billinghamn

The wife and I are heading over to BRU and back prior to taking a TATL flight to SEA soon. The BRU flights there and back are on Sat, with our TATL leaving LHR on the Sun. We start from MAN on the Sat morning.

Ideally we'd like to avoid dragging our carry on to BRU if possible, but where could we store them?

1. At the T5 Hilton - we're stopping over on the Sat night here so we could pop through arrivals to the hotel to drop our carry on off, then come back through security. Problem is we only have 75 mins connection time at LHR.

2. We could switch to the Sofitel at T5 since its connected to T5 isn't it? That might save us 20 mins.

3. Is there anywhere at LHR that we could leave our bags that we can get to when we come back from BRU?

Your ideas/experience would be appreciated.

NeverFirst

Left luggage desk in the lounge (or is that just for coats?)
Alternatively there's an 'actual' left luggage place landside, but I would be concerned that if your inbound is late and you had to get out, collect luggage and get back in again, then there wouldn't be much time left.

My vote would be just to take it all with you!

pipsi

There is a left luggage facility landside in T5, I've never used it so I don't know what they charge but the facility does exist. Obviously if you stayed at the Sofitel they would hold your luggage for free, it's easy to access via a corridor, it'll probably take you five or ten minutes to walk there from arrivals.

nickerss

Are you spending a few hours in Brussels? Are you trying to avoid carrying bags around in the city for a day, or are you simply trying to avoid the overhead bin scrum to and from BRU? If the former, there might be some type of left luggage facility at BRU?

Swanhunter

http://www.heathrowairport.com/heath...s/left-baggage

chris1979

I don't think you could leave it in the lounge as you won't be back there on the same day? Once you land back, you won't be able to get to the lounge and though I have no personal experience, I would be surprised if they let you keep anything there overnight given it's intended to be for items whilst you are using the lounge and not anything longer / storage related.

I'd also take it with me (unless you are planning on heading into the city in BRU and have a long time - you could always leave them in BRU airport left luggage in that case, or, shock, horror, check them in for your return flight and head into town).

Genius1

You can't leave anything in the lounge overnight, so your options are a hotel or the left luggage service landside in arrivals.

NeverFirst

D'oh, you're quite right, I didn't take note of the different days.

Globaliser

Assuming that I've correctly understood you as meaning that you only have 75 minutes between the arrival of your MAN-LHR and the departure of your LHR-BRU, and you are spending time in Brussels before returning to LHR, then one of the things that I would do is to investigate the left luggage options at BRU.

If your MAN-LHR arrives on time, then you'd have plenty of time to drop off at the T5 left luggage before returning through security. There's no immigration clearance, and the left luggage office is close to the exit from domestic arrivals.

However, if something goes wrong with the first flight, you could rapidly find that connection time becoming a bit uncomfortable. Remember that you have to enter the security clearance process no later than T-35 before your LHR-BRU flight. So you might find that you have to switch to a plan B at short notice. That's why I think it would be worthwhile if you also find out what your left luggage options might be at BRU.

billinghamn

Thanks for everyone's comments. Apologies for the delay in responding - just got back from a bike ride on the Trans-Pennine trail. Had to go via Starbucks on the way back obviously!

Trying to avoid taking it with us due to the scrum with overhead bin space.

Just trying to avoid the overhead bin scrum! We will be at BRU for about 4 hours - that's my contingency to avoid any problems with getting back to LHR on Sat.

Sounds like this might be our best (and quickest) option. Thanks for the link.

Agreed - we can't leave the bags in the lounge since we won't have access to the lounge when we get back to LHR.

I agree with you - definitely need a plan B and then adapt on the day based on how much time we have between the MAN-LHR and LHR-BRU flights.

LTN Phobia

I don't recommend trying to drop off the bags at LHR between MAN-LHR and LHR-BRU.

Excess Baggage Company often have a queue. If you end up in a queue and miss the 35 min conformance, BA won't be sympathetic and they would be entitled to expect you to buy a new ticket, although they might not. Of course you could take a look at the queue and decide, but it's probably not worthwhile.

Leave them at left luggage facility at BRU, assuming there is one.

manymany

I have LHR-AMS-LHR-BKK coming up all on same day. Looking to leave hand baggage in the Galleries North Left Luggage whilst I do the LHR-AMS-LHR (immediate turnaround) then 5 hour connection.

Shouldn't be a problem should it...?

Thanks

billinghamn

I've ended up changing my positioning flight from MAN-LHR (first leg of MAN-LHR-BRU), so that we are heading down on the Fri evening. So we will be staying at Heathrow for 2 nights, but it will be a chilled out start to our holiday. So we're ok with that.

Staying both nights at the Hilton T5 - shame it's going to cost us £32 in bus fees (2 x 2 return trips @ £8 per person per return trip). I thought about changing to the Sofitel, but I'd like to check out the new Hilton.

Scots_Al

There's presumably also a small risk of something going wrong, leaving you very late out of BRU with no time to collect your stuff at LHR before continuing, or worse, being 'helpfully' re-routed on AA, for example.

paul4040

The newer T5 Hilton is very good and in my view is the same standard of the Sofitel - except without direct terminal access.

I see you're HHonors Diamond too. Hilton T5 is very accommodating to elites and they may agree to hold your bags if you explain nicely.