London Heathrow layover

Lee Mossel

We, a family party of six, will have an 11 hour layover at Heathrow. Any suggestions on going into London? Tours? Transportation? Timing? This will be June 16th.

British

Try this. https://www.londontoolkit.com/tours/heathrow_windsor_tour.htm. I just did a quick google of Layover tours from Heathrow and this was one of several that came up. I do vaguely remember my son visiting I believe Denmark a few months ago with a group of friends visiting friends there and they had a long layover, I cannot remember which way the layover was, coming or going, but some of the group had barely been on a plane, but were eager to see anything of England. So he somehow arranged a trip to Windsor from Heathrow, it was a semi disaster, their flight was late arriving, it was a Sunday, little was open, they were able to grab a quick meal in a pub of limited choice because they had officially stopped serving. Then it was time to head back to Heathrow. I think this was maybe an Uber trip. Anyway, the above Company looks as if they have it all in hand, there must be a huge market for such tours.
We try to avoid going through Heathrow whenever possible because it is huge and busy, but often it is unavoidable. We have a long layover there later in the year and my husband would never consider the hassle of leaving Heathrow because he would be so paranoid about the risk of missing a flight because of long security lines. We have missed several flights passing through Heathrow due to late arrivals and long security lines. That happen 'airside' too.
I am travelling back from a trip to England via Heathrow in August (Ahhh! Not my choice, I am going with a group to sing) I will be sure to arrive at the airport three hours before departure time in crazy August.

Richardb

Lee, I live in the UK and suggest that you think very carefully about taking a trip away from Heathrow. You do not say which part of the day your stopover is. 11 hours sounds a long time, but I expect the start is the stated time of aircraft landing. Don't under estimate the time taken to get the aircraft to its stand, get out of the plane then through the vast airport corridors and out of the airport especially if you have to claim your bags at this end as you pass through. Allowing , say, a even a couple of hours for all that, then when you get back maybe up to 3 hours to get back in again that leaves just 6 hours. Depending on your onward destination you might even have to depart from a different terminal at the airport (there are 5). Heathrow is not in the centre of town so you will have travel time +/- 1 hour to wherever you go, although the Windsor idea sounds closest. Timewise, you will be arriving just a couple of days after the huge week long National celebrations of our Queen's "Official" 90th birthday celebrations in central London. The week before your arrival there is a huge event (horses) at Windsor, an enormous picnic in the Mall on the Sunday and of course the Queen's Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour) on the Saturday.
OK, you will miss all that, but I guess the place will be pretty much still heaving with people so getting places, doing something positive, then getting back in time could be a challenge.
Not trying to put you off, just saying as it is. I hope all this is helpful.
Richard

karen1672

Just returned from Europe with a 4 hour layover in Heathrow. If you hire a driver you might be able to get into the city to see some sites but that will be expensive. London is very busy and you can not predict how long traffic and attractions will take. Personally I would fear missing my connection. Even with a 4 hour layover we did not have a great deal of time. We were not assigned a gate until the last moment and all passengers were put on buses and driven to an entirely different area of the airport and boarded the plane on the tarmac as a gate was unavailable.