GABIT attendees thread

[SEREN LWCH (MAL)]

388
Days to go until AT4!!!!!!!!!!!

[Skydiver]

i know that the thursday rooms will go fast. cause there's not as many as the other nights

as to driving, you know if you rent a car it's a 10 pound a day parking charge

rather than doing that, there's a free bus that'll get you to the nearest tube stations - there's two at heathrow and one a bit down the road, and then you can tube where you want to go. or take the bus..

we made it to hampton court palace on the bus. took about 45 minutes and the conceirge didn't warn us that it wound through the neighborhoods, so we got on at 9am, right when all the grocery shoppers headed out so it was crowded, but hey, for a couple of pounds we got where we needed to go

given the difficulties of an international drivers license and parking and the such, i personally would just depend on publicc transit, unless you're talking days/weeks of being there

[Tittamiire]

I'd agree with Sky that you don't want to rent a car and have it sitting outside the Ren while you pay for both car rental and parking. Plus most touristy places are easier to access by public transport compared to driving a car. If you want to visit any of the places in London proper then bus, trains and the tube are the only practical way of getting there. If you want to visit other major cities within England then I'd still recomend public transport.

The funnest things to do at AT4 will be free and you don't need to go anywhere...i.e. hanging around with all your fellow loonies

And Cel I did warn you that there wouldn't be anything in Heathrow lol.

[ames]

I agree - you don't want a car if you're just looking to do touristy things in London.
If you want to hit major cities, the rail links from London are usually quite good - it's just jumping from city to city that can be a bit troublesome, as the main rail routes all head to London =P
Public transport is usually pretty good - the bus drivers as a whole tend to be very friendly and helpful, and if there's someplace specific you're itching to get to, just ask here - quite a few of us have spent time in various locations in the UK and can give helpful hints if you so desire!
As for the drivers license complications and whatnot - as long as you have a valid full DL from your country of origin, you can rent a car. Just remember that everything seems backwards if you're from NA - except the pedals are still in the same order, which sort of threw me - I expected everything to be the opposite =P I found the highways to be just like home, really, but the city/village streets tend to be more narrow, having the street info written on the actual pavement was a tad distracting, and roundabouts are a whole new set of fun...but you'll pick it up quickly! (For your sanity's sake, avoid anything called a 'magic' roundabout. Just trust me on this one, okay? It hurts my head just to contemplate it, let alone try to navigate it at proper speed!)

[SWMBOTGSG]

And don't forget the cost of petrol (gas). We pay around £1 per LITRE for the stuff! Bearing in mind that there are around 4.4 litrs per imperial gallon, we are talking a small fortune in fuel.

Parking and driving in Central London is not to be recommended unless you have nerves of steel. I lived most of my life in London, and I wouldn't drive there now if you paid me!

Public transport is definately to be recommended for touristy jaunts around our great capital city.

Mumsey

[~Sarah~]

Cool auction story. I think this for some is the highlight of the weekend and lots of people get quite excited while there. Some of those prices are crazy expensive, but its all for a good cause. Next year I'll be amongst those crazies as I plan on bidding and hopefully bringing home a few things myself.

Roadtrip..yay! Ya gotta do it! I'm probably gonna do the hostel route (cos of the time of year AT4 takes place in) and do some major sightseeing around England before heading across to Belgium and then back to London for the con. Thats my loose plans as of now but its certainly something to get excited about.

Sightseeing trips are really my favorite... And for the auction: I'll probably be right there watching everything.... If nothing else, I think that they provide great entertainment.... Especially when two people want the same thing.... And neither is really willing to give it up...

I agree - you don't want a car if you're just looking to do touristy things in London.
If you want to hit major cities, the rail links from London are usually quite good - it's just jumping from city to city that can be a bit troublesome, as the main rail routes all head to London =P
Public transport is usually pretty good - the bus drivers as a whole tend to be very friendly and helpful, and if there's someplace specific you're itching to get to, just ask here - quite a few of us have spent time in various locations in the UK and can give helpful hints if you so desire!
As for the drivers license complications and whatnot - as long as you have a valid full DL from your country of origin, you can rent a car. Just remember that everything seems backwards if you're from NA - except the pedals are still in the same order, which sort of threw me - I expected everything to be the opposite =P I found the highways to be just like home, really, but the city/village streets tend to be more narrow, having the street info written on the actual pavement was a tad distracting, and roundabouts are a whole new set of fun...but you'll pick it up quickly! (For your sanity's sake, avoid anything called a 'magic' roundabout. Just trust me on this one, okay? It hurts my head just to contemplate it, let alone try to navigate it at proper speed!)

