London - hotel and flight advice requested please

[oxocube]

Hi all, I am planning to take my daughter to see Swan Lake in May in Covent Garden and have a couple of questions to ask those of you who know London or who travel there regularly. Firstly, we live in Holland and I'm looking into cheap flights which go to Stanstead and Luton. Honestly, how far are these airports from the centre and how easy are they to access. Does it cost a small fortune in train and tube fares? Also, I'm looking for nice hotel recommendations in the area. Dd wants to go to a 'pish posh hotel' and I want to make her think she's in one without spending a fortune Any advice would be very gratefully received!

Hi, oxocube - how long have you been in Holland? I thought you were in London or thereabouts anyway - have missed something obviously!

I am not at all an expert on London airports but have heard that Stansted has a tendency to negate the cheap Ryanair etc flights by being incredibly expensive to get to by public transport or to park at - know little about Luton except that it is a long way down the M1 from there to central London.

How cheap are those fares? BMI fly between Heathrow and Amsterdam and their fares seem pretty cheap - I just put in a couple of random dates in May and it came up with several fares under £20.

As for hotels, google could be your best bet - I found a great hotel that way for DH and 2 boys in Feb half-term last year, it was half price because the hotel (in W2 I think, v close to Paddington) was having some renovation done at the time, they were v impressed with it. Googling now I found The Hyde Park Court , looks v reasonable to me and looks nice...the google page I got it from was here .

HTH

we live in london & have just spent the weekend in amsterdam.... got cheap easyjet flights for £60 return for dp & i which i was delighted with. entirely gobsmacked & furious that we had to pay £50 return to get the stansted express (& it would have been even more but we live very close to liverpool st). so i do not reccommend flying to stansted. luton might be better, i think you can get a thameslink train.

Hm - just looked at the Stansted Express link - £24 adult return, £12 child, on top of your airfares...

(from Thameslink website )

Thanks everyone. Its esp kind to post the links which are great. I looked at BMI a few moments ago and with taxes it came to about Eu135 pp for the dates we need. I'll check again but I'm sure easyjet was about Eu40 cheaper. Mind you, taking into account fares from Stanstead or Luton, it might not work out that much cheaper! I wanted to spend no more than about 90 quid on the hotel as the ballet tickets will cost a small fortune!

Kama, it will be the 1st ballet my dd has seen 'live'. She has been dancing for a couple of years now but has recently become much more enthusiastic and is esp keen on Darcey Bussell who will be dancing Odette Am more than a bit excited myself!