The plan being to meet everyone else joining the tweetup in the main concourse underneath the arrivals/ departure boards  (think T Mobile advert)
Depending on numbers we will then move on to a few local bar’s and then the Andaz to drink and chat the night away.
We really hope you can make it, it promises to be a good night

The hotel of choice where a few people have already booked is the Andaz on Liverpool Street. The first of Hyatt Hotels’ exciting new Andaz brand is located in the heart of London, housed in a beautiful red brick Victorian building dating back to 1884. Once inside, you are transported to the 21st century, with 267 beautifully appointed guest-rooms designed to create the ultimate hotel experience.

With no reception desk and no check-in queue, you are invited to relax in the lounge (lobby) while the check-in comes to you (staff use portable PC’s) – offering the highest level of personal and uncomplicated service.

For dining options, there is something to suit all tastes, with five restaurants and five bars within the hotel. Indulge in everything from afternoon tea, to traditional Japanese cuisine, fresh seafood or fine dining in the much reviewed new 1901 restaurant. Swanky huh! but the great thing about the Andaz is that its not that expensive, if you dont want it to be. I have booked myself and Paula into a queen room for 136 GBP or 155 Euro. The way I looked at it was that since we are flying to the UK may aswell have a touch of class about it.

Obviously there are cheaper hotels in London too and it is not essential for YOU to have to feel that you must book the Andaz but it would be great to have a good crowd in there.

For the Irish people flying to London from Dublin the cheapest way I have found of arriving to London is either Gatwick or Stansted. I choose gatwick because when you take into account the time it take to get from Stansted to the center of London compare to Gatwick to London, it proved quicker and the cost for flights and trains worked out somewhat similar.

For those flying from Shannon it seems Heathrow is a good bet as one Across the water registrant has pointed out, from Cork I am unsure but hopefully someone may be able to let me know.

So my plans from Ireland are as follows Saturday the 14th leave Dublin at 6.40, arrive in Gatwick at 8.10. On arrival at Gatwick get the Gatwick express and arrive in London Victoria 30 minutes later. Hop on a tube and get to Liverpool Street. Walk around the corner to the Andaz and start the break away.

Flight back to Dublin is at 4.40 arriving in Dublin at 6pm

Costs worked out as follows

Flight – 65.86 EURO per person (including taxes, charges and handling fees) for return flights with Aer lingus
Gatwick Express – 33 EURO per person return
Andaz Hotel – 154.87 EURO for Queen room for 1 night without breakfast.

So as I say this is how I have done it, Ryanair do provide a slightly cheaper flight but I am talking 10 euro approx and to avoid the hell of Ryanair, I decided to go Aerlingus. The Andaz was chosen also because of Liverpool Street which houses one of the biggest train stations in London thus meaning if people are staying elsewhere we have a central hub in that station. Gatwick was chosen because of the speed of the train (half an hour quicker then Stansted express) and also cause the cost difference of the 2 flights was minimal.

I do want to reiterate though that if you decide to do things differently that is entirely up to you, and wont affect the night itself.

All thats left for us to say is get booking guys!

Once that time has passed we shall reveal the location for what should be a great nights drinking and chatting on the 14th. We will also be having a photowalk either on the Saturday or Sunday, Anjee is also talking about a shopping trip with it being so close to Christmas.

So if your Irish and want to meet someone you follow on twitter from the UK let them know about the night and maybe it can happen and visa versa for the UK.

So remember 6pm on Friday the 18th of September is the date to make sure you are registered. ReTweet this to everyone, blog about it and more so keep talking about it and lets make this a huge event for everyone to enjoy.

The main purpose behind the registration was to find out how many people are willing to come. So far the numbers have been fantastic and better then expected by both myself and Anjee. Once we shut the registration down that will be the final list of people coming, and we cannot guarantee that any late comer will be able to get in. It is for this reason that Anjee, who has been working relentlessly on this compared to me, has been pushing the registration, its for your own good trust us!!!

We will be announcing the close off date for registration possibly tonight or tomorrow. This date will be final but we will try and accommodate folk who miss the date as best we can, but venue will dictate the size of crowd we can have.

Onto the venue, trust us we have been checking some spots out, but until we have a final count of registered folk we wont be deciding on which venue to go to.

As I say if you have registered you name is in and we thank you very much for doing so and apologise for not coming back to you sooner about it, we will be in touch within the next week or 2 with full details of the event itself and ideas on hotels/hostels for those who are looking for accommodation.

Thanks again and please follow us on twitter for all the latest goings on and also for when we announce the cutoff date for registrations.

We realised pretty quickly that http://acrossthewatertweetup.wordress.com was never going to be able to fulfill our needs so we bought a glossy new domain and have set it up in a similar fashion with loads more bells and whistles!

Some questions people have been asking have been,

If I said I am coming on twitter does that mean I am registered?

Sorry no it does not, please please please fill out the form it is the only way for both myself and Anjee to keep tabs on the numbers arriving.

What do you plan for the night?

As I have mentioned to some people myself on twitter, that really is up to you guys, what do you want from the night its your night at the end of the day!!! we are open to suggestions – do we want awards? do we want a sit down meal? do we want to do a twitpic walk? do you want to shop? really, hit us with ideas we would love to hear them.

Where do you plan on holding the event?

London! Only kidding but this has yet to be decided and will ultimately boil down to the numbers, but we feel that this could be a huge party, so we may look into hotels and such, which may mean a minimal charge to come or hopefully if it comes to that we will have some sponsors on board. As soon as we know we will let you guys know.

Which brings us to our last question…

You mention sponsors? how could I help you out here?

Again we will be posting up details for sponsorship very soon, but if you are interested please do get in contact with either myself or Anjee.

The last thing I would like to say is a big thank you to @Emmet for designing up the rather cool logo for us, thank you so much.

So I do hope this has answered some of the questions you may have about the tweetup, but as I say please get in touch with us for any other questions you may have.

Myself and a good friend @anjeebaby have been discussing an idea which I hope people may embrace.

What started off as a small visit to London in October has become what I can only call the “Across the water tweetup”. After a lengthy discussion of 3 or 4 tweets to each other we decided that it might be a great idea to try and organise an event in London where Irish tweeters and English tweeters can finally meet each other face to face.

The connection between Ireland and England on twitter is huge and I know a lot of us are following people and been followed from across the water.

What we are proposing is this, one Saturday night in London on the weekend of the 14th of November with a venue still to be decided , obviously for any Irish travelling we should make a weekend of it, possibly by having a photowalk or something even on one of the days. If the uptake on this is good well then the “Across the water tweetup” can move to Ireland the next time and so on.

So what do you think? depending on the interest shown we will look into organising a hotel to have the meetup happen in, and check out prices for accomodation etc. Also if it gets to big and we need a conference centre or something (hehe) a fee will have to be charged, but hopefully it wont come to that.

I would also like to add that you do not need to be Irish or English to come along if you can make it from other countries please do.

We also have a twitter account set up for all the updates or to answer any questions you may have, but please get the word out there tweet about this and link to this site as much as you can, do what ever is necessary to get the message out to people.

As I say its an idea that I truly believe can run, please let me know via the comments what you think and if you are interested please fill in this form so we can get an idea of numbers.

Thanks in advance

John