Puzzle Pieces

Yep, the pieces are all falling into place.

 

After mulling over the choices and getting opinions from others, I decided to spend my last night near Heathrow instead of Gatwick.  That way, I just have a short bus ride between me and my flight, and I don't have to be up and out early, or wonder how traffic is going to be between the airports in the morning.  So I booked a National Express bus that will get me to Heathrow at about 8:00 pm.  Then I started shopping for hotels, and my price luck kicked in again. I found Premier Inn Heathrow Terminal 5 (to distinguish it from the other Premier Inn Heathrow on the same road in the opposite direction) on Hotels.com.  It was only $54, so with taxes and a 13% discount from Hotels.com, it comes to a grand total of $58.60!  There is even wifi (30 min. free, 3 GBP for 24 hours). 

 

Weird thing about Heathrow transport.  There is a Hoppa bus, run by the airport, that goes every half hour to all of the area hotels and costs 4.50 GBP.  But a few years ago, Heathrow banned individual hotels from having their own shuttles because it caused too much traffic.  In exchange for losing the shuttles, Heathrow subsidizes the public bus system that runs to Bath Rd, where all of the hotels are.  Those buses stop at regular stops instead of taking you to the hotel door, but they run every 20 minutes and are FREE.  Fortunately, Premier Inn T5 is right at the second stop, so it's a five minute drive.  But because I booked the NatExp bus before finding the hotel, I took a bus that goes to T3 instead of T5.  I'm not sure if the same bus goes to both, but if it doesn't, I can just get a free shuttle to T5.  Why do they offer free buses that compete with their own Hoppa buses?  Dunno, but free is a better price than 4.50 GBP!

 

I still need to book some place to stay near Barcelona, but everything else is done!  Now I can concentrate on looking at what I might want to see in each place, and checking out the geocaching possibilities.