Everyone: Thank you for the advice.... since the trip is still in the planning stages, I still am not sure exactly what I plan... But I knew I could throw the ideas into the ring here and would get a yay or nay on it....
As for driving, it depends on exactly how long I think I'll stay... roundabouts don't really scare me much, we have them here in my home state(which after travelling overseas make me squee a bit....) and you would laugh at how many people think they're not that great... But I think I'll stick to public transportation....
There are so many great things that I've heard of...

[Skydiver]

sio and i managed to see

the tower of london
tower bridge
shakespeare's theater
the london eye
big ben
st paul's
buckingham palace
westminster abbey
the museum
sherlock holmes house

and on a later trip hampton court palace

and we used the tube for all of them. well the bus for hampton, but it was public transit

even when we went from london to....damn what was the city? for Avalon?

anyway, we made it there using national rail, then a bus. and when sue and i went from london to nottingham, we took a train then had friends of hers to take us around to sight see in their car

my point is, anywhere in london, you can get there on public transit. just takes some studying of the tube map

and if you can't make heads or tails of it, just ask. the people htat live there need help, so they're used to tourists needing it

You can even buy day passes that start around 9am and are good all day, on tube or bus

and if you wnat to see some of hte random sights, the london tour busses often have 'hop on/hop off' ability. buy a ticket and use the bus to hop around for 24 hours.

In a lot of cases, your sights are all within a mile or three of each other, so one stop, little walking, and you can see several things

what sio and i planned was one/two places in the am, lunch, 1/2 in the afternoon, depending on how close they were to each other. y ou sightsee in geographical order...what's close to each other
and then budget an hour to 90 minutes to travel between points

most every tube station has fast food or restaurants, and many sightseeing places have little restaurants, so food isn't an issue.

[ScifigirlSG]

What was the cost for the tube and the buses?

[Skydiver]

i can't remember, i wanna think 3-5 pounds for a day pass

but a londoner can tell you for sure

[Skydiver]

google is a wonderful thing

the official site for the london underground
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modalpages/2625.aspx
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/2930.aspx
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresa...ares/5196.aspx



One thing...if you're gonna travel from city to city, buy the tickets in advance. buy them a month in advance (pulling a date and prices out of my head) and a 50 pound fare becomes a 12 pound fare

quite often you can look up the sites you want to see, find the closest station, then ride and walk

hatton cross, i THINK, is the station closest to the hotel. and it's a free bus ride away

look at the map page

the numbers are zones and you buy your fares per zone. more zones, more expensive obviously.

all you gotta know is what stop is closest to the attraction you want to see, get on at hatton cross, get off at the station that is either closest to the attraction you want to see, or at the station that has a connection to the line that takes you there, and then it's just a matter of following signs

during hte day, there are tubes every few minutes...maybe as long as every 10 minutes, so it's a minor delay in changing tubes

for example, wimbleton is closest to hampton court palace, so you either take a bus to hatton cross, take the blue line (Picadilly) to acton town, change there to the green line(district), take it to wimbleton station...or take the 111 buss to hampton court palace. (they're all named and color coded)

dunno the fare for the tube, but the bus fare was 2 pounds each way

the only difficulty is if one is handicapped....not all the stations are ADA accessible, so you have to plan accordingly

all it takes to navigate the london transit system is paying attention, having a map and being willing to ask questions

the places where you see the two horizontal lines intersected by the diagonal one, that's national rail, where you'll get the trains out of town. And some like Victoria or Paddngton are major bus terminals too, so you can stop going underground and go over ground

[Fresh_Horse]

What was the cost for the tube and the buses?

i can't remember, i wanna think 3-5 pounds for a day pass

but a londoner can tell you for sure

I had a day pass for the tube for 4 £.
There is another one for 7 £ which includes more zones if you want to visit the outer skirts of London.

Can't remember what I paid for the bus day pass, I think it was something like 3.5 £.

Make sure you have cash and ask someone at the ticket machine. They are all extremely helpful.

[ScifigirlSG]

Thanks for the info.

[SEREN LWCH (MAL)]

387
Days to go until AT4!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tittamiire]

and if you can't make heads or tails of it, just ask. the people htat live there need help, so they're used to tourists needing it.

...or me...every time I'm in London someone asks me for directions and I really don't know London well enough to know where I am never mind directing anyone else.

Though the best one was when me and my best mate had decided to have a weekend in Oxford and were doing 'shekel for an old ex-leper' impressions down the high street and someone stopped us and asked for directions. Seriously...what on earth posessed them to ask the two loonies skipping in circles down the middle of a busy street?

[Skydiver]

people did that to sio and me too, asked us for directions and we're like 'we're tourists too'