Reconsidering our vacation plans and need input
 

Need some advise:

My wife and I have booked via miles, round trip to London next July and we are going to be taking a 10 day cruise from Harwick to Copenhagen, Stockholm St. Peterburg, etc. We arrive five days in advance and evidently naively planned to take a train to Scotland and asked for advise. After getting some good feedback, we are reconsidering and open to suggestions. We have spent time in London so we would like to do something different. We are now thinking of perhaps catching a round trip flight to Dublin and renting a car doing a five day loop and back to London and on to Hartwick . Is that too much? Perhaps visiting sights in England? We are open to a variety of things, and do enjoy visiting interesting towns, cities.

Any advice?

Thanks

John S

Hi John,

I'm not sure what you gain by making a trip to Dublin instead of Edinburgh. I understand from your other post that the choice of London was a function of award tickets, so that makes sense, but if you are interested in Edinburgh there is no reason I can see not to hop up there. I guess my question would be which really interests you more, Ireland or Scotland? Because if you're willing to rent a car, you could certainly have a nice trip up to Edinburgh and back.

OK - I guess I'm confused. The LHR tickets are set in stone - given. But on your other thread I described how your plan would work. Arrive at LHR, fly to EDI, See Edinburgh for a couple of days, and then pick up a car and spend 3 days driving south. It is true you don't have time to drive to Scotland and back - but flying up to EDI 3-ish hours after landing at LHR would be easy.

(BTW - It is Harwich . . . )

With five full days, I think you have a lot of options. Janisj's plan to Scotland would work fine. For me, five days in Ireland is kind of short, but doable. I would try to fly into Dublin and out of Shannon to save the trip back to Dublin, or I would just spend all the time in the SW area and fly in and out of Shannon or Cork. If you haven't been to Paris, you could always take the chunnel and spend five days there - fast & easy.

Almost any place you choose could work beautifully if you don't try to cover too big of an area geographically. Seriously, people fly from London to Barcelona for four or five days; or Brussels, Bruge & Ghent, etc. in Belgium; or Amsterdam.

You have been to London, but have you visited other parts of England? From your post, it doesn't appear so. In that case, I would stay in England and visit Bath, the Cotswolds, Oxford, etc, etc. There is plenty to see in the smaller cities, villages & countryside of England.

Flying to EDI 3 hours after landing at LHR is easy ... IF your flight is running on time - and if you're able to get your baggage checked through to EDI (i.e., if your award tickets are on a British airline that flies the route). If your flight is late and/or if you need to collect baggage, recheck on another carrier, and get through security again ... you'll be seriously out of luck.

I would plan for things going wrong ... to avoid an expensive mis-connect at LHR. Make plans for your first day in London - or in the English country somewhere near LHR. Then go to Scotland the next day.

We were in England for a too-short trip. We rented a car, started in Bath, headed to the Welsh border area, Warwick, the lake country, and back to London. The 8 days we had in the countryside didn't allow enough time for anyplace in depth, just a sampling. We didn't even get to Oxford, Cambridge, or Windsor. I'd stay right in England, head west, and just explore.

On your original thread - you wanted to see Scotland. Of course, staying closer to London would be fine too. But, IF Scotland is still on your wishlist - go there.

If 3 hours makes you nervous - book a flight 4 hours out. I have made the exact same connection (actually w/ connections of 60 mins, 80 mins, 2 hours, 3 hours, and 6 hours) several times. IMO checking bags through is nice, but if your airline won't throughcheck, you'd still be fine. I wouldn't book less than 2 hours out - but 3 or 4 hours will be fine 99% of the time. <i>Could</i> you miss the flight - sure. But heck -- your flight from the States might be cancelled too - Lots of things are <i>possible</i> . . .

I'd definitely not waste a day of your already very short time just biding time to catch a flight the day after your arrival.

I simply don't think the logistics of Ireland makes sense. Dublin only take a day or two -- but the most beautiful bits are on teh W/SW coasts and 5 days isn't long enough to do Dublin and much of anything on the west side. Driving in Ireland is generally VERY slow -- think 35 mph (or less). You can't cover much ground in a short visit.

Another thought. Fly into LHR or Gatwick then train from Kings Cross to York, only two hours. Use York as a base. Bus to Whitby;train to Edinburgh (about 2 plus hours); Leeds, Durham and ,well, by then your days are used up and return to London.