LON Icelandair options

[ericosmith]

Arriving in Greenwich to end a Viking British Isles cruise.  I'm looking at returning to DTW using Icelandair.  They have departures at identical times from both Heathrow and Gatwick.  Other than price, would one option be better than the other?  

[hallasm]

Better at what?
Same distance to both airports - Gatwick is smaller than Heathrow.

[Globaliser]

5 hours ago, ericosmith said:

Arriving in Greenwich to end a Viking British Isles cruise.  I'm looking at returning to DTW using Icelandair.  They have departures at identical times from both Heathrow and Gatwick.  Other than price, would one option be better than the other?  

 

It depends on how you would want get from the dock to the airport.

 

By public transport, an obvious route to Heathrow would be a short walk to Cutty Sark DLR, then the DLR to West India Quay, then a short walk to Canary Wharf Elizabeth Line for a direct train to Heathrow Central (because IIRC Icelandair is at Terminal 2). That would probably be easier than any public transport route from the dock to Gatwick, plus IIRC Icelandair uses the North Terminal there which involves one more step (using the inter-terminal transit to transfer from the railway station at the South Terminal).

 

By car, the journey time to either airport is probably about the same, although to Gatwick that partly depends on whether your driver is prepared to do a lot of fast miles out on the the A2 to the M25 and then round to the M23, or whether he's going to insist taking on the shortest route through suburban purgatory.

 

Other than the journey to the airport, I can't think of any particular reason to favour one airport over the other, given that it would be the same airline at each.

[ericosmith]

That's very helpful.  We'll likely be doing it by car since the wife has mobility issues that leave me to deal with all the luggage.  The price is a couple hundred less going from Gatwick so I guess that will seal the deal.

[Globaliser]

11 hours ago, ericosmith said:

We'll likely be doing it by car since the wife has mobility issues that leave me to deal with all the luggage.

 

It may be worth mentioning, then, that IIRC (assuming that you will tender to Greenwich Pier) the closest that a car can normally get is here, which is a couple of hundred yards from where you would actually step off the tender. Also, at low tide there can be a reasonably steep slope to walk up from the floating part of the pier to the bank - see this image and this image for an illustration. If these might pose a problem, it could be worth asking your cruise line about any special arrangements.

[ericosmith]

Thank you Globaliser, you've been extremely helpful!