Heathrow to Central London
 

Hi. I have seen some recent discussions on transportation from heathrow to central london. We will be arriving in Heathrow at 6:20am on Thrusday morning next week and will be meeting a friend in London (Liverpool station to be exact). She said that we probably won't be there until around 11 am by time we get our luggage and clear customs, etc. Is this correct? I was quite shocked that she said it would take us almost five hours (assuming the plane lands on time) to get our luggage, clear customs, and get to Liverpool station. How long does it take to usually clear customs, get luggage, and figure out your bearings at Heathrow? Does anyone have another opinion on how long it might take us total (including customs, luggage, misc. stuff, etc)? Thanks.

It didn't take us much more than 45 minutes or an hour and we had cleared customs, grabbed our bags and bought a train ticket into London- can't help you with getting to Liverpool but I would think you could do what we did and buy the train ticket right at the airport

15 min to walk from gate to immigration hall, 30 min in immigration queue, 5 minutes for luggage pickup and customs, 15 minute walk to tube station, 90 minute tube ride to Liverpool Street.

Dave, <BR>Unless your friend thinks you are planning on walking into London I cannot imagine it taking 5 hours. It's best to allow about 1 hour for baggage collection/immigration (can be less, but figure 1 hour anyway. We've always had a driver service pick us up and the ride into central London has never taken more than 1 hour at most - that's about 1:30 p.m. tho. You will hit rush hour traffic if you use a car service in the early a.m. but not 5 hours worth of it! You can take the Heathrow Express train into Paddington - that takes about 15 minutes, and then the tube or a taxi to Liverpool Station, depending upon how much luggage your are dragging around. I would stay off the tube during rush hour if you have more than one small piece of luggage tho. Sometimes baggage pickup and customs can be horribly slow which is why I say allow an hr. for that, othertimes it can all move very quickly, just depends.

We always hire a driver from Swiss Cottage Cars (25 pounds to meet us and take us right to our rented flat in Covent Garden) and it always seems to take about an even hour even when it seems like we are stuck in traffic much of the way. We generally clear customs and claim luggage well within an hour of London. Last summer our flight landed at 9:00 (actually about 5 minutes late) and I note from my journal that we were inside our flat by 11 AM, so that is less than two hours total. The tube will probably take longer. The only time I did it, I think it took us a good 15 to 20 minutes to get to the tube from customs. <BR>Not sure what could take 5 hours unless you wanted to walk all the way!

I'd double check that you're meeting your friend at Liverpool Street Station in London and not Liverpool in the north west of England. It might take 5 hours to reach the latter!! <BR>You should take the tube from Heathrow to Holborn then change on to the Central line to Liverpool Street (about 45- 60 minutes at a rough guess!)