lindilindi

Hi,

We'll be travelling to Spain in October and will have to wait in London for 22 hours for a connecting flight on the way back to Halifax.

We are on a budget and I'd like suggestions of cheap hotels that are reachable by public transportation. Or areas that have many budget hotels. We'll arrive at 2pm and leave at 12pm.

Thanks!

m_kingdom2

You have to knock four hours off of your time to allow for check-in, and collecting baggage and transportation to and from your hotel. At best, that leaves you with 18 hours in London. Heathrow has lots of cheap hotel - under 60GBP per night on site. I'd advise checking into one of those, then rushing into London. Go on one of the open top buses to give you a tour of the city, perhaps alighting at one or two of the attractions that grab your attention. That said, I hate having to clockwatch.

Kate_W

Inexpensive but not cheap (maybe 80 pounds) - I love the Radisson at Heathrow: good gym, comfortable rooms, good service, decent restaurant.

bbib

I agree with M_kingdom2, get a hotel near the airport and leg it into London for the afternoon and evening.

mclaurie

I would suggest using Priceline. Whether you decide to stay near the airport (which one, it makes a difference?)or stay in London, there's no better deal than Priceline. Read biddingfortravel.com and/or betterbidding.com for the ins and outs. If you stay in London, you may want to be near the express train (the Heathrow express goes in and out of Victoria station and there are plenty of budget places near there. The Gatwick Express goes to Waterloo.

If you're arriving and departing out of Heathrow, another option is to stay in Windsor. It's not far and has some nice sightseeing, restaurants, shopping etc.

janis

I sorta disagree w/ the others. If my flight out was early in the morning I'd stay near the airport. But your flight isn't until noon. Which airport(s) are you using?

I'd stay in an inexpensive hotel either along the Picadilly tube line (S. Kensington, Russell Square, etc) or near Paddington Station/Bayswater.

There is a large selection of budget accomodations in these areas and you could either take the tube (Piccadilly) or the Heathrow Express (Paddington) out to heathrow in plenty of time to catch your flight.

If you are using Gatwick - then staying near Victoria station is best - a direct express runs every 15 minutes. There are MANY inexpensive hotels and B&Bs near Victoria.

And if you are using Stansted or Luton - then you can stay near Russell Square or maybe near Kings Cross (not my favorite area) and catch the trains to these airports.

That way you'd have a cheaper room and more time to explore London.

lindilindi

Thanks for all the responses so far.
The airport is Heathrow.

Our other option would be to go Madrid-London-Toronto, overnight in Toronto and then to Halifax. It doesn't sound appealing even though we have friends 10min from the airport in T.O.

lindilindi

By the way I've never been to the UK. Too bad I'll only have less than a day.

pandora

Just a note to clarify :
The Gatwick Express will take you to and from VICTORIA STATION (not Waterloo) ; the trip takes 30 minutes.
The Heathrow Express will take you to and from PADDINGTON STATION ( not Victoria); the trip takes 15 minutes except to/from Terminal 4 which is a 23 minute ride.

Kristi

I've stayed out at Heathrow before on a night layover and the problem with that is that you have to take some form of transport to the hotel and then get back to Heathrow to use the tube/bus/Heathrow Express. So really it ended up not really saving us any time.

What I would do is bid on a hotel on Priceline in central London, I recently bid in the Kensington area and got the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum for $70US per night which was near the Gloucester tube, only 40 minutes from Heathrow by tube. Or if you don't want to use Priceline, find a hotel near the Gloucester stop, it's is the first you hit on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow that you would want to stay at (or maybe Earl's Court but I'm not sure of what's over there).

You can buy a all day tube/bus pass zone 1-6 at Heathrow which you can use all day for a little over L5, drop off your luggage and then head out to see the sights. If you arrive at 2, allow an hour to get through customs, retrieve your luggage and an hour to get to the hotel and check in. At 4 pm you would still have the option to see a play (1/2 price TKTS booth stays open until 7 pm), talk a walk through Central London, find a nice restaurant or if the weather is nice perhaps join one of the Original London Walks.

