6 hour wait with 1.5yr old at LHR on *arrival* - what to do?

Hi all - need some suggestions what to do at LHR on arrival with time to kill.

We land at LHR @8am next week on an overnight flight from NYC, UC, 2 adults and a lap infant (who's becoming a handful ...) but the MIL does not arrive till 2pm that same day from West Coast. That means about 6hrs of waiting. We'll go the the Revivals lounge of course, but can't really spend 6 hrs there (and it closes at 1.30pm, right?) or... can/should we - no better option? Are there any cribs in Revivals at all? a darker area for babe to nap?

Alternatively, is there an in terminal hotel to go and let the babe sleep it off there? It's much too rude to charge off into London and let a 70year old MIL fend for herself at LHR, so that's not happening, and we've got to tough this one out... somehow! Any suggestions welcomed!

Thanks

Couldn't one of you go ahead with the infant and the other wait for the MIL ?

if she also flying UC and her fare code eligible for the limo service (or you could add it as an extra) then i'd let the limo take the strain

it's a very short walk from the security barriers to the limo desk, 10-30 seconds depending on how fast one moves, once there they'll carry her bags to the car and whisk her into london

or, as above, one of you stay while the other heads into london

if you're set on a group greeting, go into london on arrival, travel back out to meet her, though the ease of this will depend on where you're staying

arrivals is ok, but i wouldn't want to spend more than 1-2 hours in there, just time for a relaxed shower and brekkie

there are several hotels located near to LHR that offer day rates so that might be an option.

But what are you plans when you arrive at LHR? Staying in the UK? Another flight out that day. Let us know that and we may be able to offer other advice.

Also if IIRC there are no beds / quite areas in revivals. It's very much designed as an in and out operation and not somewhere to linger for hours.

[mitchja]

One thing I've done a couple of times with an extended connection time is book a 'room/pod' at the Yotel located in terminal 4. The minimum stay you can book is 4 hours I think and you have to get from T3 to T4, though that's very easy using the free Heathrow Express trains. There are both single pods with a single bed and also double ones available. The pods are very compact especially with your luggage, however, the are much cheaper than a full hotel room and are more than adequate for a few hours rest etc. They all have a shower, WC, bed & TV.

Full details can be found here.

[honey lamb]

It's much too rude to charge off into London and let a 70year old MIL fend for herself at LHR, so that's not happening,

As a soon-to be 70 year old (like tomorrow!), I'm outraged at the suggestion that she is unable to fend for herself. If she can get from the West Coast of America by herself, surely she can look after herself until the time you can meet up. You do not say what your onward travel plans are, but Mums, MILs and Grannies are quite capable of looking after themselves until you can meet up and she would much rather you entertain (and tire out) your child so that normal bedtime can be resumed. We (nearly) 70 year olds aren't as old as you think!!

Of course if MIL has a disability/condition that requires assistance, then I apologise for my rant and hold my head in shame - but otherwise, 70 is the new 50!

Few hours in Legoland? its only 20mins (on a good day) from Heathrow

Congratulations and Happy Birthday Honey Lamb - wish you many more years of globe trotting, and TR's!!

+1 to HL's post (Happy Birthday, trust you're going to celebrate in style).

FGS the OP's MIL is, like the rest of us of that generation, more than capable of navigating LHR and meeting up wherever. In her place I would already have told OP that I'd see him in the bar of the (insert name of 5 star hotel) sitting beside a half-empty bottle of good champagne.

Those of us of that vintage have been driving since the dawn of time, navigating airports since before the OP was born, were using what passed for the internet when it was dial-up and there was no Google (yes really, those days did exist, there was something called DogPile from memory), so why on earth the OP thinks a 70 year old can't cope alone is beyond belief.

But as HL says, maybe she has some disability, in which case I'll go join HL in detention.

