Baggage Assistance Gatwick & Victoria
 

We're flying to Gatwick in 10 days and, as luck would have it, I've managed to injure my back. Does the airport have porters who will lift bags off the conveyor belt and transport them to the Gatwick Express (for which we already purchased tickets)? If so, will the porters be easy to find in the general vicinity of the baggage claim area? Likewise, would any such service be available at the Victoria Station end of the journey? Finally, what would be a reasonable/expected fee for this service? Thanks

no porters - I'd start studying how to pack light.

At LGW there are baggage trolleys that you can roll out through Immigration - but you have to get your own bags off the carousel. There are a few staff around and you might be able to talk a fellow traveler into helping you. But you really can't count on any assistance (unless you are in a wheel chair and are being escorted by ground staff).

Once you leave the terminal you will have to put your bags on the Express by yourselves.

And at Victoria you will have to bundle your luggage off the train and across the station to the taxi rank.

So my suggestion about packing light was not in jest - My theory of packing is if I can't carry it (easily) I don't take it . . . . .

Both Heathrow and Gatwick offer a porter service, though it's chargeable and starts at £7 a time (not, I understand, per bag), and needs to be prebooked. Details for Gatwick from +44 1293 507509, or fax to +44 1293 503128.

There may be rudimentary help available at Victoria. Ring the Gatwick Expresss helpline at least 48 hours in advance It's 0845 850 1530 from within the UK, and I assume that translates into +44 845 850 1530 from abroad. If your country doesn't allow access to UK low-cost numbers, look for the normal numbers on the Gatwick Express website.

Victoria has a reasonable number of trolleys. If there's more than one of you, it's not too difficult for one to guard the bags while the other goes off to find a trolley (they often aren't on the Gatwick Express platform, since the system isn't as sharp as it should be in getting them back there at peak arrival times. The area round the taxi ranks, OTOH, usually has loads of unreturned trolleys). You need a £1 coin, which is automatically returned when you return the trolley to a designated place.

Take your time geting off the train (it's not going anywhere for ten or twenty minutes) and use ONLY taxis for onward travel from Victoria. You CANNOT use trolleys to get into the Underground system, there's an extremely nasty flight of steps into the underground station to try to carry luggage down, and it's extremely tricky to get a trolley into the adjacent bus station.

Flanner--
Thank you for the valuable info. I appreciate it.

That is good to know about the pre-booked porter services at LGW. But that doesn't really solve all of your problems. You will still have to pull your bags off a pile of luggage at the end of your train car, and get them off the train at Victoria, and hope you can find a trolley at the station.

Are you only going to London? And are you staying in a full service hotel? If so, navigating the train and Victoria will be your biggest problems. Other than those, you can use taxis and have the bell man take the bags up to your room.

But if you are going to other towns, are staying in an apartment, or some other situation - you will still have to handle your own luggage at least some . . . . . .

To FlannerUK: The porter service worked out well once we were able to sort out the chaos in the baggage claim area. Thanks much for the tip.

To Janis--the Gatwick Express disability services person indicated that the conductor would have been able to call ahead to arrange for someone to off-bear the luggage had we needed it. Fortunately for us, we didn't need to test that theory because a friend met us at Victoria.

JN: Good to know the Victoria porterage worked out and about the disability services on the Gatwick Express.

How did the rest of your trip go? Hope the back is better . . . .

Janis-
Trip was great--I'll be posting a short report later today. I'm sure it won't have the prose of some, but hopefully it will be worth a read.

Janis..while you're still around on the forum, after arriving from Gatwick on the Gatwick Express at 6:AM on a Saturday,would you suggest a cab to a hotel near Hyde Park(Darlington Hyde Park)? I want an effortless transfer to there. Flanneruk seemed to suggest cabs are the best way.

Hi, axwurth. I don't know that particular hotel but looked it up and it is in Sussex Gardens. This is about midway between Paddington Station and Lancaster Gate tube station/Hyde Park.

A tube trip would not be that bad because there would not be a line change. Just Circle line west bound from Victoria to Paddington and then a short walk to the hotel. And the tube certainly won't be crammed full of commuters on an early Sat a.m. So if budget is an issue and you can manage a 2 block walk with the luggage - then the tube would be fine.

But a cab from Victoria to the hotel would be a lovely first introduction to London. You would travel around Hyde Park Corner and along Park Lane/Hyde Park. So if you aren't on a tight budget, I'd persoanlly opt for a taxi.

For the record, Flanneruk never suggests anything is the best anything. In travel, as with everything else in life, anyone telling a stranger what's "best" is just spouting hot air.

A taxi from the Gatwick Express would have made sense for JN, who's got problems managing bags. The Gatwick Express rarely makes sense for anyone else, especially early on a Saturday, since it's more expensive than the ordinary Southern Railway train, and there are few commuters crowding the Southern train on a Saturday.

On the rare occasions I've had the misfortune to arrive at Gatwick early on Saturday mornings, taxi queues at Victoria have been a pain, and I've always ended up taking the tube home. If I lived off Sussex Gardens, I'd hop on a 36 or 436 bus at that time of the day.

But the secret of ageing is adapting your behaviour, so I've stopped taking those lethally-timed overnight horrors whenever possible and cabdrivers may have changed their Saturday routine in the past couple of years. Azwurth may arrive at Victoria to find half out cabdrivers queueing for azwurth's business.

So Azwurth really has to decide for azwurthself. With tricky bags (and roller suitcases that give no grief in New World car parks or airport concourses can be complete bitches trying to cross London streets) and no cab queues: a cab. Unworried about bags, but more worried about unnecessary expense: the £1 bus ride.