What to do in the UK on rugby tour

In My Humble Opinion
1

My rugby club (Worcester, Massachusetts, USA) is touring the UK in August. With just over 6 weeks remaining, our itinerary is pretty solid, with stops in Worcester, Machen and Twickenham, but there are a couple of gaps I was hoping my fellow dopers could help me fill (I am the social director on tour, so it’s my job to fill the tourists time). Our transportation is by private coach, and we have 41tourists.

Here’s the itinerary, with the gaps and questions I have bolded:

8/2 arrive Heathrow 830, and we are due in Worcester for a meet and greet at 1400.
Do we have time to drive to Rugby to see the plaque and have lunch?
the rest of afternoon is filled with hotel check in, and club meal

8/3 Match day Worcester vs Worcester, sister city face off. should be cool

8/4 social activities with hosts

8/5 travel day to Machen, Wales. We have to check in to our hotel in Caerphillly at 1500. Do we have time for a cool rugby-related lunch stop during this travel? if so, what should we stop and see? match vs Machen at 1700

8/6 we have this entire day open, with a second match vs Machen at 1700. Considering we have a full schedule in Cardiff on the next day, what could I plan for this morning/afternoon in southeast Wales?

8/7 coach to Cardiff, tour of Millennium Stadium, shopping, pubs. Travel to Twickenham.

8/8 Tour Twickenham Stadium, matches vs TRFC at night, club meal

8/9 This is a full open day. It is the last day of tour, tourists will be physically, emotionally and financially spent. What London based activities could I plan for this day?

8/10 Airport in the morning, fly home, 3 weeks recovery.

So, whaddya think? Any advise?

2

London in August is full of Germans and Japanese who have apparently not learnt that the lost the war and are not suppose to do such thing. Seriously, while the provinces will be okay, London will be crowded as hell.

As for the questions. i) I don’t think you will have the time, if its Terminal 3, you will be out at 10:00 at the earliest and ii) read what I wrote above (wrt London anyway).
What do you like? West End is always worth a check out.

BTW, league or Union.

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Moved to IMHO from Cafe Society.

4

Sorry Mod.

AK84 we play Union. There is not much League in the states, when we say Rugby, we mean Union. Thanks for the heads up on the congestion of London in August.

If I brought the coach to West End, would I just drop the tourists off at Piccadilly Circus and turn them loose on the shopping district? What would we do with a day there?

5

The traffic will be fucking crazy. I have been to the that area literally hundreds of times and I still have not seen it all, and it has its delights for everyone. You could catch a movie or a play at Leicester Square and surrounding area. . Or shop at Bond Street/Oxford Circus. You can use the Tube or walk if that what you enjoy, its a bit of a walk but worth it IMO, I have walked from Leicester Square to Marble Arch myself.

My personal favourite time waster; the National Gallery in front of Trafalgar Square.

Damnit, I miss that city.

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For the open day in Wales: Caerphilly Castle tour?

http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/caerphilly-castle/?lang=en

7

The journey should take less than 2 hours so you’ll have plenty of time. I suggest touring Caerphilly Castle. You’ll have more than time enough for something else as well.

Richmond Park can be very relaxing, and the ballet school there has the odd open day. But really, if you’ve not done the Tower of London, Parliament, Trafalgar Square, and the National Gallery then you really need to go. Book theatre tickets for the evening well in advance - like, about now.

One tip: do not try to match drinks with your hosts. You will lose. :smiley:

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If you have the time, then yes, do this. It’s been restored in parts over the centuries, but it’s a right proper castle.

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Booking the castle tour for our open day 8/6. One problem solved :slight_smile:

The coach company is deciding if the Rugby stop between the airport and Worcester is doable. If it is, i will book lunch in Rugby.

Just the London open day left to fill. Do Londoners go to the beach? It will be the middle of August.

10

Londoners certainly do go to the beach! Unfortunately, the beach is generally in Ibiza or Greece. There are beaches in England, but really, don’t bother. For chilling-out purposes, I would suggest lounging around people-watching in one of the great parks like Hyde Park. Sounds like you will all be too knackered for much more than that. You never know, it might even be sunny.

Your 8/5 itinerary still looks (relatively) quiet. It’s really not that far from Worcester to the Cardiff area. I don’t know of any rugby-related sights in that area, but you would probably have time to visit one. More feasible than the plan of vpassing through Rugby on the day that you have to get to Worcester, anyway.

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Thanks Ximenean, I will consider bringing the coach to Hyde park and dropping of the tourists there for a bit on 8/9. We are still very much up in the air ont hat days plans.

As for the 8/5 travel day between Worcester and Caerphilly, amybe we can do the Rugby stop then? I know it’s in the opposite direction, but looks like we have time.

Also the 8/7 travel day is pretty loose. The tour of Milennium Stadium is not yet booked as they want up front ticket purchase. If we leave Cardiff for Twickenham fairly early in the day, I was thinking of driving by Stonehenge. Not entering, but seeing it fromt he coach.

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I wouldn’t personally bother with detouring just to see Stonehenge. It’d add over an hour of travel time, and it’s not really that interesting from the road.

It might be famous, but unless everyone’s desperate to tick it off some kind of list, you’d probably have more fun having a extra hour free, or stopping off somewhere else for an hour or so on the way.

Do you need to actually plan everyone’s time in London? Assuming everyone has a tolerable ability to not get hideously lost, I’d be tempted to leave that as a free day (maybe booking dinner and a show for the evening). There’s so many options for things to do in the centre that are quite close together-some both free and excellent, and most of which don’t need any booking, that I’d either ask the group now if there’s anything a majority want to do, and if there isn’t, just get a good brochure and some free maps, and let 'em work it out themselves. Just an idea.

