Does anyone know how early before the first evening event that the stadium is supposed to open and what is the suggested lead time to get through security? And what is considered to be the worst times for rush hour in the underground?
TFL expect the following sections of lines, in both directions, to be the busiest Tuesday, 31-July (They're requesting passengers to avoid these if possible):
Central line Between Chancery Lane and Stratford Busiest station(s): Bank, Bond Street, Chancery Lane, Holborn and St. Paul’s
District line Between Earl’s Court and Southfields Busiest station(s): Fulham Broadway and Kensington (Olympia) To alleviate queuing at Stratford, TFL have requested passengers consider using West Ham.
Jubilee line Between Wembley Park and Stratford Busiest station(s): Baker Street, Bond Street, Canary Wharf, London Bridge and Waterloo They recommend if you want to avoid the queues at Stratford, that you consider using West Ham for the Olympic Park.
Metropolitan line Between King’s Cross St. Pancras and Wembley Park Busiest station(s): King’s Cross St. Pancras
Northern line Between London Bridge and King’s Cross St. Pancras Busiest station(s): Bank, Clapham North, Euston, King’s Cross St. Pancras, London Bridge and Old Street
Piccadilly line Between Holborn and Earl’s Court Busiest station(s): Holborn and King’s Cross St. Pancras
Docklands Light Railway Between Canning Town and Prince Regent Busiest station(s): Bank and Canary Wharf
Halfmiler2 wrote:As for "Central London," the hotel is supposed to be very close to the British Museum.
Not exactly walking distance from leicester square and hyde park except if you are really fit.... As i said before central london is pretty big.
Kings cross is very central. I do a lot of research at the british library twice a week on average and i recommend it if you are a book nut.
There are a lot of good restaurants in the area offering a lot of variety.
I received an email from locog recommending arriving at the venue a couple of hours before the programme starts.
The British Museum (depending on how near you are to it) is no more than a 10 min walk to Leicester sq straight down Shaftsbury Avenue and Charing X rd. Hype Park is 4 stops on the central line from Holborn
My experience, dated and singular is that of all the things that we did and that we would not do again is to go to the theater -- the London theater is not really that unique and a lot of other things are. Plus, it seemed like 'just hanging around' in a different environment [I grew up in a big city but a very different one, LA and have spent my life in the US, aside from a few trips abroad] gave me more bang for the buck. Even just riding 'the Tube' is worthwhile. If we have had a little more time I would have ridden it out to several places and just hung around for a bit. For an American it was easier than with countries that speak different languages while being truly different at the same time. [I do have a Brit for a sister-in-law, a brother lived on the Isle of Mann for more than a decade as he bought and sold horses, and my wife's brother lived there for two decades.]
You can tell from our British (English?) posters that most of the people are quite agreeable even when you do not always agree with them, and that is saying something (for me, Mump and Flumpy epitomize this).
Halfmiler2 wrote:As for "Central London," the hotel is supposed to be very close to the British Museum.
Not exactly walking distance from leicester square and hyde park except if you are really fit.... As i said before central london is pretty big.
Kings cross is very central. I do a lot of research at the british library twice a week on average and i recommend it if you are a book nut.
There are a lot of good restaurants in the area offering a lot of variety.
I received an email from locog recommending arriving at the venue a couple of hours before the programme starts.
The British Museum (depending on how near you are to it) is no more than a 10 min walk to Leicester sq straight down Shaftsbury Avenue and Charing X rd. Hype Park is 4 stops on the central line from Holborn
You can trust this! He and his bro gave me perfect directions for meeting up with them when I was there a motnh ago.
Except they forgot to tell me that the club we were meeting at is so cool that it does not have a sign...... They will not steer you wrong!
I have a very poor sense of direction and found London and the tube so easy...mind you I went before the mobs descended.
26mi235 wrote:My experience, dated and singular is that of all the things that we did and that we would not do again is to go to the theater -- the London theater is not really that unique and a lot of other things are. Plus, it seemed like 'just hanging around' in a different environment [I grew up in a big city but a very different one, LA and have spent my life in the US, aside from a few trips abroad] gave me more bang for the buck. Even just riding 'the Tube' is worthwhile. If we have had a little more time I would have ridden it out to several places and just hung around for a bit. For an American it was easier than with countries that speak different languages while being truly different at the same time. [I do have a Brit for a sister-in-law, a brother lived on the Isle of Mann for more than a decade as he bought and sold horses, and my wife's brother lived there for two decades.]
You can tell from our British (English?) posters that most of the people are quite agreeable even when you do not always agree with them, and that is saying something (for me, Mump and Flumpy epitomize this).
Enjoy
You sir are a gentleman
I agree about the theatre, don't go to a musical in the West End but if you go and see one of the many amazing plays that are on or go to the Old Vic or Globe it would be well worth it
shivfan wrote: The British Museum (depending on how near you are to it) is no more than a 10 min walk to Leicester sq straight down Shaftsbury Avenue and Charing X rd. Hype Park is 4 stops on the central line from Holborn
You can trust this! He and his bro gave me perfect directions for meeting up with them when I was there a motnh ago.
Except they forgot to tell me that the club we were meeting at is so cool that it does not have a sign...... They will not steer you wrong!
I have a very poor sense of direction and found London and the tube so easy...mind you I went before the mobs descended.
