Central london shopping

loanranger_4

Took the family shopping yesterday and the cost breakdown is as follows :

Petrol - £25
Congestion charge - £5
Parking - £13
Food - £21

That's £64 before we bought anything !! And it took about 2.5 hours to get there (25 miles) thanks to the traffic jams outside of the congestion parking zone !

Think I'll stick with online shopping.

Bossyboots

You would have been better parking in the outskirts and getting the tube or bus in. If you had young children with you a family travelcard for the day would have been a good option.

nalibz

Bossyboots wrote:

You would have been better parking in the outskirts and getting the tube or bus in. If you had young children with you a family travelcard for the day would have been a good option.

The whole point of petrol tax and the congestion charge is to be expensive and put people off using it.

Maybe the train would have been a better option and bossyboots points out

loanranger_4

Public transport ? I hadn't thought of that!

Will give this a go, and the novelty of the train should keep the young one entertained !

Thanks

moggins

LOL, we parked in a zone 6 and travelled in by underground when we spent a weekend there in January, best £6 we ever spent! We couldn't get the kids off the underground, they treated it as an amusement ride all weekend.

SnowyOwl_2

So now everyone has you educated about public transport and how easy and so much cheaper it is compared to taking the car going to central London. That still leaves the question of lunch. Did you go to a cafe, restaurant, McD's or something? Crazy if you did!! One of the joys of central London is that Hyde Park is right by Oxford St, a mere stone's throw from Selfridges and that big M&S, and Hyde Park is wonderful for picnics. Two options really - carry everything with you (a bit of a chore that one) or else go into M&S or Selfridges foodhall, or the Tesco metro sort of opposite, buy some rolls, a little tub of marg, some bits and pieces from the deli counter...some fruit (wow!), maybe a ready made salad and a few little bottles of water or pop...there you go, a fabulous al fresco picnic. OK so it won't be as cheap as a meal at home, but then again it definitely won't be as dear as any eaterie in the middle of London. Just don't ask me what you should do if it was raining....

HLK

Also, as detailed elsewhere on this site if you travel by train you can take advantage of ..
http://www.london2for1.com/2for1/
where you will find lots of moneysaving offers..including eating out! I just hope they extend it til June which is when I woudl like to go!

Coolhandluke

Am thinking of going in June myself,any recommendations with regard to places to stay?

loanranger_4

Thanks for your ideas.

I'm guilty of using Selfridges facilities for parking, cafe, shopping, indeed everything.

I'm going to try to persuade Mrs loanranger to go for a stroll in Hyde Park to try out her latest Marni's she's just purchased!

Eliza252

Coolhandluke wrote:

Am thinking of going in June myself,any recommendations with regard to places to stay?

Do you mean you are thinking of going to central london in June to stay?
You could stay in the generator backpackers, on Tavistock Place - a fifteen minute walk to Oxford Street, 10 mins to British Museum, 5 mins to Kings Cross etc etc.

Depends how hardy you are though - you can get dorm rooms for £10 a night and its clean and comfortable - on the downside its defo no frills attached and the decor is eerr.. interesting and you will not get a good nights sleep as most people are there to party so you will probs get woken up by incoming backpackers at three am (unless you took advantage of their stupidly cheap bar before you went to bed of course! - nothing wrong with a bit of anaesthetic in those circumstances!) - I managed to actually live there for a week when I was homeless (between flats) and it was ok.
- on the plus side £10 includes all you can eat breakfast which is actually very good!

Book in advance in the summer!

Eliza252

loanranger wrote:

Thanks for your ideas.

I'm guilty of using Selfridges facilities for parking, cafe, shopping, indeed everything.

I'm going to try to persuade Mrs loanranger to go for a stroll in Hyde Park to try out her latest Marni's she's just purchased!

nb. loanranger - my jaw drops at the idea that you even attempted to drive into central london to go shopping!
nb. I love Selfridges though! - I usually just go in there to try on perfume and nick ideas from the chocolate counter (plus freebies) - (I make my own chocs!) - £56 probs would have got you a taxi from the train station to the front door of the store! (arrive in style!)