EJetter

It's practically impossible to buy the wrong thing with the Tube ticket machines, there are lots of them, they are easy to use and reliable and take cards. At Heathrow it would be very hard to miss the machines.

Like I said, for most people the Visitor card is the wrong option. If you know you're going to be in a huge hurry and can't spare 5 minutes, or are prone to failing at simple tasks then it could be the right option. Of course it's still possible to order the wrong product (for example ordering a card with only £10 credit when during peak times the gates at Gatwick won't let you through unless you have at least £14 on the card), or face other problems such as the card going missing in the post. I'd rather spend 5 minutes getting my Oyster card on arrival and then spend money saved on shipping and the cost of the card itself on a couple of amazing local beers!

I have travelled to many cities in Europe and the US and obtained whatever travel tickets or passes I needed within minutes and without trouble so I see no reason why London would be any different

:D!

I guess it's just me but I always familiarise myself with the local currency and have some before I arrive in any country I travel to. I don't find lining up to buy a public transport ticket to be stressful. The attractions/activities that draw me to travel in the first place include taking public transport and figuring out how to use ticket machines.

When I first came to London 11 years ago, I managed to get an Oyster card at LHR T3 in less than 5 minutes. And in the past 5 years I have visited 20+ new countries for the first time. Provided that the city's public transport website is well-designed (not always the case) and the tickets I want are actually available to buy at the location where I arrive (sometimes impossible to find out in advance), I haven't had any problems. I think the worst thing that has happened to me is that I boarded a bus in Warsaw from the front door, which I was later told is only done if you need to interact with the driver.

Graciecatt

This is an interesting discussion but I think i can handle getting the card when I arrive. I thought I read there were restrictions with the Visitor Oyster such as not being able to be refunded a deposit and/or balance and there may be others. I also did not think it was possible to receive a regular, non-Visitor Oyster delivered to my house ahead of time.

Our travel plans are to go straight to Windsor Castle from LHR via car service, then take the train into London from Windsor via Paddington and the Tube over to St Pancras/Kings Cross to drop off the luggage at the Renaissance. Then spend the day within zones 1 - 2. The next day we are going to Bletchley Park and other than that will just be using the zone 1 - 2 Oyster.

But I do have to think about getting back to LHR at the end of the trip. My zone 1 -2 Oyster won't cut it so will it be OK to use that if I make sure to top it up with enough GBP? If yes, how much should I load onto it?

My plan upon arrival is to buy a (well, 2, one for each of us) Oysters that I'll preload with 25GBP each, our rail tickets from Windsor to Paddington, RT tickets from Euston to Bletchley, and an outbound ticket from Vauxhall to Queensland Road dated the last day of our stay in order to qualify for the 241 deals.

I was planning to do this upon arrival at LHR, but we are having a car service pick us up and take us directly to Windsor Castle. Now that I type this and think about it, I do not know if I will have time to buy all these tickets prior to being picked up. I guess that depends on where the ticket office is in relation to where we are being picked up as I read that i will have to utilize a live ticket agent instead of a machine b/c I am buying journeys that start and end at different locations than where I will be standing (at LHR).

Is this a correct assumption or can I use machines? And does anyone know if I'll encounter a live ticket agent prior to being picked up by the car service? And while I'm asking questions, the car service (Windsor Cars, LTD) said they will wait beyond immigration/customs holding a sign with our names. We will not be checking bags - does anyone know where they will wait for us?

squeakr

I'm confused?

Graciecatt

I have read that you can leave your luggage for free in the cloakroom. We will be there right when they open so I don't anticipate any space issues.

same as we may bring our luggage to the Natural History Museum and leave straight from there rather than going back to the hotel. That is not free but would give us 2 extra hours.

:D!

I believe you're flying BA so landing at LHR T5. T5 is not the best place to do any ticketing things, if it is even possible, not sure as I wouldn't try it myself. If you bought the tickets online you could collect them at T5 but you need a Chip card - but since you have a driver waiting you probably want to go directly to them, not run around trying to find ticket counters...


