So that £100 was from heathrow - centre . That is outragous and I live in a london suberb .
They are always shutting down chunks of the underground of a weekend .You would think TFL could liase somewhere . I remember my brother going to the cup final ,or something similar at wembley one year and a big chunck of central line had been shut down . On our stretch the portion between liverpool street and leytonstone always seems to shut to coinside with major events at the 02.

We have to be the worst capital in the world for public transport . On a recent flight I was sitting reading the easyjet price list for the train tickets into central london from gatwick/stansted and couldnt believe the return fares . No way would we be able to afford a city break here if we lived Elsewhere in Europe. Just getting to/from from the airport would wipe out a quarter of what we normally spend in 3 days including transfers on a break to other European destinations.

And that's before I've even started on the temps in the london underground in the summer . Animals are not allowed to be transported in such temps so why are we . Honestly you have to experience rush hour in any temp above 80% to believe it . cant cope in the winter and can't cope in the summer .

When the olympics come we will be off on holidays . Anyone need to rent a house

lyn

We went to London for 3 days last year & also found the prices outrageous. The hotel was lovely, but not cheap, however we didn't have even one drink in the hotel itself - the prices were outrageous. It wasn't only at the hotel, food and drink was expensive everywhere, unless you like Mc Donalds. The attractions --I won't even go there. We met a couple from Ameica, who had spent 6 weeks touring some of the main capitals in the world, and they said that London was by far the most expensive. They wouldn't be back in a hurry. You can guarantee that hoteliers and such will be increasing their prices by the time the Olympics gets to town.

Rip Off London then, not Britain!

You can eat and drink well in London for reasonable money if you stay away from the obvious tourist traps, we have been to many european cities and London is not so bad.

London is not a rip off, but "mugs" will get ripped off as they would in any big city

So what other transport would these 'mugs' have been able to take without being ripped off?

Maybe walk? Might not know the way though!

It's not RIP off Britain, it's just knowing how to do things I guess

I suppose it wasn't a TFL bus as I think the oyster price is £1.20 or £2 cash, so you can in theory have a very decent journey for £1.20.

The weekend shutdowns of the tube seems to have been going on for ages and it is an absolute nightmare It will probably be fine by the time the Olympics are here but not much fun for Londoners or visitors in the meantime.

At least I was able to drive the minibus in the bus lanes, my goodness London has a lot of those! I never reached the Congestion charge area (almost but not quite) but I beleive the bus is exempt from that as well. I shall have an old minibus to sell soon an behalf of the school. I reckon someone working in London could save a lot of money by driving it in the City (I bet there are more than a few people driving black cabs as private cars)!

Lesley is right. You can go a long way for a very resonable fare with TFL when in poccession of an oyster card . But the charges for the Gatwick/stanstead express train and airport transfers are very expensive .Not sure who runs them but it's surely not TFL.
Our return fare into london by tube is between £5-6 a day at peak rush hour which isnt bad at all .

While sitting bored on my easyjet flight I also cast an eye over their prices for attraction tickets , which incidently were suppossed to be discounted . I worked out it was going to cost my family of 5 almost £100 to get into Madame Tussauds. No thanks

lyn

As they arrived after 9.30am they could have got off -peak Travelcards for zones 1-6 (which extends to cover Heathrow) for £7.50 per head which would have given them unlimited travel on all public transport (buses, underground and trains - though not the Heathrow Express into Paddington) in London for the day. If they travelled as a group and they'd booked them in advance the cost would drop to £3.70 a head! That doesn't sound like a rip-off to me but it does show just how important it is to research these things in advance.

As for getting into attractions then it might have been worth exploring the options with the London Pass which includes all the benefits of unlimited travel with free entry to a large number of visitor attractions. Just how much money this could save you will depend on how many of the attractions you want to squeeze into your day.

I travel to London regularly to visit friends and visit exhibitions and as others have said - as long as you avoid the tourist traps and taxi touts, I don't think that it's necessarily anymore expensive than any other capital city. I've never paid anything remotely like the £7.50 that a cup of coffee in St Marks Square in Venice cost me! We paid it because we wanted to sit out in St Marks Square - we knew that we could have got one for a lot less away from the Square but we wouldn't have been able to feast out eyes on the view while we VERY, VERY slowly sipped it.

SM

Sorry I'm late, I was on hols!

Since this happened on a Saturday they could have used Heathrow Express with the Group Weekend Offer as long at least two adults were in the group. http://www.heathrowexpress.com/Home/Journey/TicketPrices This would have got them around the tube shutdown. Not as cheap as the tube but not too bad considering how far out Heathrow is. And if we knew which hotel it was I bet we could find cheaper ways.

As Sma says, it is important to research these things!