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15 hour layover in London with children, should we leave the airport?

15 hour layover in London with children, should we leave the airport?

Old Sep 4th, 2015, 03:50 AM
  #21  
 
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It's a pity you wrote off Hampton Court Palace. There is almost always something going on in the Palace grounds, especially this year being the 500 year anniversary.

http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPa...n-for-families

Be careful of the traffic going back from Windsor to Heathrow, despite assurances to the contrary that there should not be any, this doesn't match my experience of the local rush hour, so leave plenty of time. M4/M25 can be congested and local back roads blocked too. If you are travelling on a Sunday it might be different but you haven't revealed that piece of information.
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Old Sep 4th, 2015, 03:28 PM
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Frankly I'd plan on just staying at the hotel as disappointing as that sounds. The odds that one of the children won't be up for a day trip is pretty high.

I can't imagine buying this routing, I hope it was really cheap.
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Old Sep 4th, 2015, 05:06 PM
  #23  
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Hi tom_mn we actually chose this flight for the layover. Being that in total we will be in the air almost 23 hours, we felt it best to take a break for the children's sake and stretch for a while. It may or may not be a good plan, but we'll see...hopefully it works out in our favour.

Odin we actually are in London on a Monday, and I agree that rush hour is a concern especially since I don't know what London's rush hour is like. I also agree that HamptonCourtPalace looks great, but it for some reason didn't entice my husband

NorCal_Jo Do you recommend any particular pub?
I really am quite optimistically hopeful that the children will sleep on the flight, but we will really have to be flexible based on how they do. We have done a fair bit of travelling lately and they really have been very resilient through it all. So here's to hoping!!
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Old Sep 8th, 2015, 02:35 PM
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"NorCal_Jo Do you recommend any particular pub?
I really am quite optimistically hopeful that the children will sleep on the flight, but we will really have to be flexible based on how they do. We have done a fair bit of travelling lately and they really have been very resilient through it all. So here's to hoping!!"

Hello - I like the optimism! So, you'll want a very family friendly place close to the castle for the kids as they will likely NOT be up for walking far! For a pub, I suggest the Duchess of Cambridge which is a pub right across the street from the castle. Fear not, it looks like a tourist trap from outside given proximity to castle but is actually quite good food and importantly, I recall they have some booth seating for droopy kids. Most of the other restaurants along that row are either chain or sub par. However, my friends have informed me that there is a newish Italian place called Viva l'italia just down the street that is really great family Italian food and that opened up this year after I moved. So, that might be an option as well. Another non pub option could include a little greek restaurant down the street the other direction (towards the Long Walk) called the Green Olive. There are also many chain "fast food" restaurants inside the covered shopping centre but nothing too great. We do like Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) as they have great burgers but do find that the one in Windsor (they are also in London) is more hit/miss on service.

On a Monday in November it shouldn't be very crowded and I doubt the traffic will be that bad going back to LHR. It is 20-25 minutes with no traffic so if you allow an hour to be safe, you'll be fine as there is only one choke point on M25 on your routing if the driver even gets on M25 at all.

Depending on state of affairs with immigration queues given 6:30am landing and the kids energy, you could likely check into hotel with your carry on bags and very easily be at Windsor castle by 9:45 opening. We've never spent much more than about 2 hours in the castle but that's because my kids and husband seem to have a 2 hour max castle attention span no matter where we are.
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