Omlet cube and run

[soapdragon]

OMG - what a wuss I am OH is off to Japan the Sunday before BH and back the Sunday OF BH and seems to think it would be a good idea for 2 by DS and I to meet him at the airport! As someone who has only pottered round the Oxforshire lanes for the past 10 years or so I am wimping hugely! How easy is terminal 5 to find from the M40 Oxford side/M25?

 

Are the terminals clearly signposted and is the short stay car park obvious? When everyone has stopped laughing at this unbelivable lemon I'd appreciate directions and reassurance!!!

 

Bless him, he did offer to bring me back a kimono but, given that most Japanese women seem to be petite and I am a generous 14and a bit tall I thought I could wear it as a shrug!!!

[Geoid]

Heathrow airport is very well signposted, you cant miss the short stay car park as it says Short Stay Car Park over the entrance in big letters (although, it is quite expensive, £2.50 for half hour)

[Seagazer]

I feel your pain as I had to pick my DD up when she'd been to America. I took my mum along for moral support and we had to go to Terminal 4. Hubby said to ignore the sat nav when I got to the airport and just follow the signs, I wish I had as I ended up driving around for ages to find T4! Got there in the end though and parking was fine.

 

I'd never picked anyone up from the airport before. I've no idea about T5 although I have been there but we got a taxi there and from Kent direction.

[patsylabrador]

Easy to say I know but don't worry, when you join the M25 from the M40 Heathrow is west bound and I think it's signposted. I think terminal 5 has it's own junction, not quite sure. Parking there is a doddle and you'll wonder why you worried. Nowadays we tend to do that Google street map thing to familiarise ourselves with the route if it's possible & I'm not sure of navigation.

If you go wrong, which I frequently do you can just go round again. By the way that stretch of the M25 is often clogged

at weekends and on a bad day can be a nightmare. If you have a satnav and traffic is v heavy, think about going down M40 a bit more to Polish Memorial roundabout & take A30 towards Heathrow. Tiresome but not as tiresome as jam on M25. This is all off the top of my head, I'll doublecheck what I've said and correct any mistakes tomorrow and some more details about A30 route. Hope it helps a bit anyway.

[BeckyBoo]

Terminal 5 is easier than the other terminals because it has it's own slip road in from the M25! The other terminals are off the A4 and can be quite confusing, especially with a million aggressive taxi drivers trying to get in the lane you want to get in!! But terminal 5 is signposted from the M25, has it's own slip road so you can't easily end up at Gatwick or terminal 2!!

 

And yes, parking is a bloomin' rip off - collected a friend from terminal 3 last week and my dad from one of them a month or so ago - £6 for an hour and half or something with my dad!!! BUT, if it's a Sunday, you can always drive to Hatton Cross railway where you can park for NOTHING and catch the shuttle bus in!! I've taken the kids there before (sad I know) because the planes virtually skim the top of your head as they take off and land - you can almost read the menu sheets in first class

 

BeckyBoo

[rural]

Very easy all terminals at LHR are clearly marked so there shouldnt be any problems.

[Willow]

Terminal 5 is the easiest heathrow terminal to get to and for meeting arrivals.

 

The only thing to be careful of is note your car park level and note which bank of lifts you get out of as some lifts don't go to every level (this may just be to get to and from the drop off point). There's a coffee shop opposite where you meet arrivals.

 

Taxis usually lurk at the drop off point to collect people to avoid the short term parking but the people they are collecting do need to be familiar with the terminal and which lift goes to which drop off point level.

[Ziggy]

We live in Oxford and DH is a frequent traveller, so we've seen our fair share of T5... as everyone else has said, it's quite easy. Once you're on the M25, the next three exits are all for Heathrow, the first is to T1, 2 and 3, the second is to T5 and the third is to T4. The T5 exit just goes to T5, so once you're off you won't need to join other roads or look for more signs, once you leave the M25 you can see the terminal ahead of you and parking is very well sign posted.

The only thing to watch out if you're a nervous driver (as I am!), is that the exit to T5 is not just a slip road with only cars exiting the M25. There are also cars joining there. So as you have passed the T1, 2 and 3 exit, you'll soon find yourself with a couple of extra lanes appearing on your left. You'll want to go in these lanes to exit for T5. The signs above the road clearly tell you that, so don't worry, you won't miss it. But those two lanes come from somewhere (not sure where from, never paid attention, maybe T1, 2 and 3?) and the cars coming from there invariably want to be in your lane to join the M25, while you want to be in their lane to exit the M25, so it's a case of 'traffic exchange' between the lanes, and invariably there will be cars coming real fast on your left trying to join the M25 by getting ahead of you, so be careful when joining your exit lanes, for any fast oncoming traffic 'behind you'. You don't need to panic as the stretch of road to switch lanes is reasonably long, so there is no mad rush to join the left lanes.

I hope I haven't made it sound too complicated... if you go at a quiet time it's really straightforward, but when I drive there at rush hour I find this 'people joining while others are trying to exit' a bit chaotic! I do manage it though, so don't worry, if I, who usually just refuses to drive anywhere near London or the M25, can do it, you'll be just fine.

[soapdragon]

Thanks everyone I knew I could rely on all the lovely Forum people to reassure me Will post again once DH is safely collected and let you know how lost I got (only joking! ) at least he is being collected next Sunday and I've only to pick up the following week!

[PapaJuliet]

if you go at a quiet time it's really straightforward, but when I drive there at rush hour I find this 'people joining while others are trying to exit' a bit chaotic!

