Homesteadgirl

Any thoughts on traveling to Llandudno from Heathrow? We planned to take National Rail, but the difference between advance purchase fares and day of purchase are crazy.
9 gbp for the advance fare and 70 gbp for the off peak day of purchase.

Since we are flying into Heathrow, we can't know if our plane will be late, so the advance purchase is iffy.

Do you know of other ways to get to Llandudno that wouldn't have this risk?

janisj

What are you going to do for transport once you are there?

A coach from London (not from LHR) will take over 8 hours.

If Llandudno is your first destination in the UK - flying into LHR is not all that practical. Manchester would make much more sense.

What is your full itinerary? Maybe we can figure out some options for you -- but if you MUST get to Llandudno directly from LHR and aren't driving, the train is your best option (though there are no trains from LHR itself)

Driving is not a good option after an overnight flight - you'd want to wait to drive til the next day.

ron

Train is your only real option, unless you take Janis's advice of flying someplace closer to Llandudno.

Buying an advance train ticket is indeed iffy, but why not buy 2 or even 3 tickets at different times? GBP27 is still pretty cheap, even if you have to throw 2 of the tickets away.

Homesteadgirl

We decided to take the train on day 1 of our trip because we knew we would be jetlagged, and thought it a good use of our time.
We are renting a car in Llandudno, and dropping it off in Cardiff.

Thanks for the advice!

janisj

Heathrow to Llandudno will be a total slog by any mode of transport, bus, car OR train.

You will have to travel from LHR to Euston station by tube w/ either a line change, or a 1/2 mile walk between King's Cross and Euston. You'll want to allow at least 3 hours between arrival at LHR and departure from Euston. More would be better. Then the train journey will take 3.5 hours w/ either 1 or 2 changes. So you are talking about basically being on the move most of the day while jet lagged. And you will have already been on the move for probably 24 hours or more.

This borders on nutty.

Is there any way you can modify your plans? Stay in London one night or go to Cardiff first, or anything else??? Just because one wants to be somewhere on such and such a day doesn't necessarily make it practical/doable.

janisj

OR - change your flight to land at Manchester . . . . .

ron

I guess I would fit into Janisj’s “borderline nutty” category too, since this is the strategy I have used on many of my trips to the UK - use the arrival day, when I am in a semi-comatose state, to get to a far point on my itinerary, and work my way back. I think it works well. It sure would beat wasting half a day moping around London waiting for my hotel room to be ready. On my last trip, I had the tube journey into London, 2 train journeys and a bus journey.

So, I don’t see any problem with what you want to do, but I don’t think there are any other magic solutions to make the journey cheap.

janisj

Oh - I do the same thing. Get to where I want on day one -- but not a 7 hour trek to get there. I will land at LHR, fly on to Edinburgh or Inverness or wherever. And then start the holiday for real on day 2.

But I personally would be ready to kill someone if I had to travel across all of London, dragging my luggage, changing lines, hauling the bags on/off trains, changing trains etc.

That is why I suggested they re-order things a bit. Since the OP is traveling from Llandudno to Cardiff -- IF they can flip things around they would have a MUCH easier trip getting from LHR to Cardiff.

Homesteadgirl

Oh dear, this doesn't sound good. We can't reorder the trip as we have some of the accommodations locked in.

What are the options for getting to Euston, maybe without using the tube?
Taxi?
Bus?
Any idea of the approximate cost?

Frances

I think that the suggestion that you fly to Manchester as opposed to Heathrow will have little impact on your accomodation -except for the first night as you were planning to be in Llandudno by the second night anyway.
Crossing London by public transport is not out of the question. I live further west than Llandudno and in the "Orlando days " we would travel to Gatwick and back by train- with two children and baggage and sometimes a pushchair.It was the least stressful way of doing that leg of the journey.
Try and avoid rush-hour in London and you will be able to sleep on the train. If you are adult travellers its really not a problem
However advance puchase fares often route you off the main-line and have you changing more often than if you caught a Virgin. If you do buy a fixed ticket and try and travel outside the times on it many kindly conductors will not cause a problem. The one line where they are very keen on this is if you catch a Liverpool train for the first leg of your journey out of Euston. They broadcast repeatedly before the train pulls out that if you don't have a ticket for that particular train you will be turned off. Its a risk you take.

helen_belsize

Another option is to fly to Manchester from Heathrow and go to Llandudno from there. Don't know about the financial side, could be quicker.

ron

I’m going to take one more shot at suggesting that making the tube and train journey from Heathrow to Llandudno would, for me, not be the horrific experience that Janisj is portraying.

1. An hour or so sitting on the tube train to Kings Cross St. Pancras. And you will get a seat, since you are embarking at the start of the line. And much of the journey is above ground, so you can view London’s suburban sprawl.

2. A 10 minute walk to Euston station, a bit of fresh air as you walk past the Victorian gothic St Pancras station and the contrasting modern British Library.

3. A couple of hours relaxing on the first train, viewing the English countryside.

4. One or two transfers to other trains at east to navigate, medium-to-small train stations*, with a couple of more short, relaxing train rides. Certainly much easier than say, making a transfer at Heathrow for a plane to Manchester.

5. You’re there, mid-afternoon, probably feeling better than you did when you got off the plane that morning at Heathrow.

