London travel arrangements

[GuyBarry]

I rarely visit London, but the opportunity has arisen to visit with a fellow transport enthusiast so I'm planning to travel some time next month. We're booking tickets on the South West Trains route from Bath to Waterloo, so the tentative schedule is:

Tube, bus or (if we're feeling enthusiastic) walk from Waterloo to King’s Cross
Tour of King’s Cross development
Bullet train from St Pancras to Stratford International
DLR from Stratford International to Royal Victoria
Emirates Air Line to North Greenwich
Thames Clipper from North Greenwich to the London Eye, then walk back to Waterloo

What's the cheapest way of doing this? On previous occasions I've bought a one-day travelcard, but it's specifically forbidden on the bullet train and I don't think I can use it on the cable car or the boat. I have no experience of Oyster whatsoever.

[The Orange One]

I went and looked up the fares, since there is one way to settle this.

Discard the HS1 ride as you can only buy tickets through cold hard cash (well, also through credit/debit cards), no Oyster or travelcards permitted.

Waterloo to King's Cross
Tube fare: £2.30 with Oyster, £4.80 by cash (suggest going Bakerloo/Victoria via Oxford Circus)
Bus fare: £1.50 with Oyster (59 bus route)
Walk fare: £0.00 with or without Oyster. Suggested walking route is Hungerford Bridge across Thames to Charing Cross, St. Martin's Lane, Long Acre, Great Queen Street, Newton Street, Southampton Place, Bloomsbury Square Gardens, Bedford Place, through Russell Square to Brunswick Centre, Judd Street which hits St. Pancras Internationale pretty much dead on.

S'ford Int'l to Royal Victoria
Fare: £1.50 with Oyster, £4.80 by cash

Emirates Air Line
Fare: Unsure, it's been a while, but it's quite a bit cheaper with Oyster. Contactless, I believe, is not accepted (except to buy cold hard cash tickets).

Thames Clipper
Fare: Whatever it is, Oyster gets you a discount.

Travelcard: You can only use it for Waterloo to King's Cross and S'ford Int'l to Royal Vic, and it's very expensive too, much more than £3.80!

Conclusion:
Oyster is the second cheapest method.

Cheapest method:
Walk to King's Cross
Tour King's Cross Development
Walk to Regent's Canal
Jubilee Greenway to Olympic Park for Stratford International
River Lea + Limehouse Cut to Limehouse
Thames Path to Island Gardens
Greenwich Foot Tunnel
Walk to North Greenwich
Thames Path to Waterloo.

Cost: £0.00

[tractakid]

The St Pancras-Stratford International fare can be reduced if you want to argue with gateline attendants!

[GuyBarry]

I went and looked up the fares, since there is one way to settle this.

Discard the HS1 ride as you can only buy tickets through cold hard cash (well, also through credit/debit cards), no Oyster or travelcards permitted.

Thanks but perhaps I didn't make my point clearly enough. My friend specifically wants to travel on the bullet train, and I specifically want to travel on the cable car (and also the boat, though I've done it before). If we don't do the HS1 ride then we're missing out one of the main purposes of the visit! The single fare is £6.

Waterloo to King's Cross
Tube fare: £2.30 with Oyster, £4.80 by cash (suggest going Bakerloo/Victoria via Oxford Circus)
Bus fare: £1.50 with Oyster (59 bus route)
Walk fare: £0.00 with or without Oyster. Suggested walking route is Hungerford Bridge across Thames to Charing Cross, St. Martin's Lane, Long Acre, Great Queen Street, Newton Street, Southampton Place, Bloomsbury Square Gardens, Bedford Place, through Russell Square to Brunswick Centre, Judd Street which hits St. Pancras Internationale pretty much dead on.

Thanks. Personally I'd prefer to walk it but my friend's quite a bit older than I am and may find it tiring. The 59 bus looks like the most appealing option.

S'ford Int'l to Royal Victoria
Fare: £1.50 with Oyster, £4.80 by cash

Quite a difference! Clearly we need Oyster.

Emirates Air Line
Fare: Unsure, it's been a while, but it's quite a bit cheaper with Oyster. Contactless, I believe, is not accepted (except to buy cold hard cash tickets).

The cash fare is £4.50 I think, but I didn't look up the Oyster fare.

Thames Clipper
Fare: Whatever it is, Oyster gets you a discount.

£7.15 cash I believe - again, I didn't look up the Oyster fare.

Travelcard: You can only use it for Waterloo to King's Cross and S'ford Int'l to Royal Vic, and it's very expensive too, much more than £3.80!

Indeed - not worth getting one this time, unless we significantly deviate from the above itinerary.

Conclusion:
Oyster is the second cheapest method.

Thanks. How long in advance do I need to get an Oyster card? From the site it looks as though they're sent out by post.

Cheapest method:
Walk to King's Cross
Tour King's Cross Development
Walk to Regent's Canal
Jubilee Greenway to Olympic Park for Stratford International
River Lea + Limehouse Cut to Limehouse
Thames Path to Island Gardens
Greenwich Foot Tunnel
Walk to North Greenwich
Thames Path to Waterloo.

