Special Royal Wedding London Oyster card on sale

By John Walton, April 26 2011
Special Royal Wedding London Oyster card on sale

Update: Australian Business Traveller readers in London have confirmed that the royal wedding Oyster cards are now on sale.

Pick up one of the 750,000 special edition cards this week at Tube stations around the city -- and don't miss our guide on how to avoid the royal wedding chaos if you're in London on business

Previous: Heading to London on a business trip this month and need to pick up an Oyster public transport smartcard to get around the city on London Underground (the Tube), the DLR, buses, trains and trams? 

In the week up to the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29, you'll be able to pick up a commemorative Royal Wedding Oyster Card.

Getting an Oyster card is a good idea for just about every business traveller in London, and you can buy them on arrival at Heathrow Airport or from any London Underground (Tube) station. 

The commemorative Royal Wedding card has an official engagement picture of the future King William and Queen Catherine on the left hand side, and proudly proclaims that it is "To Commemorate the Marriage of Prince William of Wales and Miss Catherine Middleton" and has the April 29 date -- in case you might have forgotten about it. Which is, of course, rather unlikely if you're in London anywhere near the wedding date.

Boris Johnson, London's oft-caricatured Mayor, is enthusiastically in favour: "Just as royal wedding fever starts to take hold in the city, this fantastic commemorative Oyster card is a great chance for Londoners and visitors to have a slice of the action as a fabulous memento of the happy day."

Kate Middleton was, of course, no stranger to the business travel lifestyle before getting involved with Prince William at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. 

Her parents, Carole and Michael, met while working for British Airways in the 1970s as cabin crew -- or, as it would have been back then, as a steward and stewardess.

Mrs Middleton's former profession also reportedly led to whispers of "doors to manual", the instruction for cabin crew to deactivate the emergency slides on arrival at an airport, from William's upper-class friends whenever daughter Kate walked into a room.

Fervent anti-monarchists will doubtless be relieved to know that Australian Business Traveller will provide a guide this month to avoiding the Royal Wedding if a business trip to London during the festivities is unavoidable.

John Walton

Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.


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