LHR T5-Survival Tips, Hints, Places to go & Things to do
 

Arrived T5 yesterday. (all went very well!)

Regarding meeting somebody in arrivals

There is a long barrier across the exit from customs etc. Decide in advance which side of the barrier you will meet - If your meeting person is down one end of the barrier, and you chose to go the other way, it is quite a distance and at busy times they will be hard to see.

Costa Coffe & Krispy Kreeme at landside arrivals

Starbucks is airside departures near gate 11 (main building!)

Well thats the important stuff dealt with! :ok:

T'bug

Went through yesterday, and all fine, people around helping, Carlucio's on the checkin side was good for food before going through, and you get an excellent view of planes taking off from the left hadn side of the building outside. The lounges are fairly impressive, although the toilets were broken for some reason. (Note the club lounge or gallery is one the second floor, and the Concorde and 1st Class lounge, are on the 1st Floor - one at each end of the building) As far as security goes, it took 15minutes to get to airside, but as soon as I went though a big queue appeared, so not too bad really.

Was there a couple of weeks ago, the domestic gates are closer to the North side security area, I was advised to use the south area and was on the last minute so a quick gallop down the concourse only to find south was just as chokker. Of course once through (40 mins later) it was another gallop back up to the domestic gates.

otherwise the terminal was very impressive, they are doing a lot of bussing to gates at the moment but I expect that will stop once the satellites are fully up and running.

Anyone sampled Ramsey's restaurant yet?

Can someone advise how you get from T5 to T4 (ie for the bulk of BA long haul to short haul connections at the momet).

Read someone saying you wait 15 minutes for the Heathrow Express to depart, over to Central Area, cross the platform, wait 15 minutes for the train to T4 to depart - it took them 90 minutes overall. Can't believe that's all that's available. It must blow the Minimum Connecting Time. Even Piccadilly Line via Hatton Cross would be quicker.

The lifts go to three levels landside. From the bottom, they are Trains - Arrivals - Departures.

To get from Trains to Arrivals, you must go via Departures
To get from Arrivals to Departures, you must go via Trains

I hope this makes sense to someone!

:}

This is indeed the situation - we did it in 70mins a couple of weeks ago but there is little if any signage, the trains often have the wrong announcements (as we pulled into T4 the tannoy announced we were arriving in Southall) and there are few if any staff on the platforms to assist.

Surely there must be an easier way :ugh:

Is there no airside Flight Connections facility between Terminals 4 and 5 then?

We flew from MUC to LHR this week and had a couple of hours before our connecting flight to ABZ. We had not had breakfast so were looking for something to eat. We saw "Plane Food" Gordon Ramsays new restaurant and took a look at the menu. £16.50 for a breakfast :ouch: I said to hubby we are not paying that much for a breakfast and we set off to go somewhere else.

I then thought airport food is usually expensive anyway, plus it was my birthday so lets treat ourselves, so off we trotted back.

Well I can honestly say it was aboslutely FANTASTIC. The food, the service and the ambience. You could sure taste the difference. Quality sausages, butter than tasted like butter, freshly made orange juice, the nicest marmalade I have ever tasted. It was wonderful and a lovely birthday treat and finish to our holidayin Bavaria.

The staff were very attentive and there were plenty of staff around too. There is a 12.5% service charge added to the bill but I think it is well deserved. Well done Gordon Ramsay!

I now cannot wait for our next flight through Terminal 5 in September as then we will try lunch. I am starting to save now!!

Next time you are in T5 give yourself a real treat!! I can highly recommend the place.

I have found the T5 <--> T4 transfer to be appalling too. Either Heathrow Connect or Piccadilly Line only? And Heathrow Connect only running every 30 minutes - That is really pathetic. It takes ten minutes (if that) by taxi from T5 to H/East (T1-3), although it's of course relatively more expensive.

I hope Heathrow Management do something about that.

S.

M25
 

Flew this morning from T5, no issues, looks great. However on the way to the airport around 0630 this morning there was a 35-40 min queue on the T5 slip road from the M25. Is it always like this or was I just unlucky?

In my experience that happens most weekday mornings. I usually drive under the T5 spur at about 0620, and it's usually jam-packed then.

VAFFPAX

There are local buses that link T4 and T5 for free and they are fairly regular. I have also seen another bus, not the BA staff buses but some other sort of BA charter bus that had signage along the lines of T4-T5. It was going too fast to get a decent look, sorry.

Heathrow Express is too much hassle for me, personally. By the time you've made it all the way downstairs, waited for the train to come in, the security check, then boarding, you may as well have just caught the bus.

Hopefully, once the moves are completed it won't be too much of an issue.

If you're airside for a while and want somewhere to watch aircraft from, Cafe Amato has a grandstand spot. In T5A (main building), gate level, southeastern corner. It has a handy bar with stools facing in exactly the right direction; from the far right hand corner you can see all the way to the end of 09R/27L.

I can't say anything about the quality of the F&B, though, as I have so far only been able to try this during one of the trials trial.

I have to agree that Cafe Amato seems to be the place to sit out those long waits. On "normal" days not many people discover it so it's a quiet and relaxing spot with reasonable food & Drink plus a great view.
I last went through in late April and T5 was nicely quiet after the fiasco of the 1st week - mind you all the gents loos in T5A were a disgrace (unclean, non-functioning, etc - thought I was back in T3 for a moment). Come on BAA - surely you can do better than this! 3 out of 5 ? No - I'll give it a 4 since I also experienced T2 @ Frankfurt on the same trip. T5 was on a different planet after that! :ok:

Kids
 

Hi guys,

I'm ZRH-LHR(T5)-Miami-LHR(T5)-ZRH in October. I'm travelling with Wife x1, Kids (5, 2 and 6 months) and we'll be looking for something like a kids area or at least kiddy friendly restaurant to while away the time whilst waiting for the connection. Has anyone got any recommendations/experience?

Thanks

G

You might want to try Giraffe. :-)

S.

My sister is departing to JNB on Thursday evening and wants to get her suitcase wrapped with security film.

You will all be shocked to learn that the BAA website mentions many shops but the list of 'Services' in T5 does not mention bag wrapping. Further, you will be surprised to read, if I put 'baggage wrapping' (or variants) into the site search ... it tells me how I can buy great value bags at the shops and warns me not to wrap gifts but - nothing about wrapping bags.

Does such a facility exist in T5 (as in T3 and others)? Those that regularly travel to Africa will understand why we wish to do this. :hmm: