Public Transportation to Parks in England

[Nozzy]

Hello, I'm a long time lurker who never posted, but decided to start trying.

 

I'm lucky enough to be studying abroad in London this August to December and want to try to get to as many parks as possible on weekends. I noticed a nice amount of parks close to London, while things like Alton Towers were further away. I also found a Merlin annual pass online that would get me into Thorpe Park, Alton Towers, Legoland, and Chessington (among other attractions), but I don't want to get it and wind up having the pass but no way to get to the places. I figure I can only count on having public transportation while over there.

 

So, can anyone advise me on how easy it would be to get to these parks and back on a 3 day weekend? Also, if you have the Annual Pass how does it work for the London Eye (there seemed to be lots of restrictions)?

 

Thanks very much!

[matt_g]

Thorpe Park, Legoland and Chessington are all fairly accessible on public transport from London - the journey time from central London for each of them is (very roughly) about 30 minutes on the train. You can easily get there and back in a day - no need to stay nearby overnight unless you want to. You can walk to Chessington from the train station, for the others you need to get a bus which takes another 15 minutes or so. Do you know where abouts in London you're going to be living? The actual journey time will obviously vary massively depending on how far away you are.

 

Alton Towers is possible to get to on train and bus, but it takes forever from London and can't really be done in a day - for that one I'd recommend booking a hotel or B&B nearby and staying there for a night or two.

 

The only major restriction on the London Eye is that you can't use your pass on it in August. I think the same applies to the other central London attractions (Madame Tussauds, the London Dungeon, the Aquarium) - frankly I think all of these (except the London Eye) are rubbish anyway, there are much better things to do as a tourist in central London.

 

The actual train stations you want to get to are:

Staines for Thorpe Park (then 10-15 minutes on a bus)

Windsor and Eton Riverside for Legoland (then 10-15 minutes on a bus)

Chessington South for Chessington (10 minutes walk)

Stoke on Trent or Uttoxeter for Alton Towers (then 30 minutes on a bus from Uttoxeter, or about an hour from Stoke on Trent)

 

For train times and prices, go to http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ and tell it where you're planning to go from and to.

 

One thing to remember before buying a Merlin pass is that you can pretty easily get "2 for the price of 1" vouchers for all of the Merlin parks, so if you're going with someone you'll need to go about 7 times for it to be worth the price.

[Nozzy]

Thanks very much for the help.

 

While I don't know exactly where we'll be living yet, but it will be close to the center where we hold classes, which is 98-103 Great Russell Street (they say it's near the West End and a block from the British Museum). I know that some kind of transportation pass is provided as well, so I'm hoping it won't cost me too much to get around.

 

I'll need to figure out whether I'll be going solo on most of these or not, I don't know whether I'd have someone to go with every time, or really how frequently I would be going between classes, program trips, and other things to do in London. I'm hoping to get the class schedule soon so I'll know how much free time there will be during the week. Do you have any recommendations of good tourist things to do in London, or any other parks I should try to get to while there?

[downunder]

matt_g, thanks from me as well. I'll be in London in June so this information was extremely helpful, especially for getting to Alton Towers.