Windsor is a closer option, I went there by bus recently from Heathrow (took about 1/2 hour), you probably wouldn't have time to really see the castle though as it closes at 5:15 in October.

wombat7

I too would find a hotel in central London. Take the Heathrow Express into Paddington, find a hotel near there.

Re day 2 - you do have time to see something in the morning if you are prepared to get up early.

If you can use the check-in desk at Paddington (if you're flying the AC there is a staralliance desk there)

That way you have no bags, boarding pass in hand and don't have to catch the Heathrow Express back to the airport until 10 or 10:30. So you have a couple of hours to do something

WillTravel

I stayed at Holiday Inn Heathrow Ariel for a one-night layover with a 10:30 AM flight the next day. This worked out very well.

I purchased day TravelCards at Heathrow in the tube area. We then took the local bus from Heathrow to the hotel (no charge) around 3:30. Once settled at the hotel, we took the bus to the tube station (Hounslow West) which is on the Piccadilly line which goes right into the theatre district. We had dinner, walked around Soho, and saw a musical. We then headed back to the hotel via tube and bus, which took about an hour and a bit. In the morning we took the local bus (again no charge for such rides) to Heathrow, about a 5-minute ride.

Our hotel was obtained on Priceline for a $40 USD bid.

For a noon flight, I'd consider staying in London, near the Gloucester Road tube as suggested. However, since I'd want to be at LHR around 9 AM (maybe too cautious, but that's me), you probably wouldn't have much time to see much anyway in the morning, in which case the same strategy I used might work. I knew that my son and I would need every bit of sleep we could get in the morning given the 8-hour time difference, so staying near the airport worked well for us.

Kate_W

I'm from Toronto and, while it's a great city to visit, I wouldn't recommend it for a one-night stopover (unless your other option for a stopover was London, Ontario). If you choose to go into London, another hotel to consider might be the Hilton in West London. It often has quite cheap rates and I believe it's a fairly early drop-off on one of the Heathrow-London buses.

lindilindi

I think we'll just walk into a hotel without reservations after taking the tube to central London. Do I have a good chance of finding empty rooms in October? Can you ask for discount prices at the front desk or is that kind of "unsophisticated"?

Thanks for the suggestions about what to do. We'll probably just spend hours and hours walking around and then get a good night's sleep. All the sightseeing will have to wait for another trip when we'll have more than a 1/2 day.

WillTravel

Most hotels have higher rates when you are a "walk-up" than when you book ahead of time online. At least that's been my limited experience in London so far.

ron

I think walking in without reservations is a very dumb idea, particularly as you want a cheap hotel. The good budget hotels will be fully booked. The crap budget hotels, such as the Regent Palace, will probably have rooms. And the bargain prices sometimes offered by the mid-level chains will have been snapped up weeks in advance.

Kristi

I've never found walking into a hotel to bring good rates, usually they are much higher as they figure they have you standing in their lobby, and you certainly won't get as nice of a hotel for as cheap of a price as you will find on Priceline.

pandora

Sorry, I wouldn't recommend wandering around London at 4 in the afternoon , dragging luggage, and hoping to find a decent hotel room for a price you want to pay.
Your time in London is already limited, why squander what sightseeing time you DO have?

flygirl

if you show up without reservations your first afternoon in London will be spent looking for a place to sleep.

find a decent place to stay near Paddington Station, you'll be in and out of your room by 4 PM, you can find plenty to occupy yourself until the wee hours, just make sure you are at the airport by 10 AM.

lindilindi

Thanks for all the good advice.

Yeah, I do have dumb ideas sometimes.

I'll try to book a hotel online as soon as I get confirmation on the tickets.

Luggage won't be a problem; we expect to have one backpack and one carryon each.