So - after immigration you go downstairs to the baggage belts. If you want some GBP cash then use the ATMs here. As you have no checked bags, then you go directly to customs which is a choice of walking under one of three doorways - you will probably choose the green one marked Nothing to Declare, where you have maybe a 1% chance of being stopped by a customs agent for a spot check.

Then you will walk through a mini "duty free" shop and out through some doors into the arrivals area where the driver should be waiting for you with a sign.

Enjoy the castle, then go to Windsor & Eton Central where you can buy your ticket to Paddington (still £10.10) from the ticket office (open until ~7pm) or the ticket machine.

The trains to Slough where you need to change are every 20 minutes, so if you just missed one, you can also buy the ticket to Bletchley from the ticket office, but not the machine. I believe you want the Off-Peak Day Return (outbound valid from 9.15am) which is now £16.60 - there was a fare rise at the beginning of September which I didn't think about when I answered you about the train tickets 2 weeks ago.

At Paddington, you want the Hammersmith and City line (not the Bakerloo or Circle or District). Turn left from the direction of your arriving train and go round to the back of the station and up. There are plenty of machines there to buy the Oysters. Fare to Kings Cross is £2.40.

You can't get a "Zone 1-2 Oyster" for less than 7 days, you just pay for each journey with the funds you topped up - up to a maximum of £6.60 per day if you stay within Z1-2 no matter how many times you travel. Buses have no zones so any bus travel is also included in that.

You can walk from Renaissance to Euston easily.

On your last day, Kings Cross to South Kensington (for Nat Hist Museum) is £2.40, then South Ken to LHR is £3.10 if you enter the system before 4pm - which you really should otherwise you encounter the entire population of Hounslow going home from work.

So adding these up you probably need about £20 on the Oyster, but you can easily add more any time. As long as you end up with less than £10 credit you can refund it plus the £5 deposit. You can only refund Oysters at the ticket office in T5, not the machines. (And you probably don't want to do this but if it were me I would refund the Oysters at the machines in T3 then take the Heathrow Express to T5 for free, since I don't like interacting with these staff - but you shouldn't have any problems)

Lastly, not sure about that extra ticket for the 241, but you mean Queenstown Road not Queensland Road. Since you'll have the inbound ticket from Windsor (but you need to ask them to let you through the ticket barriers otherwise the barriers will retain the ticket) and an outbound to Bletchley, maybe that would qualify?

Graciecatt

Wow your whole post was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that out. I am copying and pasting the entire post into my Tripit notes.

I wasn't very clear in my post - I am planning to get all my tube/rail tickets/Oyster at Windsor and Eton Central when we arrive there because I'm assuming we'll have some down time prior to the Castle opening if our flight is on time.

I'll need the Queenstown Road outbound ticket dated the last day of my stay to qualify for 241 for all 4 days and we are going to Bletchley on Day 2 so that wouldn't count.

editing to add - we are going to Bletchley on Sunday. The National Rail website lists all journeys at 16.60GBP regardless of time. So I don't think we will be limited to 9:15 am and beyond for that fare.

As to our last day, we could easily spend the entire day at the Natural History Museum (and my daughter is a professional scientist) but if we do end up having some time, I could see popping into Harrod's and then leaving for LHR from Knightsbridge station. I planned to leave for LHR no later than 4:30 but thank you for the 4 pm tip - I will probably do that as I am deathly afraid of airport-related travel delays and not leaving enough time to get to/through the airport.

I have read conflicting information as to whether the Natural History Museum will collect luggage. Their website says they do but I read that the issue is space. We won't have anything big - just proper carryon sized bags and a personal bag each. So that might be an option but I was also reading about this service https://www.citystasher.com/search/N...125&luggages=1 and was wondering if anyone had used them and if they were safe. They have a location sort of near the History Museum, but another one really near Harrod's.

