"Tropical bird gone nuts??" MIA/Saltaire(uk) Sugesttions?

Hello everyone, Been a member since a long time as I am an Aviation aficionado and even worked as an IT/computers guy for an Arline before.

Anyways, seems that this new job, not in Aviation ;( , they are global and need to send me from MIA/FLL(US) to Saitair(UK) area for three weeks to meet with my counter parts across the Atlantic and kick off a new project. :slight_smile: .

Since I heard, from the company, that it was a big deal to go from Heathrow to the Saltaire village area. The guy telling the story made it sound like I was going to middle earth.I’d like to think I’m a bit more adventurous. Due to the number of options in public transportation and combined with the fact that renting a car maybe would not be financially reasonable due to the price of retal and gas, Along with it will probably be too cold for me to think straight (I’m from South America, but raised in South Florida).
I’ll have corp card with 3k, plus I personally will have another 1K in personal credit cards and I another 2k in hand. But I’ll be responsible for hotels and meals and transportation (15 days all together). Hopefully I can find something cheap and cost effective that I can justify as an “cost saving expense” that provides the flexibility that i’ll able to squeeze as much as personal time during that trip (I won’t have too much free time anyways) . Am I too naive to think I’ll be able to get around with those figures? I noticed that there are many different train lines up there to that village, which one is more scenic/nice ?

Any special Tricks for BA / Uk airports? I used to love that when I was working at the airline, we had Interline-agreements with BA, so I got bumped up to business on availability. Such thing that even the Airline I’d work for didn’t do for us low level printer installers… One can still dream…

What would you all recommend as far as getting around? or will it be unfeasible due to the weather and I’ll be luck if I’ll get back without frostbites…

Thanks guys to take the time to help a fellow traveler.
I’m leaving next week

Gabe

I like Tripadvisor for help on these kind of questions: here is the Saltaire Village page, and if you search the site you should find a forum or two about handling Heathrow…

tripadvisor.com/Attraction_R … gland.html

Saltaire is only 8 miles from the Leeds Bradford Airport. So you could check the RyanAir and Jet2.com website for deals to other places you might want to visit. There is a number of leisure routes from Leeds Bradford that might be attractive.

Also, if you’re an aviation buff, and you might be, there are some interesting routes around the UK from Leeds Bradford - such as to Dublin on a Stobart Air ATR72 or to Glasgow on a Loganair Saab 340 (although that flight is really expensive) or to Aberdeen on an Eastern Airways Jestream 41 or Belfast-City on a FlyBe Q400

I’m just getting back from the UK. I’ve been doing the run between Heathrow and Poole, Dorset several times a year for business. I have a standing situation with a cab service out of Poole where they will pick me up at Heathrow and bring me back for about $200. It’s an hour and 1/2 drive whereas, Heathrow Express to Paddington, taxi to Waterloo Station and then train to Poole would take upward of three hours and cost a little less that $100.

I checked the train for you. Go to http://nationalrail.co.uk and plug in what you want. It’s anywhere from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours to Leeds and then change for Saltaire (whether that would be worth it, I don’t know). You’d be on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_(train_operating_company) which I’ve never been on, but train travel in the UK is NOT train travel in the US (and I use Amtrak alot in the northeast US where I live.)

A few other things:

  1. Do not rent a car unless you are used to driving on the wrong side of the road.
  2. You will not get frostbite. They get very little snow and it’s warm by my standards. Now you’re in Miami, so just pack like you’d be going to visit NYC in January.

Feel free to ask more questions.

Jim