read about London in Rick's book. London has a solid three days of major sights with more than enough to fill a week without any trips out of London. However, Hampton Court and Windsor Castle (both on London Pass) are great day trips. There are tours out of London to Stonehenge/Bath. For an easy way to fill your other days (3 or 4?), you might want to consider taking a train to York and Edinburgh. Tickets are cheap bought about 90 days in advance. Edinburgh is worth two full days and nights. York is worth a full day and night. You could even consider flying back to the US from Edinburgh. Avoid the bank holiday if you can.

Nancy, I think you should be fine with the May 7 Bank Holiday since you won't be arriving in London until the day afterwards anyway. So though you might want to check with your hotel to be sure, it doesn't seem like you'd have to spend the week-end since you won't be spending the Monday night. School holidays shouldn't be a problem either. Spring half-terms look to be in February, Easter/Spring holidays in April, and Summer half-term holidays in early June or the very end (think last week) of May. (Assuming you are asking about English school holidays, not your local ones.) My husband and I are going to England next month for our 30th anniversary. Even with 8 days in London we're having a hard time fitting in everything we'd like to see, and we've been once before. This time we are trying a day trip to Windsor Castle. Last time (with our boys) we visited Kew Gardens, Hampton Court, and Greenwich. We enjoyed Oxford (friends took us by car, but I've heard the train trip is an easy one). Happy planning!

Wonderful anniversary gift!!! I agree that it really doesn't matter about your arrival date- just check with the airlines about using the miles and what ever works for that should work for the hotel. I think you would do well with the 7 day paper travel card (purchased at a RAIL station - not tube station) to get the 2-for-1 deals and an Oyster card to cover any extra days. There are LOTS of day trips you could do. Windsor would be my first choice- full or half day and easy to do by train. York, Cardiff, Winchester, Canterburry, Dover, Stratford-upon-Avon, Bath, Brighton and many others are also easy to do on your own by train. You could purchase advance tickets about 12 weeks prior to your planned travle dates to save some money or get a BritRail pass if you want flexibility. Private message me if you are interested in reading an article I wrote about basing in London and do day trips by train. It used to be on the web but AAA's "Go!" magazine only archives for 2 years now, so it is no longer accessable, but I can email you a copy. We've been to London more than 40 times and I'd still go back tomorrow if I could.

I would suggest either: Bath 2 nights / York 2 nights / London 6 nights or
London 5 nights / York 2 nights / Edinburgh 3 nights. It's hard to see anything wrong with any of the dates you listed if they work well with your FF and hotel points. You didn't ask, but on our honeymoon, my wife and I used Hilton points to stay at Edinburgh's Caledonian Hilton right next to the castle. Expensive hotel (thank goodness for points), but it was our favorite hotel experience ever. All old-time luxury and a great view. A very different experience from the bed and breakfast route we went in other cities. In London we likewise used Hilton points to stay at the Hilton Trafalgar Square. I found it a little too modern for my tastes (nightclub in the lobby; furniture very bare and modern), but the people couldn't have treated us nicer, and the location was absolutely amazing. Have a great anniversary.

As always, the travelers here are unbelievably helpful, THANK YOU! We were like giddy school kids booking our trip last night (I forgot to tell you it's my first trip to England). We booked our FF tickets and chose our seats (10 nights with one weekend as suggested, and good to know the holiday isn't an issue). After looking at all the Hilton's in London, we figured out that there were only two tiers of hotels and we were surprised to find a five star hotel was in the lower point rung (and doable with 5 years of Amex points added LOL)...called to confirm and there were two 'point' rooms left, so we're now booked at the Hilton Courthouse Doubletree Regent Street (in Soho...hope you'll tell me I didn't mess the location up, as it looked pretty central). We always dress decently, but I may have to up my wardrobe to get in! We've been laughing today that we'll be eating pub grub and sleeping at a five star LOL. OK, onto the real planning and all your other great suggestions...Thanks, and I'll be back!

Regent Street is in a really good area, one of the comfortable old "elegant" (not extravagent) shopping streets. Near Bond street, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square theater district. By their map you are only two blocks away from Regent Street. Soho has always been known as having interesting restaurants.
Just a little south, Soho runs into Chinatown with some marvellous dim sum restaurants you will be great.

Thanks Brian! That put my mind at ease about the location!

Are you aware of just where you will be? Are you? Are you ?!! You will be practically next door to Liberty, the most fabulous traditional department store. Leave some room in your bags for a scarf or two. My wife adores it. You can easily stroll into Soho, but I certainly wouldn't call it Soho. You can also skim straight east into the top of Soho where there are great, yes Great with a capital G restaurants. You can stroll up and down Regent Street, and into Piccadilly and all the wonders there. Just beyond Piccadilly is St James' Park. Just a little to the left of Oxford Circus on Oxford Street is Department Store Land. Have a peek into the employee owned John Lewis. A block behind John Lewis is Cavendish Square, walk along the back of that into Wigmore Street, the home of the fabulous Wigmore Hall. Oh wow, have you done it. Enjoy your planning, and your trip. (do realize that along with sidewalks full of shoppers especially on Oxford Street there are copious numbers of pickpockets - and take suitable precautions)

Nigel said it better than I did. Except Oxford Street can be daunting, it has wide sidewalks, but they are usually wall to wall shoppers, you can get quite a buffetting just walking down it. Regent street and Piccadilly are quieter. I agree on Libertys. great eperience

OMG NIGEL...after that first line..."Are you aware of just where you will be? Are you? Are you ?!!"...all I could think is "Oh wow, have I done it!"...I blew it with our hasty decision!!!...then......whew LOL!!! I'm SO excited now! Our first decision was hard not to just bounce all over Britain and to give London and the surrounding area the main focus for my first trip there, but a huge factor was that we decided we really adore getting to know our local neighborhood and finding all the fun places the locals love around the city (especially for this trip with just the two of us)....and it sounds perfect (you had me at 'scarf' and 'Great restaurants'). Oh, and don't worry, we'll wear our moneybelts. I'm typing up everyone's suggestions and I'm deep into my books today...and I'll be bugging you for the names of all those Great restaurants! Thanks again. -Nancy