London in July
 

This is such a great site and I wish I had found it earlier. My wife and I are planning a 2 week vacation in London for early July 2010, ( 25th anniversary). We have a good idea of things we would like to do but would appreciate some help. Posts on this forum have been a great source of information. In particular the trip report from Texasbookworm.

I have a few of questions:
We are arriving Gatwick airport about 3:30am on a Friday morning. Wondering what we should do then? After all night travelling and with the jet lag, we expect to be tired. We've booked a guest house in North Finchley . Since check in time is not until afternoon, even allowing for travel time to North Finchley, we have a lot of time to pass and will probably need rest. We've thought about extending the guest house to include the night previous, but would then be paying for only a few hours use. Other options would be getting a hotel room near the airport , sleeping in the airport, or booking a Yotel room for a few hours. Does anyone have any sugestions or comments?

Also I'm starting to second guess the choice of a guesthouse in North Finchley. It looks nice and reasonably priced but is removed from the City centre and we will have to be getting buses, subway everywhere. I'm wondering if it may be better to spend additional on a B&B closer?

The day following our arrival has the Gay Pride parade. Is that then a bad day for sightseeing, visiting attractions? Any suggestions on what to do that day?

We would like to include some day trips outside of London. One thought was to spend a night or 2 in Bath and do the Cotswolds tour. I'm wondering if that is worth the trouble or if its just as well to stay in London and do side trips from there?

I have a frind who lives in North Finchley and I certainly would not like to stay there as a tourist.

You really need advice from our resident copper. However, last time I saw the London Gay Pride you realise just how small it is and how big london is. London has parades going off most days (more in summer) and they just pass by or else CH gets loads of overtime

North Finchley??? Even if it was free I would second guess staying there. You do realize it is closer to the M25 than to central London?

How much are you paying? Have you factored in the extra ££ your transport will cost, and all the time wasted commuting in/out of town. Where exactly is the guest house? Is it even w/i walking distance of a tube or train station?

So -- tell us exactly where it is and how much it costs and we can probably give you reasonable alternatives.

My travel inexperience is showing! No I didn't factor in transport cost. The guest house is on Woodside Park Road, looks like about 10 minute walk from Woodside Park tube station. Nightly fee 75 pounds. However, based on Avalon's comment and your comments, I've decided to cancel that and look elsewhere.....thanks for the eye opener.

I've had a look at the "athomeinlondon" website for some alternatives. Trying to keep about the same nightly rate.
That site splits accomodations down into zones 1 and 2/3 similiar to the tube zones. Is it better to stick with zone 1?

for £75 you could stay right in the very center of London.

And if it is just two of you -- you could use Priceline and get a 4 star hotel in the center for about $80-100 ($, not £) plus taxes. So £55 in the middle of things, or £75 in north Siberia. Hard choice :)

If you haven't used PL before, check out biddingfortravel.com and betterbidding.com to see current winning bids in London.

For a summer trip, London School of Economics accommodations would work for you also, and you typically have access to a kitchen. I've stayed at three of these: High Holborn Hall, Passfield Hall, and Roseberry Hall.

http://www.lsevacations.co.uk

I think that with Priceline, you will get nicer accommodations (business hotel style). With LSE, you get stay in a student dorm room, and you will have access to a kitchen, laundry, and often complimentary breakfast, all of which save money. With LSE, the rooms with a private bathroom are usually more expensive than Priceline. The shared bathrooms are not a big deal, though, as there are numerous facilities available.

Anyway, back to your first night landing at 3:30 AM. The difficulty with booking a conventional hotel room is that they sometimes cancel your reservation if you don't show up early enough. Probably you wouldn't get to the hotel until 5 AM. Hopefully if you gave them a call just as you were boarding the flight, plus an email, they would save your room for you. Nevertheless, to avoid problems with the entire 2-week reservation being cancelled, I would book this night separately (for the night before), and then book the remainder of your stay.

With Priceline, it can be a bit of a challenge to get longish stays accepted at the same hotel. I think it would be a good idea to consider staying at two or three locations. You'd get to try more neighborhoods too, and in London, it can feel like practically going to a new city when you change neighborhoods.

With Priceline, two weeks of prepaid, unchangeable reservations is a significant cost. I'd get travel insurance too if you go this route (although it's a good idea, anyways, in my opinion).

