Easiest Way To Stay, Park & Ride In to Olympia London

mew

We are looking at going to an event next March at London Olympia and am wondering what would be the easiest way of doing it.

We don't like driving into London and find the parking charges extortionate, so we would be looking at a cheap hotel like a Travelodge, premier inn etc anywhere north of London with reasonable parking and with easy access to Olympia and possibly the west end for a Saturday matinee show.

At the moment we are considering Hemel Hempstead or Stevenage as they are easy to get to from home and we can usually find a cheap Holiday Inn/Express but surly there ere better options?

susancs

The problem with staying at Hemel Hempsted or Stevenage is that you will be using British Rail to get into London and this does work out expensive compared to using London Transport. You could maybe look at coming a bit further in towards London and looking at the Premier Inn, Holiday Inn near Watford for cheaper fares. The Holiday Inn at Watford Junction is beside the train station and you can get a direct service from there to Kensington Olympia that takes about 30 minutes or 20 minutes into Euston on the fast train (avoid the slower train that calls at lots of stations). It is on the London Overground train route so you can use Oyster card on it so £2.70 each way with oyster from Watford jct to Kensington Olympia according to the single fare finder and the cheapest fare from Hemel Hempsted to Kensington Olympia seems to be £12 each way.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/faresandtickets/farefinder/current/default.aspx

The train station itself has a car park so you could look at staying at one of the nearby Premier Inns with parking and driving to the train station to park up.

Another option you might want to consider is parking up at a large tube station car park like Stanmore for a couple of days and getting the tube in and staying at a hotel in London.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/tubestationcarparks/default.aspx

mew

susancs wrote: »

The problem with staying at Hemel Hempsted or Stevenage is that you will be using British Rail to get into London and this does work out expensive compared to using London Transport. You could maybe look at coming a bit further in towards London and looking at the Premier Inn, Holiday Inn near Watford for cheaper fares. The Holiday Inn at Watford Junction is beside the train station and you can get a direct service from there to Kensington Olympia that takes about 30 minutes or 20 minutes into Euston on the fast train (avoid the slower train that calls at lots of stations). It is on the London Overground train route so you can use Oyster card on it so £2.70 each way with oyster from Watford jct to Kensington Olympia according to the single fare finder and the cheapest fare from Hemel Hempsted to Kensington Olympia seems to be £12 each way.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/faresandtickets/farefinder/current/default.aspx

The train station itself has a car park so you could look at staying at one of the nearby Premier Inns with parking and driving to the train station to park up.

Another option you might want to consider is parking up at a large tube station car park like Stanmore for a couple of days and getting the tube in and staying at a hotel in London.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/tubestationcarparks/default.aspx

Thanks for the suggestion , I've had a look and as long as I can get a hotel at a good price, Staying near Watford Jct looks the best for us. :beer:

Hemel (Apsley) would have been £17.75 with a F&F railcard and more from Stevenage but I've just checked Watford Jct and because it's a train (rather than tube) its only £10.75 return to Olympia for all 3 of us (bargain!). It's more to get into London but still cheaper than where I was looking.