heathrow or Gatwick
 

We will be staying at the Waldorf Hilton and I am wondering if Gatwick or Heathrow is closer and/or easier to get there. I think I remember it being a long way to get into the city. Thanks!

If you take the Heathrow Express train it's 15 minutes from the airport to Paddington station.

Gatwick Express is 30 minutes to the Victoria station.

It all depends where the Waldorf Hilton is located in relation to the stations but I have a feeling you will need a cab from either station unless you want to take the underground but that may involve carrying your luggage up/down many stairs.

Thank you. The Waldorf is close to Covent Garden so hopefully not to far from Paddington.

If you want to save money and don't mind schlepping your own luggage, take the Piccadilly tube line from Heathrow to the Covent Garden station. It's only a few blocks from there to your hotel. Visit www.tfl.gov.uk to download and print a tube map.

Makes absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things. Pick the airport that gets you the best airfare.

The Waldorf Hilton is in Aldwych. It is not on a direct tube line from Paddington. Well it is, but it would be all the way around on the Circle Line. Victoria is also on the Circle (and District) line - but only 4 stops from the Hotel (if you use the Temple station).

Or if you opted for a taxi from the train station it would be a shorter/cheaper ride from Victoria than from Paddington.

oh - meant to add - if you do choose LHR, the tube all the way in would be a better choice than the HEX/taxi or HEX/tube.

In my previous post I gave you the chepaest option--the tube. However, if I didn't want to schlepp my own luggage, I wouldn't do the Heathrow Express-taxi combo. Instead I'd go to www.justairports.com and book their private car service to take me directly from the airport to the hotel. The cash price would be 33 GBP for a saloon (sedan) and 37 GBP for an estate (station wagon).

I too say that anyone who would buy two tickets on the Heathrow Express to Paddington and then take a taxi to Aldwych is being "penny wise and pound foolish". Such a combination will cost you more and probably even take longer total that the above mentioned JustAirports private car the whole way from Heathrow to your hotel. People are fooled by the quick time of the train to Paddington, but the transfer and wait for a taxi, then the ride itself across town can all add up to more time than the full drive in from the airport, and that Paddington to Aldwych taxi plus the 2 HE tickets are bound to cost you more than the car service.

Okay, good input. So I can tube it all the way in to Covent garden if I want to go on the cheap or just arrange a car. Thanks!

Do you have a map? It's a pretty good walk from Covent Garden tube station to the Waldorf and you'd be going right through the busy Covent Garden Market. If you only have a bag on wheels it would be fine. I wouldn't want to be carrying luggage that far though.

Covent Garden: crowded a lot of the time, but you have lifts up to street level. At street level, several hundred yards to walk to Drury Lane and down it to Aldwych, but no main roads to cross.

Temple (change at Hammersmith to District Line, just walk across the platform): much less busy, but a couple of dozen steps up to street level, then up half a dozen steps. Not quite so far to walk, but it is up a slope to Aldwych - and you would have to cross two busy main roads.

The Waldorf is just across Aldwych from India House. www.streetmap.co.uk would give you maps.

As I recall (and I've done it many, many times) there are only 11 steps inside Covent Garden tube to get up to the level where the lifts are. And Patrick is right that you contend with little motor traffic getting to Aldwych. It's the human traffic in the Market that is more a problem, along with some heavy cobblestones for wheeled luggage.