[midwinter]

Hi all.

I just finished booking my flight and renting my short-term let in London for next month. My wife and I need to go to Limerick, however, and we'd rather go by train. We'll both get britrail passes, anyway, but we're wondering what kind of rates to expect, how long the trip, how they fit the whole train on the ferry, etc.

any advice?

[Bryson]

By train? Are you sure you can't fly? It'll be considerably cheaper, and take a fraction of the time. I assume you're not terrified of planes, otherwise how would you get from Utah to London?

Flights are about £30 return and will take about a hour, the train will be about £55 for the Uk portion, plus £24 for the ferry, plus whatever the Irish train costs (which won't be covered by your British Rail pass - it is another country, after all!) which will be at least £50. And it'll take upwards of 12-14 hours.

I'm guessing that you're hoping to see a bit of the countryside from the train. I really wouldn't bother - if it's by a train line, it's rarely scenic. I'd rather take 24 more hours in Limerick.

[midwinter]

I actually really do hate to fly. But a cheap flight is a cheap flight.

[Bryson]

Sorry, should have said: Easyjet is cheap, but really really sucks. I'd recommend Ryanair or BMIBaby (My favorite). Prices are about the same.

[StevesMom]

Originally Posted by midwinter Hi all. I just finished booking my flight and renting my short-term let in London for next month. My wife and I need to go to Limerick, however, and we'd rather go by train. We'll both get britrail passes, anyway, but we're wondering what kind of rates to expect, how long the trip, how they fit the whole train on the ferry, etc. any advice?

Advice : don't go by train in the UK if you can help it. Ever. With very, very few exceptions the rail infrastructure in the UK is absolute shit (I commute on one of those exceptions, the Chiltern line from Birmingham to London).

Budget flights are cheap - BMIBaby and Ryanair are your best bet. Steer clear of Easyjet. BA are also doing some reasonable deals to Ireland these days too.

But don't do trains. You *will* regret it.

[mattf]

Originally Posted by StevesMom Advice : don't go by train in the UK if you can help it. Ever. With very, very few exceptions the rail infrastructure in the UK is absolute shit (I commute on one of those exceptions, the Chiltern line from Birmingham to London).

That's just made my day. I'm going to start commuting on that line (Bicester - London) in about 6 weeks or so (if you see somebody lugging around a 14" iBook, looking like they wish they had a 12" PowerBook, that's probably me).

Originally Posted by StevesMom Budget flights are cheap - BMIBaby and Ryanair are your best bet. Steer clear of Easyjet. BA are also doing some reasonable deals to Ireland these days too.

There's also FlyBE who do some reasonably cheap flights to Ireland.

Originally Posted by StevesMom But don't do trains. You *will* regret it.

Abso-fecking-lutely.

[midwinter]

Update:

1) The place we rented is a flat in S. Kensington. I'm not wild about having to take the Circle line all the way from there to King's Cross (most of our time will be spent in the British Library). Would Picadilly be faster? It looks it on the map, but considering the thing'll stop at both Picadilly Circus and Leicester Sq, I'm wondering if it might be slower/more uncomfortable than it looks. Any thoughts? My experiences on that line have always been, um, cramped, hot and sometimes full of drunken clubbers and loud (and lost) American tourists (always readily identifiable by the white socks and white sneakers).

2) I don't know that particular area very well, although my first trip to London was 5 weeks in Sloane Square (which is very depressing now that they've traded out all the neat antique stores for Gap Stores, Harley Davidson stores, and 43 Starbucks). Anyway. It looks fairly residential, and the nearest tubestop, I reckon, is Gloucester Rd. Anyone know anything about the neighborhood? Good pubs? I tend to be a pub food eater in London (my wife wants the fancy meals from menus in foreign languages).

3) We need to take a few day-trips to Oxford. I'm assuming Victoria is best for that and that these trips will be covered by a Britrail pass?

Thanks, folks!

Edit: WOOT! Just found £200 cash left over from my last trip!

