Wimbledon??

[fitznorton]

Flying into London (HTR) for 2 nights before leaving for Venice to embark on our cruise next June 2013. Arrive Monday and leave Wednesday. My DH is tennis obsessed and would love to spend Tuesday at Wimbledon as the tournament begins that Monday. Now my questions....

1) Would we be better off staying at a London hotel and using the rail system to get to Wimbledon?

2) Should we rent a car and try to book a hotel closer to Wimbledon? (Any hotel suggestions)

3) Much cheaper to fly from Gatwick to Venice than going back to Heathrow. If we rent a car we will return it to Gatwick. If we do not rent a car is it easy to take the rail to Gatwick?

Thanks for any help!

[skisteamboat]

Unless you plan on traveling around the UK, DO NOT RENT A CAR. Driving in London is a real test of skill and navigation not to mention high parking fees and the Congestion Charge, a fee for the "privilege" of stressing yourself out whilst driving in Central London.

 

Public transportation is excellent and I would pick a hotel without too much regard for location. tfl.gov.uk is the site for all things transit in London.

 

Rail travel to Gatwick (and Heathrow) is easy.

 

Cheers

[aquilegia]

Well, you need to bear in mind that (unless you've been successful in the public ballot for show court tickets, which closes some time in December), you will be queueing for ground tickets. To be sure of getting in, people start queueing around 7.30am, so presumably the nearer you are to Wimbledon the better. Not really sure why you want to rent a car at all though.

[Cotswold Eagle]

It takes about 15 minutes to get to Wimbledon on a train from Waterloo, and you will never wait more than about 5 minutes for a service during the day, so stay in the centre of town (you will see frequent threads on this board about staying in hotels near to Waterloo) and use the train. Tube (District Line) is much slower, but might be an option if you stay in South West London somewhere. Speaking as someone who has lived and worked in south London for the best part of 30 years - do not even think about driving to Wimbledon during the Championship :)

[fitznorton]

Thank you for your great advice. Much appreciated and i am sure I will be asking more and more questions. Thanks again

[Gettingwarmer]

See this

 

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/tickets/index.html?promo=sitemap

 

and note the details regarding The Queue which is about half way down

[English_in_Spain]

You may like to try getting in for evening matches.

 

You turn up and have to wait in a queue but it is usually much shorter than the morning queue - especially during the first week which is when you will be there.

 

You will, of course, not see the top matches but in the evenings you can get to see some great men's doubles matches on the outside courts.

 

I used to live near the All England Tennis Club (which by the way is not actually in Wimbledon itself) and have seen many wonderful evening matches.

 

[Karennella]

It takes about 15 minutes to get to Wimbledon on a train from Waterloo, and you will never wait more than about 5 minutes for a service during the day, so stay in the centre of town (you will see frequent threads on this board about staying in hotels near to Waterloo) and use the train. Tube (District Line) is much slower, but might be an option if you stay in South West London somewhere. Speaking as someone who has lived and worked in south London for the best part of 30 years - do not even think about driving to Wimbledon during the Championship :)

The public transport is so good in London that it nearly makes me weep when I get home to Australia. My daughter has been living in London for nearly five years and they do not own a car. They get exasperated now if they have to wait more than about three minutes for the tube. It is actually a main reason they have stayed there so long and, fortunately for us, they are returning permanently next year but absolutely dread being without their London transport system.

[fitznorton]

I did not know that there were evening matches. Would you know what time we would need to be in line to try and buy tickets? Thank you everyone for any and all suggestions.

[English_in_Spain]

I did not know that there were evening matches. Would you know what time we would need to be in line to try and buy tickets? Thank you everyone for any and all suggestions.

 

I find 6pm to 7pm is a good time. Any time after 5pm can be ok but at 5pm you may have to wait longer. It depends what time the daytime crowds decide to leave. This would give you potentially a couple of hours tennis. There is no guarantee what matches there will be.

 

Weather will have a major impact. Centre Court can be covered if it rains but the other courts cannot.

 

If, at the time, you have internet access, you can go to the Wimbledon Tennis website and see what is planned.

 

You can get a shuttle bus from either Wimbledon or Southfields station.