Long Connection at Heathrow ... what to do?
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For an upcoming trip, it looks like I will have a long connection in London Heathrow Airport (LHR) that looks like this:
- arrive in LHR around 1 PM local time, then
- fly out the next day around 10 AM local time
... about 21 hours apart.
Any recommendation on what to do, especially on where to get a good night's sleep and/or where to store the luggage so I don't have to drag it around town (if I leave the airport)?
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Hmm, thinking out loud here... it's a long stop but a bit too short.
Can you book your luggage through and just walk out with a rucksack containing spare shirt&socks?
You'd be out of Heathrow by 3pm and in Central London before 4pm.What do you want to do? London has everything, river cruise from Westminter bridge; walk Oxford Circus to Covent Garden via soho & chinatown and see the sights, maybe eat at 'C and R' restaurant; or shopping till 6 you could pop into Steinway/bluthner/yamaha-bosendorfer, all three showrooms are off Oxford street; or find a show?
Obviously here are hotels everywhere. From Heathrow Premier Inn (best location for a 10am flight?) to the Dorchester. Location might be key? I mean, stay at the Ritz on Picadilly and get an early Uber to Heathrow if you have the cash.
We stayed in a central london hotel that has small studio rooms but is only £200-300 a night, called Mason & Fifth. Book in advance, automated entry by their app. Their Primrose Hill place is conveniently 10 minutes walk from Camden Town Tube (loads of places to eat on nearby Inverness Street). In our case it was chosen as is 5 mins walk from London Zoo where a daughter got married last Sunday. But it might work if you're an early riser.
You'd probably have to miss the 8am breakfast to get back to Heathrow....
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Obviously @AndyD has the best advice specific to London, but I will say this: if there’s a physically hotel attached to the airport, consider staying there. This solves the problem of what to do with your luggage, is especially great if you’re exhausted or have travel delays, and makes things easy for the next morning as well.
When we go to Japan, we always have a domestic flight after we get to Tokyo. We could arrange our air tickets so that we catch that flight the same day we arrive in Tokyo, but we also have an additional train ride before we can get to our actual final destination, and if we did it that way, we would get in super late, so the whole thing is just a little too exhausting after the international flight etc.
So we always stay at an airport hotel for our first night in Japan. We pick up our luggage, go through customs, can walk to the hotel, leave our luggage there (even if it’s before room check in) and then depending on the time, can either go into Tokyo or just spend time at the airport, which is fine because Haneda Airport has tons of fun things to do, and lots of good restaurants. Then we sleep at the hotel, have lots of options for breakfast either at the hotel or somewhere in the airport. It makes it just an easy morning, getting to our flight and getting that train etc.
The hotel we stay at is a bit on the expensive side, but it makes everything so much easier that it’s more than worth it.
