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-   -   Hearthrow to Picaddilly Circus - How ? (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/hearthrow-to-picaddilly-circus-how-543439/)

Claudia_Neves Jul 11th, 2005 06:10 PM

Hearthrow to Picaddilly Circus - How ?
 
I´ll be arriving in London at Hearthrow Terminal 4 next Tuesday 19th. I had planned to take the tube to get to Piccaddily Circus where I´m going to stay. Since Picaddilly Line is closed from Hyde Park Corner on I was wondering what would be the best way to get there.
1) Take Picaddily Line to Hide Park Corner Station and then take a cab from there to my hotel. How much a cab will cost ?

2) Take Hearthrow Espress to Paddington and then Bakerloo line to Piccaddilly Circus station - or a cab ?

3) Take a transfer from Hearthrow to my hotel ( 16 pounds per person ). It seems be the more confortable way but my concern is how long it is going to take me to get to Picaddilly Circus ?

Any advice will be appreciate
Thanks
Claudia



ron Jul 11th, 2005 06:31 PM

The distance from Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly Circus is less than a mile. On a nice day, with rolling suitcase, you could walk it in 20 minutes -- its a straight walk up Piccadilly. Taxi, I suppose, would be 4 or 5 GBP.

AR Jul 11th, 2005 06:45 PM

Option 3 is obviously the easiest but it depends on how many of you there are.
The Heathrow Express is great in that it gets you to Paddington in 12 minutes. However, the cost is astronimical at £26 return (£14 single) each, standard class (who'd want to pay £44 return first class for a short journey?). But even that is cheaper than the £16 each way hotel transfer although you'd have to pay for a tube ticket from Paddington.
The cheapest option is to take the tube to Hyde Park Corner and walk, and probably the option I'd choose. If it's raining then hail a cab.

flanneruk Jul 11th, 2005 10:40 PM

What's running will be changing all the time, and is pretty unpredictable. Until they've fully identified the bodies in the Piccadilly tunnel and done all the forensics, they really can't begin to work out how much structural damage has been done to the tunnel.

And the absolute worst thing right now is that some tubes will be coming to a halt from time to time as idiots leave things around and the hard-pressed transport managers reluctantly decide it's better to be safe than sorry. So have some alternative plans, and recheck with the tfl site before leaving home to see what's supposed to be operating next week.

Except between 0630 and 1000, you can normally expect a car or whatever to take less than an hour. The least pain and hassle route from HPC tube to P Circus today is to hop on an eastbound 19,22 or 38 bus at stop T outside HPC tube.

kleeblatt Jul 11th, 2005 10:50 PM

Hi Flanneruk,

Thanks for the update. The rest of the world has got over the shock but London will feel the consequences for a long time.

GeoffHamer Jul 12th, 2005 02:12 AM

You can still go all the way by tube, by changing at Hammersmith onto the District Line (on the same platform so there are no steps), then change to the Bakerloo Line at Embankment.
Buses from Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly are frequent but are likely to be very busy because that part of the tube is closed.
From Heathrow to Paddington, as well as the Heathrow Express (scheduled journey time 16 minutes), there are cheaper Heathrow Connect trains (scheduled journey time 26 minutes).

smithva Jul 12th, 2005 02:48 AM

Another question: I will also be arriving in London on Tuesday the 19th and had already purchased a Heathrow Express round-trip ticket a while back. However, since the Circle Line is not operating, now how can I get from the Heathrow Express at Paddington station to my hotel near the Gloucester Road station? With the Tube closings, it now seems easier to take the Tube all the way from Heathrow to Gloucester Road, so I wish I hadn't already purchased the Heathrow Express ticket. Does anyone know if I can get a refund from Heathrow Express and how I could do that between now and Tuesday? Is the Circle line expected to re-open? Thanks for your help with the best way to get to my destination.

