Globaliser

There is indeed a significant hill up from Riverside to the Castle - so if it's important to avoid it, then you haven't done the wrong thing. But I think that the last time I posted about that, it was for the benefit of someone who was planning to have all their luggage with them, rather than someone just visiting Windsor for the day.

The only thing that I would add to this great explanation is that on the Tube map you will sometimes see a dotted line connecting two separate stations (eg Tower Hill <--> Tower Gateway, or Euston <--> Euston Square). The legend indicates that this means that it's less than 10 minutes to walk between the stations. However, in all (or almost all) cases, it also means that if you exit at one station and immediately enter the other, this will count as an interchange in the same way as if you had changed trains entirely inside a single station. Although you have to touch out and then touch in again, the system will charge you for the through journey, not as two separate journeys. This is known as an "Out of Station Interchange" or OSI. This part of the fares system also applies if you use a TfL payment method (Oyster or contactless) and change between TfL services and National Rail services on a journey to which a TfL fare applies (journeys entirely within the TfL area, plus a handful of others), requiring you to touch out and touch in (as is usual). Occasionally, you will find that an interchange inside a station will also require you to touch out through a ticket gate and then touch in again at another ticket gate. Some of the signed routes inside Bank/Monument station to get to/from the Waterloo and City Line require this. The same OSI logic applies. Like many other things to do with transport in London, it sounds more complicated than it is. As a user, you will normally be able to just use the available transport, and let the fares system do its work by itself. Unfortunately, I think that Windsor is outside the TfL fares area so this doesn't apply. There are some on the Internet, but I would recommend only looking at them for interest rather than for navigation purposes. (Relying on internal official signage is best for occasional users. I think you'd only want to have a 3D model of any particular station in your own head if you're a frequent user of it and need to get the best out of it.) There is a collection of axonometric diagrams here: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-maps-of-every-underground-station-ab-14630/ https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-maps-of-every-underground-station-cdefg-14651/ https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-maps-of-every-underground-station-hijklm-14683/ https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-maps-of-every-underground-station-nopqrs-14715/ https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-maps-of-every-underground-station-tuvw-14744/ In addition, there's a selection of interactive 3D diagrams here: https://stations.aeracode.org/ However, please note that some of these are now out of date because a number of stations (particularly Bank/Monument) have had major upgrades and alterations.

As markeb says, as long as you and your husband have two different physical cards, you should be OK. For your daughter, one other option might be to load one of your cards onto a phone, providing it has NFC (contactless) functionality. AIUI, the phone should then count as a further "card" which your daughter could use in addition to your two physical cards. But one potential disadvantage (seeing as you would be sharing one card account) could be that if your credit card company sees three charges coming onto the card account every day from the same merchant, that could trip some fraud or similar detector on the card account. What are the foreign transaction fees? It's easy to get unnecessarily hung up about these. If you only travel in Zones 1 and 2, you won't pay more than £8.50 per day for your TfL travel. At a typical forex rate of 3%, the fee would be the equivalent of 25p, which is really not worth worrying about. Also, TfL only sends one charge to the card per day, so even if there is some form of per-transaction charge, you'd only pay it once per day.

I knew he was old, but I didn't know he was that old!

I don't think that UK train tickets have to be on an app. I've always been able to choose to pick up a paper ticket or to get a PDF instead. I suspect that there would be trouble for any train operator that made it compulsory to use a smartphone simply to travel on public transport.

Yes, that's how they are sized. I have no idea why. As for a ticket that's designed for printing on A4: the bar codes will usually work even if you print them onto A5, so the tiny difference between A4 and letter is completely immaterial. Just last week, an exasperated member of staff at a theatre thanked us for printing our tickets onto paper. They scan so much more quickly and accurately than barcodes presented on a phone.

That's good news - thanks for letting us know!

It makes me wonder whether they will start thinking about doing the SJC for three weeks a year, although the musicians may not be so keen on that.

What time of the year would this be for? Generically, Citadines and Club Quarters would have been my first suggestions. I know people (including a mutual acquaintance) who have used both chains. But I think that they're all central London locations, and probably priced accordingly.

It's not just branding. SWR is a completely different company from LNER. They're only "part of National Rail" in the sense that they both belong to what used to be called the Association of Train Operating Companies, which is now part of the Rail Delivery Group. The members of the group will each sell almost all tickets for any train operated by any group member, as well as through fares that require travel on more than one company's trains. If I had to guess, it would seem less likely to be a deliberate decision not to accept overseas customers, and more likely that it's simply a website/database construction/security limitation that the company sees no commercial need/imperative to resolve. The number of customers who can only give a non-UK address and must register an account in order to book a ticket in advance for SWR trains is probably negligible, particularly given the nature of SWR's network, passenger and fares mix. It's different for (say) LNER which basically only operates long-distance trains on which advance booking is important for a large proportion of customers. It's exactly the same as airlines, driven by very similar commercial imperatives.

As ever, your instinct was correct: that 26-day hole has now been filled (together with some other holes in her schedule). I'm not sure the NCL website understands how the International Date Line works, but that's probably for another day and another thread.

You wanted Saudia?

Yes, normally. It just takes some practice. Having said that, I'm pretty fond of the vast open spaces of the forward upper deck loos on BA's A380s.