Those of us of that vintage have been driving since the dawn of time, navigating airports since before the OP was born, were using what passed for the internet when it was dial-up and there was no Google (yes really, those days did exist, there was something called DogPile from memory), so why on earth the OP thinks a 70 year old can't cope alone is beyond belief.

Dogpile? What's that?

There appears to be a web search engine there at the moment. Did it used to be a popular one amongst certain people?

I've been using the web since Mosaic 1.0 (precursor of netscape, precursor of mozilla), and remember yahoo, altavista for a long time, then spiders such as alltheweb (ones which gather other web search results) before google came in. I can also remember webcrawler, lycos and ask jeeves in there too... But no dogpile.

Those of us of that vintage have been driving since the dawn of time, navigating airports since before the OP was born, were using what passed for the internet when it was dial-up and there was no Google (yes really, those days did exist, there was something called DogPile from memory), so why on earth the OP thinks a 70 year old can't cope alone is beyond belief.

Dogpile? What's that?

There appears to be a web search engine there at the moment. Did it used to be a popular one amongst certain people?

I've been using the web since Mosaic 1.0 (precursor of netscape, precursor of mozilla), and remember yahoo, altavista for a long time, then spiders such as alltheweb (ones which gather other web search results) before google came in. I can also remember webcrawler, lycos and ask jeeves in there too... But no dogpile.

Well dogpile was around the same time as all them mentioned.
I remember the internet when it didn't even have browsers. 14.4k dial up and then everything was done in terminal sessions & text only.

kids got it so easy these days!

Thanks all for helpful suggestions! I guess splitting up is worth considering, though wrangling a child and luggage and pushchair solo seems a bit much of either of us.

Yes, MIL is very capable, but she's heading on to COO, in Benin, W Africa, after Christmas (family) so will have monstrously big suitcases. Sadly no, she's not UC, (she's not suffered from the same lifestyle creep as us) so no Limo. I could book her a car service though, why not?

Alternatively, I will check out Yotel, thanks for that suggestions. very helpful.

Well dogpile was around the same time as all them mentioned.
I remember the internet when it didn't even have browsers. 14.4k dial up and then everything was done in terminal sessions & text only.

kids got it so easy these days!

Well, if you are talking about the likes of compuserve forums the like, I don't think that was the internet. Nor BBS's. Though being on a vax computer on janet in university, and posting on usenet, that was the internet. I think I've got posts on there from around 1985...

One of my bugbears is people calling the worldwide web "the internet". Sorry, email, ftp and forums predated this by a long long time.... BBC Click does that all the time though, which is why I don't watch it. A tech show with a basic fail, well, how can you trust that's view of technology...

Well dogpile was around the same time as all them mentioned.
I remember the internet when it didn't even have browsers. 14.4k dial up and then everything was done in terminal sessions & text only.

kids got it so easy these days!

Well, if you are talking about the likes of compuserve forums the like, I don't think that was the internet. Nor BBS's. Though being on a vax computer on janet in university, and posting on usenet, that was the internet. I think I've got posts on there from around 1985...

One of my bugbears is people calling the worldwide web "the internet". Sorry, email, ftp and forums predated this by a long long time.... BBC Click does that all the time though, which is why I don't watch it. A tech show with a basic fail, well, how can you trust that's view of technology...

Thats why I said the internet didn't have browsers 'o) - The internet would not be the world wide success it is without web browsers. Just like Microsoft wouldn't be the success it is without Windows. Compuserve (like AOL) was very much a closed system. You did used to have sites/pages you would telnet to that would look very much like BBS, except they was not stand alone, you just typed in the BBS address in telnet, rather than dialing a specific number.
Different to the BBS that used to advertise in the back of Computer Weekly!

Wow - what a lot of thread creep!

To answer the OP's question - with a baby that may well be a "handful" I'd strongly recommend getting a day room in a local hotel - then the parents can take turns napping while baby is kept busy (or even sleeps themselves!) after such disruption to their routine.

And probably arrange a car to take you all onwards when MIL arrives, to make it easier with the luggage.