Globaliser

Which tulip festival? And will the shuttle collect you from and return you to the airport? There's luggage storage at the airport itself: https://www.schiphol.nl/en/at-schiphol/services/luggage-storage, and that's pretty convenient if your next step is to go directly to Rotterdam by train. But whether or not this is the best plan for you depends on other factors too.

Funnily enough, it's exactly the same distance from Waterloo station whether or not you have luggage: 600 metres (which is just over a third of a mile) to the Waterloo Road entrance to the station, according to Google Maps.

I see that those who have been asking for a West Coast cruise are getting their wish! On a one-week repo in September 2025, Vancouver to Los Angeles. It looks like the currently-published itinerary for that week may be being modified to cancel Astoria.

In addition, on Sunday 21 April 2024 this would require an overnight stay in London. Connecting in Paris wouldn't work because neither Air France nor KLM operate to Rotterdam.

That seems like a bargain for business class. On the Singapore Airlines website I can see almost exactly that price for premium economy.

Add me to the list of people who didn't know about that specific policy. Clearly, I'm going to have to be very careful in future about recommending that people use the services of London Underground Limited or Docklands Light Railway Limited.

Have a look at these posts: Walk from Southampton Horizon to City terminal? Walk from Southampton Horizon to City terminal?

For all we knew, you might have meant that you were seeing $9000 per person when searching for two passengers. And why do we have to do the mental arithmetic?

Ah, that never happens on trains. And there's no possibility of a misconnection. How silly of me to have forgotten all that. Especially if the Eurostar website seems not to allow you to book a through journey with anything other than the shortest (and riskiest) possible connection at Brussels. For examples, see earlier in this thread.

Which is why so few people travelled by train from Amsterdam to London before there were direct trains (which I think were being introduced independently of the Eurostar/Thalys merger, which happened to have been announced at about the same time). Obviously, if you choose not to fly then you'll have to take other transport even if takes longer and is more inconvenient.

It has to be landside, as all baggage reclaim belts at LHR are inside the secure area (and for international arrivals) before exiting through Customs.

As the crow flies, it's about 300 yards from T3 arrivals (the exit from Customs) to the HGI T2/3. It'll be longer than this by foot, because you have to descend into the underground walkways and get over to the hotel which is more or less attached to T2. But it shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes at a gentle walking pace.

Yes: Brussels to London as normal. In addition, AIUI even Eurostar will still be running from Amsterdam (and Rotterdam) to Brussels. And yes, there will be other trains too from Amsterdam to Brussels. But the real question is: If you have to change at Brussels, which involves clearing immigration there, why would you do this if you can fly, especially if you can fly to a particularly convenient airport? Taking the train direct from Amsterdam to London is (for many people) marginal for time and convenience. Adding a change at Brussels will tip the balance for more people.

I think that Fairgarth's (good) idea was to try to avoid you having to get room service for dinner that night! In the morning, you'll have lots of breakfast options in the terminal as well as in the hotel.

Yes, you need to book both flights at the same time, otherwise you'll be buying one-way tickets in each direction and these could be very expensive. You can only do this for sure when the later flight is open for booking, which will typically be somewhere between 330 and 360 days before departure. (I'm sure that someone here will know the exact length of time for United.) For you, this means that you won't be able to book either flight until about October or November 2024. But as the lowest fares aren't first come first served, and as it'll still be six months or so before your outbound flight (Rome to NYC or wherever), this is unlikely to seriously disadvantage you. If there is some reason why you must book the outbound flight before the inbound flight (NYC or wherever to Rome or wherever) is open for booking, there are techniques for doing that, but they are likely to involve an additional cost.

Heathrow says 11 pm. It's worth noting that this Marks and Spencer is on the arrivals level (ground floor or level 0) - so if you want to go there, you must stay on this level even if the signed route to where you're going tries to take you upstairs. At present the shop is closed for refurbishment. Apparently, it's due to re-open in March 2024.

OK, so if everything is T-5, look at the Sofitel. Yes, it's probably more expensive. But it's going to save you a bunch of time on either end as it's directly connected to T5. Otherwise, you'll still end up taking the train to another terminal. I agree. The Sofitel is a nice way to overnight if you have a T5-T5 connection, especially with a late arrival. Also, staying at T4 requires you to take two trains with a change, each way. If you really want something other than the Sofitel, then the HGI T2/3 is perhaps the next best thing because it's only one stop away on one train. If you're tempted to book another hotel with "T5" in its name (including the other Holiday Inn Express), be very cautious about committing yourself before you have worked out what the transport options are. I think that all of these are off-airport; in addition, many/most of them are outside London, which means that a taxi from the rank isn't obliged to take you, and (perhaps more importantly) isn't obliged to use the meter, so you could get really ripped off. This is particularly important for you because you're arriving late in the evening (plus a one-hour time change) so your energy levels and your tolerance for the (dreadful) Hotel Hoppa bus may be low, and a taxi could be a dangerously alluring prospect. There are other airport hotels in London that don't suffer from this particular taxi problem. A small point: you may want to check the time of your flight from Rome to Heathrow. It may have changed slightly since you booked. The change to the arrival time is not very important, but it's more important for you to know whether the departure time is now a few minutes earlier than you had thought.

Not directly. You need to go one stop from T2/3 to Hatton Cross, cross-platform change, and then take a T4 train from Hatton Cross to T4. So T2/3 to T4 is best done by Heathrow Express / Elizabeth Line (which AIUI operate from the same platforms and are both free for this journey). If the OP could confirm the terminals involved, we might be able to give better advice about hotels for this overnight stay.

Because most passengers will make it, most of the time. If you want less risk, pick different flights.

Which one? How long is your layover? Which terminal are you arriving at, and at what time, and which terminal are you departing from, and at what time? Why do you want to stay at an airport hotel at all?

1:30 is exactly on the published Minimum Connection Time between an ATH-LHR flight operated by BA (arriving at T5) and a LHR-LAX flight operated by AA (departing from T3). At the MCT, the airlines expect that most passengers will still make it, most of the time - but there will be a significant misconnection risk. So it will be worth your while knowing exactly what you must do when you get to LHR (basically, do not clear immigration and customs at LHR, but follow the purple Flight Connections signs), what later LHR-LAX flights you might be rebooked onto on the same day (although there's no guarantee that you'd get rebooked onto another non-stop LHR-LAX), and what your backup plans are in the event that you have to take a 24-hour delay.

There can't be any such resource. Until the seats you don't want are no longer flying for this airline, there can't be any definitive statement, as aircraft substitutions can always occur. You may be able to reduce the risks if you can find out which aircraft type(s) operate which route(s), and how the airline allocates aircraft and configurations on the route(s) that you're thinking of booking. But that would be a good first step anyway, given that Air New Zealand A350 business class seats don't exist (because Air New Zealand A350s don't exist) - which suggests that whatever websites you've been looking at so far may have been misleading you.

Delta operates at Terminal 3 at Heathrow. But if you're going to use a taxi or a car service, that's of less concern to you once the driver knows where you need to go. There are plenty of taxis and plenty of car services. Many CCers usually come along to answer these questions by naming the car service that they always name.

It depends on what you mean by "best", and why. One obvious "best" is a short walk to St James's Park Tube station (the nearest entrance is on Palmer Street, although I think that's only open during the day on weekdays). Take a Westbound District Line train (but not a Wimbledon train, and not a Circle Line train) to Barons Court. Cross-platform change to the Piccadilly Line, but make sure you take a Heathrow train. Exactly what you do after that depends on where at Heathrow you're going, eg which terminal. But this may not be "best" for everyone.

Karma's a *****. 😉