London betwee flights

[Jocelyne]

Hey all!
Well I'll be arriving in to London gatwick May 7th at 7 am and my flight to Cork doesn't fly out until 3pm so I have quite a bit of time to fill. My friend doesn't want to leave the air port for fear we'lll miss the next flight but I'm trying to convince her so I need to figure out what we can do for say 4-5 hrs that would get us back to the airport for 12 so we won't miss the flight at 3. I will be going back to London at the end of June for a week so its not like I have to rush to see all of London in a few hours....I just don't want to waste the few hours looking around the airport when we can be doing something else. Any advice on what to see for the few hours??
Thanks Jocelyne

[WillTravel]

Maybe you could go to Brighton. I'm not sure what to suggest for your luggage, though. I'm not sure where there's a left-luggage facility (maybe at the Brighton bus station or Gatwick?)
You can take the National Express. www.nationalexpress.com

[me]

you could also take the Express train into Victoria Station, you might have a few hours to reconnoiter some places in London you'd visit at the later date.

[MuvverRussia]

If you arrive at 7am, then by the time you've cleared immigration and baggage check then it'll be 8:30-9. Dropping your bags off at left luggage will take another 10 minutes or so, then it's 30 minutes each way on the train to Victoria.

If you want to get back to the airport for 12 then you'd only really have a couple of hours in Central London at most. Is that worth the £25 each for the Gatwick Express (you can't get the day return due to the time you leave LGW)?