Heathrow for 4 Hours
 

We will be laying over in Heathrow for 4 hours on our return from Rome to US. What would you do with the time? Looking for some suggestions.

Duty free shopping? There are quite a few good shopping areas. And several restaurants, pubs and bars. Actually, 4 hours isn't that long at Heathrow. Once you go through all the transfers there won't be much time left. It's a great people watching place.

Alas, like most airports, there's not a lot around it but there's a fair bit to do there in terms of shopping/eating etc. If you go to www.baa.com you'll find all the information you need about Heathrow - and you can even book into a lounge if you want some extra comfort away from the rabble that you tend to find at airports!

Mind you, if you were feeling daring you could jump on the Heathrow Express, whizz into Paddington and go be a tourist for an hour and then go back...?! I'd be quite tempted! You could be, say, at the Houses of Parliament in 45 minutes if all runs well...

4 hrs is not enough time to leave the airport and be sure you will make it back in time for your US flight, if that is what you mean.

Lots of shopping at Heathrow and places to eat. Walk around, stretch your legs and eat a regular meal (non airline food is what I mean by that). Before you know it, it will be time to board.

If you're not flying in a premium class of travel, and don't have lounge access, you can purchase access to a comfortable area with clean showers for around 20GBP per person.

It's not enough time to comfortably go into London.

PS. I WAS only joking about going into London, by the way...!

I agree with m_k2 (one of the few who generally does!), book into a lounge and relax in there. As I said, you can do this via the BAA website.

IMO 4 hours is not enough time to leave the airport, not sure if you had that in mind as a possibility.

Things I have done at Heathrow: duty free window shopping, take a shower, have a glass(es) of wine and a sandwich, buy a bottle of water, purchase trashy British tabloids to read on the plane ride home, eat at one of the calm and expensive restaurants, eat at one of the cheap and noisy restaurants, brouse in the bookstore. If you are a smoker, there're places that allow for that.

Plus of that 4 hours at least some of it will be used up standing in lines at various points, transfering terminals assuming you need to, etc.

If you are a smoker, buy yourself two Romeo y Julieta Magnum 'A' cigars, that's four hours gone.

Thak you all for such creative ideas. Sounds like I'll be able to enjoy myself there after all.
PS I have bought the trashy Brit magazines for the ride home and LOVE them!

isn't windsor next to heathrow?? we went there on a layover once.. it was very very nice.
and worth it.
you can do it in as short or long a time as you want. i have a thread about it here somewhere from last year with all the bus info.
a taxi would be faster obviously, but i recall the bus took a total of 20 minutes max.

if you have your boarding pass, just have to go through security with plenty of time to spare for long lines.

you can get a real feel for the town along the river walk, and stop at a pub and get back to airport.

The last time I had to spend a few hours there, the internet access was fairly reasonably priced and I used much of the time to get caught up on email & such.

It worked great. When I got home 10 hours later I didn't have the internet hanging over my head.

Keith

keith, another great idea. can you give more details (i.e., did you have your own laptop or was it an internet cafe type thing)?

Internet cafe. I don't recall what the fee was, but it seemed reasonable at the time.


Keith

Thanks so much Keith. I'll add it to my things-to-do-to-kill-time-at-Heathrow file! I have never found internet cafes anywhere overly expensive, I was just worried you might be traveling with your own laptop (which I don't have). Another great Fodor's tip.