The Pride parade shouldn't make much, if any, difference to your plans, except that there will be a good half-hour or more during which it will be impossible to cross the route while it's passing, so you might want to plan around that. That apart, you could be a few streets away and not know anything out of the ordinary was happening, and there's no reason why it should affect any of the major attractions. It can be quite a spectacle in its own right, of course.

There are trains into London from Gatwick in the very early hours, but if you want to go on anywhere else, the tube doesn't start running till around 0530.

Are you <i>sure</i> you land at 0330? I thought LGW had a curfew until 0530 - has that changed?

hi Jim,

i agree that landing at 3.30 am is not ideal. you could splash out on an airport hotel room, and go to bed for a few hours, followed by a swim perhaps, or [if you do land later] go and have breakfast at either of the big hotels that you can walk to [the Sofitel for the north Terminal, the Hilton for the south].

alternatively, turn a disadvantage into an advantage, and spend afew days in the Gatwick area before heading into central London. After all, you've senseibly decided to spend 2 weeks in the London area, and this woudl enable you to avoid the Gay Pride march. [not much to worry about, to be honest].

there would be many gardens and other places to visit in the area, and/or you could go down to Brighton to see the sea. then return your hire-car [essential if you fancy this idea], get back on the train, and head off into London.

Glad my trip report was a help! I don't have many suggestions that would help in your particular landing/lodging/logistics questions. Perhaps others will continue to respond with help.

Definitely pursue moving into Zone 1 area--the convenience and savings on transport are worth a lot.

As you can tell from our TR of our time in London, our 5 day trips in our 2 weeks there worked great--we certainly didn't run out of things to do, and for that trip, not driving was a good choice.

Be sure to pay attention to what might need to be booked early/soon (like Globe tickets if you're interested).

We're going back to London for 3 days (and the half day after noon-ish arrival) with our DD this time before heading out actually driving for 9 days/nights, making a loop from London to Hadrian's Wall and back. Hope you're having as much fun planning as I have!

I had a look at Priceline.....looks intimidating. I'll have to study up a bit more before I decide wether or not to try it. London School of Economics was a good idea, unfortunately it is all booked for my vacation period. Are there any other colleges offering similiar accomodations?

Yes my flight lands at 3:20am....it's an overnighter from Newfoundland. I don't know anything about a curfew but I assume the airline (Monarch) has made proper arrangements and taken that into account. What does an airport curfew mean?

While Brighton sounds like a great idea, we've decided to stay with public transport or walk.

You can get to Brighton by public transport (bus or train) from Gatwick.

With LSE, it probably is mostly booked up in July for two-week segments. What you would likely have to do is break up your stay into several segments at different locations. Try this site for other university accommodation:

http://www.budgetstayuk.com/

Priceline might sound intimidating, but really it isn't. Post on betterbidding.com and you will get very exact advice.

While Brighton sounds like a great idea, we've decided to stay with public transport or walk.

You don't need a car to Brighton. Very easy regular train journey (ask the folks who commute to London from there)

By curfew - they can't have landings/take offs since it disturbs the neighbors :)

But I guess it isn't a factor at LGW . . .

Yes, other colleges/universities book holiday accommodations. Are you sure ALL of LSE's options are full? They have 7 different residence halls plus their Top Floor.

Did I miss it somewhere - how long are you staying? If it is more than a few days, maybe try breaking it up into two different bookings and see if that springs LSE availability.

If you do decide to try PL, we can help you w/ bidding advice. There are really only 3 or 4 zones you need to consider. So that makes things easier.

Topping for this poster.

Have you considered an apartment stay? Also, I've heard good things about Base2stay (but haven't been there.) You might contact them and other hotels to see if you can get a discount for such a long stay.

Re Gay Pride:

If you are where it is, it's a big disruption (basically Soho to Trafalgar Square to where ever the party is).

Otherwise you will barely notice it outside of Soho and a few pubs in places like Vauxhall.

I'd rethink North Finchley - it's OK but it's a trek which I wouldn't want if I were on holiday.

An arrival time of 3:30am BST sounds very unlikely for a transatlantic flight- could it be 3:30 EST, which would be 8:30am here?

By any chance is the flight operated by someone else as a code share or something? Monarch's website doesn't show any service to Canada. That 0330 arrival does seem a bit strange - could it be a summer charter that doesn't display yet . . . .

I'm really curious.

RM67, that's how it is for some flights from very eastern Canada.