:D!

That's fine, except that you can't do Oyster at Windsor, so you'll have to buy them at Paddington H&C tube station as I said.

OK, that makes sense. And yes the time restrictions for the Bletchely day return only apply Mon-Fri, so you can travel any time on Sunday.

If you arrive at the NHM when it opens then the cloakroom will be empty... another option would be the V&A museum opposite and it looks like it's actually cheaper https://www.vam.ac.uk/visit#families

flatlander

The V&A has a cloakroom that claims to accept even large suitcases, which is very helpful. They quote three costs, for small bag, cabin size bag, and large suitcase. The Natural History Museum implies they will also store larger bags. I see nothing to prevent you from depositing your bags at one of these and then going to other museums as long as you get back to the first one to retrieve your bag before the cloakroom closes. The V&A, Natural History and Science Museums are next to each other.

The British Museum say they do not allow any larger bags or wheeled suitcases, so a maximum size carryon may fall foul of the door dragons there. Plan your museum visits accordingly.

NWIFlyer

A couple of months ago I was in the Holborn area and was going to visit the British Museum, not realising there were massively increased security measures in place including x-ray of all bags and metal detectors, having previously just walked in. The queue was so long I didn't bother. I'm not clear as to whether or not these measures are still in place, or if they also apply to the museums around South Kensington.

If they are, presumably that might make the entry process rather more tedious for the OP, increasing potential search time, and indeed I can see that there may be some items permitted in checked luggage that would not be allowed in the museums now.

Ldnn1

I went a few months ago too and there was indeed a huge queue of people waiting to have their bags x-rayed. I simply walked round it and bypassed the whole procedure entirely. I'm not sure if this was actually allowed because I only had a small bag, or if it was just a matter of no one spotting me, but either way it worked and I strolled straight in.

Graciecatt

But can I buy my Oyster card there so I get all my ticket buying out of the way at one time? I guess you meant that i couldn't even buy my Oyster at Windsor station, regardless of not being able to use it at that time.

All of this x-ray discussion might also be a good reason for using the Citystasher spots - drop off and go with reservation from what I'm reading. On the other hand, we do intend to get to the Natural History museum a little before opening so hopefully the line wouldn't be too long. And I would imagine that collecting our luggage upon leaving wouldn't involve a queue.

I definitely thought about leaving the luggage at the museum if we ducked out to Harrod's or someplace then coming back to the museum to retrieve it. Would we need proof of previous entry in order to get in without waiting at a ticket or door queue? Could we just walk back in and get the luggage?

NWIFlyer

Personally, I just went to the pub ...

flatlander

I haven't experienced long queues lately at the BM, but there is definitely a bag search. If you have no bags then you can bypass the bag search. It's a bag search not a personal search.

There are two entrances to the BM, the back entrance near Russell Square is often less busy than the front entrance, unless a large group has arrived in front of you. I usually use the back entrance (partly because that's where the members' cloakroom is ).

WorldLux

Not that hard to find the machines. The machines tell you if they accept cash, cards or both. It takes 10 sec to recharge a card. Don't know about issuing a new one (haven't done that in years), but can't be any longer than a minute. And from my recent expierience at LHR T123 station there's not wait. Just walk into the station where you'll find at least a dozen of machines (There's always a queue at the three machines just outside the station that are presumably used by people that don't know about the existence of additional machines just prior to the ticket gates). Moreover, there are usually several customer service agents ready to help out.


I would definitely give them a call and ask beforehand. Lots of places have bag searches in operation and some venues even prohibit larger items. There's a huge tent for bag searches at the main gate of the BM. The Tate Modern is conducting bag searches as well (Don't enter via the river entrance, where most enter. Enter on the opposite side or via the Turbine hall entrance and avoid lengthy queues).The RA conducts bag searches as well.

(IIRC, my bag wasn't searched at Tate Britain.)