Cost: £0.00

Sounds very pleasant, and I might do it myself one day, but it kinds of defeats the object

[The Orange One]

I went and looked up the fares, since there is one way to settle this.

Discard the HS1 ride as you can only buy tickets through cold hard cash (well, also through credit/debit cards), no Oyster or travelcards permitted.

Thanks but perhaps I didn't make my point clearly enough. My friend specifically wants to travel on the bullet train, and I specifically want to travel on the cable car (and also the boat, though I've done it before). If we don't do the HS1 ride then we're missing out one of the main purposes of the visit! The single fare is £6.

No, that's not what I meant, I meant adding the fare onto optimisation calculations is useless - since there is only one possible price, the price remains constant, and constants can be discarded in optimisation calculations.

[tractakid]

GuyBarry, do you have a contactless payment card?

[GuyBarry]

The Orange One: Ah, I see. Sorry for misunderstanding.
tractakid: No.

[GuyBarry]

One thing that the above calculation doesn't take into account - apparently the Visitor Oyster card costs £3 (non-refundable) plus postage. The Oyster fare on the Air Line is £3.40 and on the Clipper is £6.44, so the total saving on DLR, Air Line and Clipper combined is only £5.11 (£7.61 if you include the tube fare from Waterloo to King's Cross). I don't know how much the postage is but it's starting to look like not such a great deal, although it's probably still worth getting.

If I don't get an Oyster card or a travelcard, how is it possible to travel by bus?

[The Orange One]

If I don't get an Oyster card or a travelcard, how is it possible to travel by bus?

Through the use of a contactless stupid card. Other than that, it's not.

[GuyBarry]

If I don't get an Oyster card or a travelcard, how is it possible to travel by bus?

Through the use of a contactless stupid card. Other than that, it's not.

Really? Are TfL trying to stop visitors to London from using the buses?

[The Orange One]

Oh, one day paper travelcards as well. Sorry.

Cash on hand, though - no longer accepted. You can kind of see their point - many London bus services run at high intensive frequencies (the 18, 23, 25, 38 and 73 are ones that come to mind straight away, but there are many others). By the time some tourist has got on board and shelled out £2 on a bus ticket (a process that has in the past taken up to 3 minutes), a vehicle on say, the number 73 (which runs every 2-3 minutes or so), can be overtaken by the bus behind, which causes the infamous bunching problems. The 253 bus I remember used to be prone to this even by the time it reached Camden Town from Euston - a 4 minute supposed frequency had bunches to in 1 minute, in 7 minutes, in 8 minutes, in 9 minutes, 16 minutes...

Really annoying at night, when you can't top up in tube stations though.

[tractakid]

You can buy a £5 Bus and Tram pass from rail stations.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7509/160 ... 975a_b.jpg

[MylesHSG]

Use your debit or credit card if it has contactless technology. Or just buy an oyster card from Waterloo when you get there. I think they cost £3 'deposit' that you can get back if you give it back, but just keep it for future travels and you'll save way over £3 on your visit.

[GuyBarry]

Cash on hand, though - no longer accepted. You can kind of see their point - many London bus services run at high intensive frequencies (the 18, 23, 25, 38 and 73 are ones that come to mind straight away, but there are many others). By the time some tourist has got on board and shelled out £2 on a bus ticket (a process that has in the past taken up to 3 minutes), a vehicle on say, the number 73 (which runs every 2-3 minutes or so), can be overtaken by the bus behind, which causes the infamous bunching problems.

They used to have a brilliant solution to this problem. They were called "bus conductors".

[GuyBarry]

Use your debit or credit card if it has contactless technology. Or just buy an oyster card from Waterloo when you get there. I think they cost £3 'deposit' that you can get back if you give it back, but just keep it for future travels and you'll save way over £3 on your visit.

Now I'm confused. I got my information from TfL's Visitor Oyster Card page:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/travel-informatio ... yster-card

"A Visitor Oyster card costs £3 (non-refundable) plus postage and is pre-loaded with pay as you go credit for you to spend on travel. You can choose how much credit to add to your card: £10, £15, £20, £25, £30, £35, £40 or £50. Your card will be posted to your home address. UK delivery typically takes 2-4 days, overseas delivery 8-14 days."

You're telling me that I can just pick one up at Waterloo and that the £3 is refundable after all?

Honestly, this is starting to feel like planning a visit to a foreign country. They'll be issuing their own currency next

EDIT: By my calculations the total cash cost is £27.25, the total Oyster cost (including upfront costs) is £22.64 plus postage, and the total cost with a one-day travelcard (including the £12 charge) is £26.15. Not as much in it as I thought. It might actually be worthwhile getting a Travelcard after all since there's a possibility we might make an additional tube journey (my friend is keen to visit Leadenhall Market, so we might do Waterloo -> Bank and Bank -> King's Cross instead of travelling direct).