*it would be one or two of Chester, Crewe and Llandudno Junction

flanneruk

You've got two problems here.

<b>1. The journey's a pain. </b> Discuss. There are a couple of direct trains a day, and all you need to do is get the tube to Euston. Which means getting the tube direct to Kings Cross, then - if you've got luggage,transferring to the Victoria Line one stop to Euston. It's a pleasant 5-10 min walk above ground, but you might find dragging luggage a bit intimidating. Don't worry about rush hour if it's a weekday ( the tube starts at Heathrow and London commuters have better things to do than steal your suitcase (though watch your wallets). Do worry about a taxi if it's a weekday. Don't change tubes at Green Park: it's a bitch of a walk between the lines there.

I'm with Ron. It ain't luxury, but it's an experience and it really, really, really isn't a pain.

<b> 2. Insurance if you miss the train.</b> This isn't 100% reliable (because your flight MIGHT be a day late, though most ticket inspectors on trains out of Euston are suckers for foreigners saying their plane was late. Especially after the crowded and horrendously expensive early morning business trains have all gone). Choose a train 6 hours or so later and - for £9 - just buy another ticket.

You came onto this board because you were worried about the cost of an on the spot train ticket. Flying to Manchester from LHR is not going to help your budget: you're merely swapping the risk of missing a cheap train for the identical risk of missing an expensive flight. Flying to MCR from outside Europe is almost always significantkly pricier than flying to LHR.

LHR-Llandudno is one of the trickiest journeys in Britain, since LHR is the only major English airport without a proper intercity railway station. You're almost certainly stuck with making the journey: just try to get one of the direct trains.

Homesteadgirl

After reading all of your kind advice, I think my husband and I are leaning toward taking the Heathrow Connect to Paddington Station and then the tube to Euston.
I'd like to avoid lots of stairs, so are checking stations that have escalators or lifts. Does this seem doable?

We live in Alaska, so are used to jetlagged flights, though we don't enjoy them, I think we can cope.
We will actually be flying out of Newark after having been in the eastern US for several days so the flight to London is only about 7 hours.

Any other helpful advice? Do the tube ticket machines in Heathrow take credit cards, or do we need to have GBP?

flanneruk

"taking the Heathrow Connect to Paddington Station and then the tube to Euston.
I'd like to avoid lots of stairs, so are checking stations that have escalators or lifts. Does this seem doable?"

No. Almost absolutely not, Which is why I said the all-tube route.

There's NO direct tube from Paddington to Euston. Euston Square isn't Euston. It's a 400 yd schlep, which itself involves stairs. Euston station was built in the era (1960s)when architects thought stairs up to a building looked impressive. To get to the surface from the platform at Euston Square you need to use stairs.

The alternative tube route (Bakerloo-Oxford Circus- Euston) involves two sets of lengthy stairs. So, BTW, does the straightforward way exiting the tube system at Kings Cross, though there are poorly signed lifts - which no-one ever finds. Offhand I can't remember, but you MIGHT be able to get an all-escalator connection at Charing Cross from the Bakerloo to the Northern Line.

But by then you'll have taken longer than the direct tube. Of course ticket machines take credit cards - but if you're on the Heathrow Connect, you can't use a tube ticket. You have to buy a Connect ticket, then a tube ticket at Paddington.

ON weekdays, I strongly recommend NOT getting a taxi from Paddington. I see the early-morning queues frequently, and occasionally get stuck in the subsequent weekday traffic from Paddington to Euston. Neither help you catch a connection.

Ackislander

The other possibility is, of course, to rent a car and drive it. Having done so, I cannot recommend it. One is either keeping up with 80-90 mph traffic or jamming on the brakes and coming to a halt, then going again, all without any obvious cause.

Be of good cheer. Once you are in Wales, it is worth the trouble to get there.

flanneruk

PS.

1. Don't even dream of driving. It's criminal and stupid. If you're not arrested, you deserve to be.

2. There IS of course the bus. About 7 hours, changing Birmingham. Probably the least painful option of all. www.nationalexpress.co.uk

Homesteadgirl

My husband did some sleuthing and he says according to the official journey planner, there appear to be escalators on the Bakerloo-Oxford Circus-Euston route.

Does anyone out there know this for sure?

ron

Unless you are elderly and frail, or have a physical handicap (in which case you should book a car service fom the airport), I don't understand why you are obsessing about the few stairs that you will find in the tube stations on the way to the train station. Finding a complicated stair-free route will only waste time and increase the chances of things going wrong.

janisj

"<i>My husband did some sleuthing and he says according to the official journey planner, there appear to be escalators on the Bakerloo-Oxford Circus-Euston route</i>"

Having escalators does not mean there are no stairs. There are some steps/stairs in most tube stations. And quite a lot in some. Even when there are escalators. I don't think I've done the Bakerloo to Victoria transfer at Oxford Circus going that direction so I can't confirm flanner's info myself. But I sure would not doubt him.

You are flying into LHR and have to travel into London and then across two countries to stay the night in Llandudno. No matter HOW you get there it will be an exhausting slog.

Is there ANY way you can re-think this? Maybe contact the B&B in Llandudno and see if they have availability the next night instead. Anything . . . .