GeoffHamer Jul 12th, 2005 06:01 AM

Even if the Circle Line were working, it would still have been easier (and a lot cheaper) to get the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow to Hammersmith then change (on the same platform with no stairs) to the District Line to Gloucester Road.
If you really want to go via Paddington, take the District Line from there to Earl's Court, then cross the footbridge to the other platform for a District Line train to Gloucester Road.

obxgirl Jul 12th, 2005 06:24 AM

smithva, If you look at the Heathrow Express website you'll see that you can petition in writing or by email for a refund. They might be sympathetic in light of the attacks on London. The alternative GeoffHamer suggests using the District line is not much more complicated than your original plan to take the Circle line. Just make sure you board an eastbound train when you change at Earls Court.

smithva Jul 12th, 2005 09:16 AM

Thanks for your answers. I should have researched this a bit more before I purchased that Heathrow Express ticket. Does anyone have the email address for Heathrow Express? I wasn't able to access the link to it from my computer. I think the best thing to do at this point is to try to get a refund and use the Tube instead. (And Claudia, I apologize for "hijacking"
your post.)

obxgirl Jul 12th, 2005 09:23 AM

If you have booked your ticket online & it has not been collected from the ticket machine, contact the following email address:

[email protected]

Good luck!

smithva Jul 12th, 2005 10:38 AM

Thanks for the address. I emailed them and am awaiting their response. Assuming that I will get a refund, it sounds like the best way from Heathrow to Gloucester Road is to take the Picadilly Line and transfer to the District Line as GeoffHamer suggested. (And I appreciate the mention of no stairs at the transfer!)

Claudia_Neves Jul 12th, 2005 05:40 PM

Thanks for all information guys.
It was good to realize that I can get there by tube "by changing at Hammersmith onto the District Line (on the same platform so there are no steps), then change to the Bakerloo Line at Embankment".
It was also good to realize how close it is from HPC tube to Picaddily by walking or by cab.
Unfortunattely I´m still confuse:
Since I´ll be arriving at Terminal 4 ( and the tube station is closed there ) I´ll have to take a bus to Hatton Cross Street ( provide by the tube), then take the Picaddilly Line and then follow one of the choices above.
It seems to many stops, changes, walkings after a tiring flight from Brazil.
I´m about to choose to pay more and run the risk to take very long by getting the transfer.
To whom it may concern ( you smithva ) , the transfer I refer is this one
http://www.hotelink.co.uk/
The bad part is having to stop in lots of hotels but at least it will be more confortable. I hope !!
I´m about to post a new message to check if someone knows this company.

Thanks again !!


Patrick Jul 12th, 2005 06:04 PM

What's this deal about the Picaddily line closed? How long will that be, or do we know? Just had dinner with friends who were talking about taking the tube from Heathrow to Leicester Square in a couple of weeks.

WillTravel Jul 12th, 2005 06:12 PM

According to the Tube web site:
On the Piccadilly line there is no service between Hyde Park Corner and Arnos Grove and between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge.

That makes sense unfortunately. I read somewhere (perhaps in a newspaper article) that they don't know how bad the structural damage is, so they don't know how long it will take to fix, and I think they're still down there retrieving body parts.

Claudia_Neves Jul 12th, 2005 06:22 PM

Patrick, you can see the lines out of order by clicking the "Real Time Disruption Map " on http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/service_realtime_all.shtml

Patrick Jul 12th, 2005 06:43 PM

Claudia, thanks but that's not the question. I really don't care if it is down right now, but they're trying to figure out if they should get a car service if it won't be operating in a couple of weeks. I already saw on the site that it is down. My question is if anybody has a clue how long this might be. The site just says "until further notice". Do we know if this is some long term thing or just a temporary one?

sunshine007 Jul 12th, 2005 06:53 PM

I arrived at Terminal 4 after a ten hour plane flight and took the Heathrow Express to Paddington & then the subway to South Kensington. It was quite a long walk from the arrival gate to the Heathrow Express & more after arriving at Paddington to change to the underground. With at least 3 flights of stairs. A round trip ticket on the HE. When it came time to return that way I couldn't face it, so I took a limo service. They picked me up at my hotel & dropped me off at the terminal. Not sure how much it was, but it was worth the money to avoid the hassle.

Just a thought.


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