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8/2 - no. Unlikely. With customs, etc, you’ll be out of the airport by ten if you’re lucky, unless the plane’s delayed, and the drive from Heathrow to anywhere about ten minutes’ supposed drive from Heathrow will take about an hour at that time of day. TBH you might not make it to Worcester on time.

You’ll also all be tired from the flight and this will be your first time driving in an unfamiliar place, so it’s probably wisest not to try any detours.

Also don’t plan on driving the coach into Piccadilly and dropping everyone off there. There is no coach parking at Piccadilly Circus; there is also pretty much no car parking. There’s barely room to stand! They are extremely narrow roads full of people walking in the road. It is a hellish place for any driver, let alone a coach driver who’s never driven in the UK. When you get there, you’ll see what I mean. Just don’t even think about driving your coach to Piccadilly - that’s your day gone.

Driving in London at all during the day, even on the outskirts, takes approximately four times what any satnav tells you. On a good day.

What would be a good idea would be driving to a station on the outskirts of London and getting the train or tube in from there. They are very quick, fairly cheap and are a fun experience in themselves. Are you using a coach hire company? They should be able to advise you of a good park and ride spot.

14

Yes, that seems quite doable. Maybe 1.5 hours to get to Rugby (motorways around Birmingham can be slow sometimes, but it’s generally not as bad as the London area), then it could be 3 hours to Wales. That should leave plenty of time in Rugby.

15

For your day off on the 9th have a think about taking a ride on the London Eye at some point during the day. You’ll get spectacular views over London for about £20 per head. I’m a Londoner and I’m still blown away by the panoramas.

Afterwards you could stroll around the South Bank, then take a wander across Waterloo Bridge (spectacular views from here too, especially at dusk), then northwest to Covent Garden where there’s plenty of old pubs, bars and restaurants, then down through Leicester Square to Piccadilly Circus.

Just trying think of some things that’ll give you a taste of London without costing an arm and a leg.

16

I’m going to be the dissenting voice that says you could go to Rugby on your way from Heathrow to Worcester. By 10am the worst of the traffic has gone so unless there is an accident, it should be only an hour and a half to Rugby. If all goes to plan and you arrive there at 1130, that would give you about an hour before you have to set off to Worcester, as that’s about 1 hour and 10 minutes: according to Google Maps, anyway.

The reason I say this is that this gives you a relatively logical route - going from Worcester to Rugby and then to South Wales seems like a big detour to me. But as others have said, if you are doing the driving yourselves it may be a bit tiring for your first day, so my recommendation perhaps only applies if you are hiring an English coach company and driver for your trip.

Regarding your travel day between Worcester and Machen, the link above suggests travelling down the M5 and crossing the Severn Bridge to get there, but you could ask your driver to instead go via Ledbury, Ross-on-Wye, Monmouth, and Chepstow - this will take longer, but is much more picturesque and give you a feel for the English and Welsh countryside. Ledbury in particular is a classic “Olde Englishe” type town, with timber-framed Tudor buildings galore - if you like that sort of thing.

17

Jesus, the only question here is “WHY???”

It’s quite sad watching excited Rugger teams pile off their coaches, eager to visit the birthplace of the sport for which they live and breathe… then piling back on, literally 5 minutes later because there is nowt to see, other than a statue outside the school, with a few flagpoles round it, on the busy main road.

No quaint gift shops selling knick-knacks emblazoned with slogans about funny shaped balls, in fact you’ll be hard-pressed to find any reference to the game at all, other than the town name. The council stopped replacing the Rugger ball-shaped town name signs because they were always stolen within hours (probably by coach-loads of disappointed Rugger Buggers looking for something to shove up each others arses in the club after the match)

You won’t get into the school, it’s locked up in case the “friendly travelling folk” who set up on the sports fields a couple of years ago return, with their bags of excrement, broken glass and syringes to strew about the place. It’s not the sort of place that lets oiks like Rugger players roam around at will anyway, I can picture certain people’s top lip curling in distaste at even having to acknowledge their fine educational establishment is responsible for such a vulgar game.

There is no informative visitors’ centre, just a small plaque explaining how some spoiled bastard decided he didn’t feel like playing by the rules and decided to cheat by picking up a football (or words to that effect). A museum, thoughtfully called the Rugby Museum is right by the statue, and is approximately 20’ x 10’ with not one, but two display cases, crammed full of…balls. Well, a few, anyway. And some programmes. And a couple of team shirts. Dizzying stuff.

Were you ask most residents what the town is world-famous for, the vast majority wouldn’t have a clue. Seriously. (It does help if you speak Polish, I guess)

I hate to say it, but if you are braving the Road to Hell, or the M1 as it’s known here, to visit Rugby when you should be making your way elsewhere, you are making a big mistake. I guarantee, you will be late getting where you should be, and will wonder why the hell you bothered. Even if you made it up here in good time from London (and it’s a good 2 hours from Heathrow, even if you cane it. I know, trust me), there is no quick way down to Worcester without hitting a stretch of motorway which is being “upgraded”.

On the other hand, Rugby (or Drugby as it is often known) is absolutely fantastic for pub violence, glassings and thuggery. Any groups of lads in blazers will be welcomed in with open arms (and closed fists). Roll outside and wait for an ambulance (to take you to Coventry because Rugby’s A&E Dept has been closed) and breathe in the dioxins from the Cement Works incinerator which drops dust over the town on a regular basis (allegedly). You’ll have to check, but I think they burn tyres on Mondays and Weds, and clinical waste on Fridays. The other days are Pot Luck days!

If you look up “Shit-house” in an encyclopedia, it’ll probably have a picture of Rugby to illustrate the entry.

This brought to you by the Drugby Tourist Board.