5 Hour layover at IAD - advice please
 

Greetings:

Later this year we will be travelling through IAD arriving from Charlotte on US Airways, connecting on to Bruxelles on United in First Class - this is an award ticket :)

We have a five hour layover at IAD so I thought we would visit the National Air and Space Museum - Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center located near to the airport.

Our main baggage will be through checked, however we will have a couple of roll-aboard carry-ons. Are there any left luggage lockers/storage facilities where we could leave these for our visit? If not, we thought we would take them through to the United First Class lounge and leave them there (we appreciate that these would be unsupervised and left at our own risk). If we did the latter would we then be allowed to exit the airport? (In the UK once checked in and though security it's not always possible to exit, however past experience of US airports suggests that this should be OK).

Also, should we consider visiting anywhere else during our layover?

Any help and advice much appreciated.

I really don't think it's a good idea to try and leave your luggage at the UA lounge; too many bad things can occur.

I'm going to move your thread over to the Washington D.C. Forum so the members there can help with your questions. You may also want to take a look at the following threads:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/washi...ities-iad.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/washi...useum-iad.html

Safe travels,

FlyinHawaiian, Co-Moderator
United Mileage Plus Forum

You can definitely exit security and return at any U.S. airport.

Thanks for the link - the last post is from July 2009! I guess that there are still no lockers to use?

Thanks for confirming this. At my local airport LBA (Leeds-Bradford) here in the UK, once through security, the only way out is on a plane (as we discovered when we had an eight hour delay in December due to the Spanish ATC strike - couldn't leave back through security!)

You have 5hrs from arrival to the next departure? Or it more like after all sercurity/customs/etc. you will have 5 hrs?

If the former, you will probably only have time for the museum.

Our flight arrives from CLT at 1310 and we depart for BRU at 1759 so it looks like we'll only have time for the museum.

Having checked out the links given above it looks like we'll be able to put our carry-ons in lockers at the museum. Problem solved!

I'd be worried about you actually having time for this. Note that the museum is not attached to the terminals; to get there, you have to exit the airport property and re-enter from another side. It's about 2.5 mi away. And you'll probably want to be back at the terminal 2 hours before the international flight.

But if you can pull it off, go for it! It's an excellent experience.

Is this even allowed? At LHR, for example, you cannot leave the BA lounge if you left bags at the luggage check. (though I don't understand why. Same reason removing post-security lockers makes no sense. If you made it through security, you have nothing dangerous. It's like they're admitting security screening is no good).

[QUOTE=SFOSpiff;15615913



Is this even allowed? At LHR, for example, you cannot leave the BA lounge if you left bags at the luggage check. (though I don't understand why. Same reason removing post-security lockers makes no sense. If you made it through security, you have nothing dangerous. It's like they're admitting security screening is no good).[/QUOTE]

....keep your luggage attended. any unattended luggage will be collected and destroyed....

once at lhr, someone left a briefcase beside one of those watch/jewelry counters near us. we were moved, and a bomb type squad came out to collect the package. the owner showed up and took his case. the authorities told him it was a criminal offense to leave that case unattended.

The Museum is interesting, and 5 hours should be suitable. Just keep an eye on the time, since security is not always that fast at IAD. Your plan to keep your carry-on luggage is the best in my opinion. I would never leave bags in the RCC/IFL as you never know what could happen to it.

Thanks again for all the helpful advice.

Following everyones suggestions I have been able to change our CLT-IAD flight to a slightly earlier one that arrives at IAD at 1131, this should now give us a little extra leeway without being rushed in order to visit the museum. Another advantage is that our new flight is on UA (rather than US) so we will have a UA-UA connection in IAD so less chance of baggage going astray.

One further question: do the UA lounges at IAD have shower facilities, or are there showers elsewhere in the airport where we could freshen up prior to our transatlantic flight?

Glad you made the change - now you have good time for visiting the Udvar-Hazy museum.

No showers at any of the 3 RCCs at IAD. The LH lounge next to gate
B51 has showers, but it takes time to get there.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately we have no Star Alliance status so don't think that we'll have access to the LH lounge.

If you are travelling United in International First Class you will (even without Star Alliance elite status) have access to the LH Lounges (there are two - a Business Class Lounge and a LH Senator Lounge). These two lounges are located in the B Concourse (with the Senator Lounge being the nicer of the two). They do have showers. However, as pointed out by another post, they are nowhere near where your UA flight will depart and it would take a bit of time to get there, use the showers and then get to your UA gate in time. Not worth it IMO.