London Heathrow Airport to the train station

The easiest and cheapest way to get to the St Pancras chunnel train station is to take the Picadilly Tube train from the airport. It's a direct journey which will take about an hour. At St Pancras you take the Chunnel train to Brussels, from there transfer to the high-speed Thalys train to Amsterdam. For the cheapest fares book in advance at http://www.eurostar.com.

Since you're already at the airport, is there a reason you don't want to fly to Amsterdam?

I am open to any suggestions...

Yes, if I were already at Heathrow Airport I would fly to Amsterdam. Looking at the Heathrow website there are flights to Amsterdam by British Airways, KLM, or BMI. Look at what fares are available. Also compare fares for flying direct from the USA to Amsterdam.

Okay, I booked my flights and land at 8:00am at London Heathrow on July 24. It appears we need to pick-up our luggage and go through customs. Is that right? If so, how much time should I allow for this before booking our flight to Amsterdam?

You can partially answer your own question by using the Connection Guide on the official Heathrow site. However, since you will have to book a separate ticket for London-Amsterdam, you will have to allow time to check in for your flight in addition to the time it will take to get from one terminal to another. Even if you don't have to change terminals, you will have to go through security after checking in. If you want more help, tell us on which airline you will arrive and on which airline you will depart so we can determine your arrival terminal and your departure terminal.

My rule of thumb on an unprotected connection like this is 4 hours and a FULL understanding of the potential cost. In this case since it sounds like you have two tickets then if your plane from wherever to LHR is late and you miss the plane/train to Amsterdam you could be forced to buy a full fare walk up ticket. (Think BIG BUCKS) Neither airline/train etc will have any liablity. (Sometimes airlines will work with you but sometimes.....) So I allow LOTS of time, the "connection guide" assume it's a "legal" connection not one of these "non protected" I have planes into London arrive an hour early or 3 hours late...

Wow, this is great information. We really appreciate the responses and will heed both advices.

For all your choices for LHR-AMS, use the search engine skyscanner.com. British Airways has a direct flight to Amsterdam that departs at 11:55, nearly four hours after your scheduled arrival at LHR. That would be a good flight to choose.