 

If you think that's bad, come and try the Coventry Ring Road. Roughly half the road must be sections where "people join while others try to exit". I am surprised there are not more accidents

 

PJ

[whoopsie]

It costs £2.50 per half an hour to park in parts of Greenwich! - I'd say T5 isn't so bad!!!!

[Goosey Lucy]

If you think that's bad, come and try the Coventry Ring Road. Roughly half the road must be sections where "people join while others try to exit". I am surprised there are not more accidents

 

PJ

 

Oh I remember it well. When OH and I were dating (ages ago ) I used to have to get him to meet me on the Holyhead Road and drive in front of me to get me over the Ring Road to his place on the other side of Coventry. Once I moved in with him I realised that if I missed my exit it didn't matter as I could do a circuit of the Ring Road and be back at the exit within 5 minutes, something I did on more than one occasion He used to refer to it as the biggest roundabout in England.

 

Sorry to go off topic s0apdrag0n, hope your trip to T5 goes well x

[soapdragon]

Thanks everyone - I did it!!!!!!

 

Got to terminal 5 and into the arrivals bit just 5 mins before DH walked thro - had wanted the boys to see Da coming thro the doors - so it all worked perfectly apart from some white knucke driving Fine until I got to the stage where I was in the LH lane, approaching Heathrow as sign posted, and then realised that, gulp, another THREE lanes were coming at me from the left and I needed to be right over there!

 

Luckily, after a week not driving, DH said he'd drive back so I was off the hook!!!

 

Sadly no kimono but lots of photos of Japanese loos and their various controls! Apparently they are quite something!

DH now fast asleep upstairs having 'put the boys to bed'!

 

Thanks again for your support for a driving wimp!

[AnnieP]

Well done! I hate going to new places: Its always fear of annoying other drivers if you are in the wrong lane etc and them being impatient with you when you make a mistake isn't it? And I HATE being late, so nearly always set off far too early and then have to sit around somewhere.

Sounds like you managed this journey to perfection though!

[soapdragon]

Thanks, Annie! Too many years of bimbling around the Oxfordshire countryside, I fear! However, theres always that sense of 'I CAN do it' although its not something I'd want to do on a regular basis!!!

[pips_pekins]

I was on holiday when you posted this and have just been reading your update. Well done and you timed it to perfection which I can never do.

 

I used to do quite a bit of motorway driving but these days, like you, I am more used to just pottering around locally as I now work 5 minutes from home. Even though I was fine driving on the motorway on my own, I was always a lot more nervous with DS in the car. It sounds like you had no problems and this may be good preparation for becoming 'Mun's taxi' (how old are your boys?) My long weekend has been spent travelling to and from Reading to drop/collect DS and I am just about to set off for Heathrow's Terminal 1. Sacrificing more chicken watching time

[soapdragon]

For me its the dreaded M25 that is scary Funnily enough the M40 is fine and I can easily get to Bicester Village or John Lewis at High Wycombe Perhaps I should have envisaged Terminal 5 as huge Cath Kidston with a mega sale on!! The M25 is just always so busy and there is a tendancy to be tucked away in the LH lane and then find another few million cars merging from the left leaving you slap bang in the middle! I guess its just what you are used to but working 5 mins from home sounds great!

 

The boys are 7 (in three weeks) and 3 1/2 and ES goes to school in the next village so all I tend to do driving wise is school and back and a supermarket run once a week - very boring - whereas DH does over 45k per year so he has little patience with my wimpyness On the way back I was commenting on how busy the M25 was and he could'nt stop laughing; apparently, according to him, it was the quietest its been for ages!

 

Our worst diriving experience was in Egypt I have NEVER been so frightened in my life! We took a taxi from central Cairo to Giza and thank goodness I was in the back in the end I just lay down on the seat, closed my eyes and hoped for the best. Poor David was in the front seat and was absolutley white when he got out and didn't stop shaking for a good half an hour

[pips_pekins]

Well, I made it! I don't find the M25 scary as such but I do hate any journey which takes me onto it. This morning was no different, bumper to bumper, crawling along

 

I have had a few scary trips but none as bad as the one you have described in Egypt. Poor you. Not sure how I would have coped. I am a bad passenger at the best of times.

[The Dogmother]

Well done! Isn't T5 just divine though - did you see inside?

 

I learned to drive around London, north London and the 'magic roundabout' in Hemel ghastly induction.

[pips_pekins]

Sadly didn't see T5, maybe next time.

 

I lived and worked in London for years and honed my driving skills there. OH is always complaining about my aggressive driving style, yet I have become much more timid in my old age and in the little runaround that I have now

[The Dogmother]

Me too; London certainly hones your driving Phil once commented that I 'drive like a bloke' not sure what that means but I think he means 'assertive'. In all the years in London I only had one accident - when an artic latched onto the roof of my Fiat 500 on a roundabout and dragged me along since coming to Banbury though I have been introduced to the culture of 'ramming by taxi' where they drive straight at you then claim otherwise and cite injuries I am always careful to carry a camera now and enlist the help of any witnesses.

[pips_pekins]

In all the years in London I only had one accident - when an artic latched onto the roof of my Fiat 500 on a roundabout and dragged me along

 

That sounds terrifying

 

since coming to Banbury though I have been introduced to the culture of 'ramming by taxi' where they drive straight at you then claim otherwise and cite injuries I am always careful to carry a camera now and enlist the help of any witnesses.

 

I used to always have one of those disposable cameras in my car. I now carry my mobile everywhere as I am well aware of the scams used by some drivers .