[Chinney]

In my own case, I landed directly in the fog at Shannon, people clapping because they were nervous about their lives, not seeing the ground until just before we landed, then putting my bike together from the box that had come with me on the plane and cycling off along the Shannon river and heading in the sun and then the rain and the sun and rain toward a hostel bed and the shower that took the 10p pieces for hot water and again on my own setting out toward Galway over the wet rail tracks where I went down hard on my knee but kept cycling and in Galway meeting the girl from Finland with the blue blue eyes who wanted me to come to Aran but kept cycling in and out of the fog and rain and the two days through Connemara where the hills met the clouds on each side and there were no cars on the roads and I was the most completely alone and the phones even twenty years ago (but not now) had hand cranks and making it to Sligo where they opened the shop after closing time so that I could buy some eggs and rashers for supper and offering to introduce me to some local farmer's daughters and then on to Donegal and against the wind and through long hours to Derry where after seeing the IRA graffiti the wind turned and took me and blew me 100 miles in an easy day cycle across the North of Ireland and I ended up staying for weeks with the friends I had come to see before stopping in Belfast and then staying at the farm with the warm goat's milk and across the ferry to Stranraer and across that narrow strip of Scotland to Edinburgh in a day and remembering being bought drinks at the Gravedigger's pub and them joking around asking if I knew their cousin in Alberta...before heading back.

I was 20 and I never quite made it to down to London. But perhaps I did not take the most direct route.

[mattf]

Originally Posted by midwinter Update: 3) We need to take a few day-trips to Oxford. I'm assuming Victoria is best for that and that these trips will be covered by a Britrail pass?

Can't help you on the first two questions, but I'm sure that most of the trains to Oxford go from Paddington. Unless you're looking to go by coach, in which case, it is Victoria

NationalRail and Oxford Bus are your friends. I would say that it's highly unlikely that a Britrail pass will cover you for the Oxford Bus Espress.

[Bryson]

Oxford trains do go from Paddington. Victoria (and Charing Cross, London Bridge and Waterloo) serves places South of London, Paddington, Kings Cross, St Pancras and Euston do places north. I can never remember which station you need for each destination, so I use National Rail Enquiries.

The Picadilly will be much faster than the Circle line - and it will be full of people and cramped. But thats what the tube is like, regardless of line.

[midwinter]

Wife has corrected me. Only I need to go to Oxford. She needs to go to Cambridge at least two days. I assume that's not Paddington, then?

[Franz Josef]

Originally Posted by midwinter Wife has corrected me. Only I need to go to Oxford. She needs to go to Cambridge at least two days. I assume that's not Paddington, then?

Cambridge trains leave from Kings Cross - just a few stops from Paddington on the Circle / Metropolitan Line - http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by Franz Josef Cambridge trains leave from Kings Cross - just a few stops from Paddington on the Circle / Metropolitan Line - http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/.

Heh. You all will get a chuckle out of this: the other day, my wife left me at the BL (which is, of course, NEXT DOOR to St. Pancras/King's Cross) to go to King's Cross>Piccadilly Line>Gloucester.

I really ought not let her navigate the tube without help.

She walked all the way down to Euston and then took the tube back to King's Cross.

Good to be back in your fair city. The rain was nice today, even though I got soaked this morning.

[Franz Josef]

Welcome to London (though I'm actually posting this from Paris at the moment )

[Unch]

I don't envy you and your wife having to make so many train and tube trips on those lines. I used to commute from Reading to Oxford on the Paddington line. I don't think I ever made it to work on time.

[beardedmacuser]

Not wanting to get into a airline-slagging match, but... I live in London and I have family in Cork in Ireland and EVERY TIME I've flown from Stansted with Ryanair it's been late. EVERY SINGLE TIME. And Stansted really is not a nice airport and is not easy to get to and from by public transport. Best avoided. Whereas I've flown with EasyJet many times to many places and have only ever been significantly late once. But hey, your mileage may vary... and even Ryanair is better than taking the train and a ferry.

[billybobsky]

Look if this american can find his way to stansted, then midwinter can find his way to stansted... It is, however, a horrible airport... That much I agree with...

[Unch]

Neither of you two have ever been to Luton Airport then?

[Franz Josef]

Threadjacked to become the worst (best) UK airport thread. London City surely the best / Luton surely the worst .....

[beardedmacuser]

Luton was OK... until tonight when I flew with EasyJet from Luton to Aberdeen (we arrived early in Aberdeen BTW). EasyJet were fine, but Luton Airport has opened a new departures lounge which is blatently small and unfinished. It was better before because you could easily sneak off to a quiet part with a power socket. But the new depature lounge at Luton had no power sockets that I could see. Oh well, the flight with EasyJet was grand, however. Prompt and efficient as usual... and landed early not for the first time.