Never let it be said that we don't know how to show a girl a good time
Halfmiler2 wrote:As for "Central London," the hotel is supposed to be very close to the British Museum.
Not exactly walking distance from leicester square and hyde park except if you are really fit.... As i said before central london is pretty big.
Kings cross is very central. I do a lot of research at the british library twice a week on average and i recommend it if you are a book nut.
There are a lot of good restaurants in the area offering a lot of variety.
I received an email from locog recommending arriving at the venue a couple of hours before the programme starts.
The British Museum (depending on how near you are to it) is no more than a 10 min walk to Leicester sq straight down Shaftsbury Avenue and Charing X rd. Hype Park is 4 stops on the central line from Holborn
As I said before, central London is a big place.... Talking about the tube, it's a much more pleasant ride these days. Usually, when I go on, people are miserable and surly, and don't talk to each other. But the last few times I've been on, conversations rang up and down the carriage, and they were all about the Olympics. I just enjoyed sitting there are listening to them:
1) You were at the opening ceremony live? Was it as good as it was on TV? How close were you? Did you get a good look at Usain Bolt? You have a photo on your phone? Can I send it to my mum?
2) You are going to the equestrian today? Can you get extra tickets? Please call me if you do....
3) Where are you going today? WImbledon? Who's playing today? Venus Williams, Andy Murray...practically everybody!
my tip after a preliminary walk through the place yesterday at a low-traffic time is that once you get to the gates of the Olympic Park, expect at least a half hour to get to your seat. So near yet so far.
My thanks for all the tips. The family and I had a great time. Obviously, the evening session at the stadium were awesome. In the daytime, we visited five museums, the Tower of London and did two days of bus tours including the river cruises. A few observations:
The organizers did a great job and the volunteers were very helpful. People were generally very nice.
One negative was the concessions were mostly outside the stadium (but inside the gates) and the concession workers were untrained and slow - making for long lines.
The tickets prices have skyrocketed since Atlanta. They were even asking for 150 pounds ($235) for an average morning athletics ticket but were still selling out the 80,000 tickets. Even "smaller" sports had very high ticket prices.
The underground was much cleaner and far less grafitti than in NYC. But the lack of air conditioning made the packed subway cars to the stadium at rush-hour quite uncomfortable.
It was interesting being in a city with about ten newspapers. Reminded me of NYC when I was very young. As I expected from their reputation, the newspapers were quite colorful (or colourful) and rooting for the home team.
I was surprised, howerver, that the BBC played the role of homers even more than NBC does back home. They were always openly rooting for the GB athletes even during the play-by-play. They did, however, offer much live coverage on multiple channels throughout the day but aimed especially on sports in which Team GB was strong - cycling, equestrian, rowing, etc.
I was also a little surprised at the glee in the press when the Aussies were doing badly. I expected when Team GB was not in contention, they would root for Commonwealth athletes. This was certainly true when it was Jamaica versus the USA. But there seemed to be positive dislike for the Aussies.
With two youngsters, we did not get to do any fine dining. As to the regular food in London, our reaction was mixed. It is hard to understand how the same cusine offers the largest portions of fish and chips we'd ever seen and the skimpiest sandwiches (where's the beef?). Prices ssemed high compared tot he USA but the 20% VAT must have something to do with that.
Halfmiler2 wrote: I was surprised, howerver, that the BBC played the role of homers even more than NBC does back home. They were always opening rooting for the GB athletes even during the play-by-play.
I was also a little surprised at the glee in the press when the Aussies were doing badly. I expected when Team GB was not in contention, they would root for Commonwealth athletes. This was certainly true when it was Jamaica versus the USA. But there seemed to be positive dislike for the Aussies.
Glad you had a good time. London is a wonderful city.
As for the BBC, since it is government entity, paid for by everyone who owns a tv, you can bet they are going to root for the home country.
And you should go to a cricket Test match next year when the Aussies visit. That is where the real vitriol comes out. There is not much love lost either way and it goes way back in sports.
Halfmiler2 wrote: I was surprised, howerver, that the BBC played the role of homers even more than NBC does back home. They were always opening rooting for the GB athletes even during the play-by-play.
I was also a little surprised at the glee in the press when the Aussies were doing badly. I expected when Team GB was not in contention, they would root for Commonwealth athletes. This was certainly true when it was Jamaica versus the USA. But there seemed to be positive dislike for the Aussies.
Glad you had a good time. London is a wonderful city.
As for the BBC, since it is government entity, paid for by everyone who owns a tv, you can bet they are going to root for the home country.
And you should go to a cricket Test match next year when the Aussies visit. That is where the real vitriol comes out. There is not much love lost either way and it goes way back in sports.
BBC are not usually that partisan, in far they got a bit of stick for doing so, I think they just got a bit surprised by us doing well !!
As for the anti Oz thing it's all very tongue in cheek, our sports minister had a bet with the OZ sports minister about who would get more medals and now she has to row Eton Downy wearing GB kit. I can also assure you that if Oz were playing US we would all be cheering for them
One other thing I forgot to mention: I was very impressed by the Sainsburys chain of upscale grocery stores. There was one a half block from our hotel and it was great to get reasonably-priced beverages and sundries instead of using the hotel vending machines. The closest comparison I could make in the USA is the Trader Joe's chain. Sainburys would compete quite well if it decided to come across the pond.
They will not steer you wrong!