I agree about the last point, but I find airline PJs tend to be made of some of the nastiest artificial fabrics that can be found, and are therefore usually quite uncomfortable. So I bring my own stuff, which is well worth the small extra effort of carrying it. It's useful to hear this from you, too. JAL isn't often an option for my routes, but it's been cropping up as a possibility a bit more often recently.

I doubt it. In pre-Covid times, you might have had a decent chance, but even then I wouldn't have booked it. You also need to be aware that the RailAir link is not a train. It's a bus that takes you to Woking (or possibly Guildford) to change there for a train. A quick look suggests that the bus runs twice an hour, but it may be that there is only one train an hour from Woking.

I think that here, that model is most often seen in pubs and similar places. Otherwise, it's generally either being served at the counter and taking the food to your table yourself (including at sandwich shops like Pret), or table service. So it sounds like the latter may be more what you're looking for anyway.

How fast and how casual? As you mention pizza, are you prepared to contemplate sit-down table service in an informal setting? In any event, there is a planning law in London that stipulates that if you stand outside the front door of any branch of Pret a Manger, you must be able to see at least one other branch. The most convenient one for what you want to do is probably this one (49 Tothill St, SW1H 9LQ). Another alternative is Farmer J St James's (8-9 Orchard Pl, SW1H 0BG), which does counter service salads (including hot salads). A sit-down bistro-type place that I would recommend is Chez Antoinette Victoria (22 Palmer St, SW1H 0PH). That shouldn't rule out pizza. You can get plenty of dairy-free pizza. At worst, many (probably most) pizza places will be geared up to do vegan versions, but some places might offer non-vegan but non-dairy. One possibility for a pizza would be the Pizza Express at 85 Victoria St, SW1H 0HW.

Isn't the day flight called "the Chairman's flight"?

A quick dig found these dates for 2023, which are typical. (These are not comprehensive lists.) Christmas lights switch-on 2 November 2023 Oxford Street 7 November 2023 Covent Garden 8 November 2023 Carnaby Street 9 November 2023 Regent Street and St James's 9 November 2023 Marylebone Village 14 November 2023 St Christopher's Place 15 November 2023 Belgravia 16 November 2023 Bond Street 18 November 2023 Chelsea Southbank Centre winter market: 28 October 2023 - 7 January 2024 Christmas in Leicester Square: 8 November 2023 - 7 January 2024 Winter Wonderland: 17 November 2023 - 1 January 2024 But many individual places start putting up Christmas decorations earlier than that, often because they want to have them in place before schools' half-term holidays at the end of October. Some of the big department stores may actually have their Christmas departments (selling decorations, gift wrap, cards, and Christmassy gifts) open from as early as mid-August. Before you fall off your chair laughing, there are actually good reasons for this, which were confirmed when they first experimented with the idea.

This can't be stressed enough. If you wouldn't have to fly on further from DFW, then doing immigration and customs at your final destination is so much better than having to do an international-to-domestic connection at LAX or SFO. Qantas It truly is Qantas.

Qantas You should also be able to get Qantas flights via LAX, although the domestic sector would be operated by American Airlines. However, "best" is something that nobody can advise you on, because it depends on how what your personal priorities are and what value you place on them. We can usually have a go at "cheapest", but that's a very different adjective from "best".

You keep saying this, but what's your alternative? I think that the only way of eliminating such anomalies would be to price all fares on a flat pence per mile basis.

If cheap is the principal consideration, there's an itinerary that's £66.60 per person: 1015 Southampton Central to Coventry arr 1227 (CrossCountry) 1327 Coventry to Edinburgh Waverley arr 1821 (Avanti West Coast) It appears to be fared on split tickets: Southampton Central to Basingstoke Basingstoke to Banbury Banbury to Coventry Coventry to Penrith (North Lakes) Penrith (North Lakes) to Edinburgh Usual health warning about split tickets, though: There are potential pitfalls for the uninformed or unwary if things don't go according to plan; they should be used only by people who understand what split tickets are about and what the downsides can be, and not by people who can't see beyond the £ signs.

I think 10:45 is the departure time from Flam and 11:43 is the arrival time at Myrdal, at the other end of the trip.

I have no personal expertise in this subject, but I was intrigued by the idea that the staff at the Tower might tell you an untruth just to get rid of you near closing time, particularly as quite a few visitors to the site will have extensive knowledge. So a quick Google found this page: "In Victorian times, it was claimed that Anne was lodged in the current day ‘Queen’s apartments’ but we now know that this is incorrect as the present day buildings were built a number of years after Anne’s execution. This information was circulated to meet a strong public demand to see and know the physical space where Anne Boleyn spent her last hours." It's corroborated by things said on a number of other web pages on the topic of Anne Boleyn and the Tower, although I can't vouch for any of it. I always suggest not packing too much in to a day, and I agree that anyone who wants to see both places properly will probably struggle because of a lack of time - they each need at least half a day. But this isn't because the two are too far apart from each other. To get from the Tower to the Abbey, it's six stops on the District (or Circle) Line from Tower Hill Tube to Westminster Tube, which is about a 10-minute journey on a line with frequent trains, and the respective stations are close to the sites.