Cotswold Eagle

Pretty much however you define it, the St Ermin's is in Westminster. All the pubs I mentioned are no more than 10 minutes walk from the hotel and you may eat at all of them. Casual dining restaurants can be found towards Victoria Station, for example in the Cardinal Place complex, and if you want to walk to somewhere more upmarket head across St James's Park, across Pall Mall and into St James's itself. And, as has been mentioned, you can jump on the tube or bus and literally all the cuisines of the world are available to you 😀

I couldn’t possibly comment!

Interesting, thanks. I think I'd probably go with a 2-day GVB ticket (trams, buses, metros) for €15, combined with the hop-on, hop-off boat or a simple canal cruise, and trade convenience for commentary!

Did you feel the bus part was good value? They get terrible reviews, but I just don't think a hop-on, hop-off bus is worth anything in Amsterdam. On the other hand, if I'm doing my maths right, for 48 hours it's only €17-50 more for the combo than the boat only ticket? https://www.citysightseeingamsterdam.nl

Stay here. 😀 As well as the Buck, I offer you the Adam & Eve, the Grafton, the Old Star, the Westminster Arms, the Two Chairmen, the Feathers….

But the OP was asking about staying in St James, not Bloomsbury….

I worked across the road for 20 years, so forgive me if I violently disagree. There are some brilliant pubs within a few minutes walk. I’ll give you the Buckingham in Petty France to start with….

And Tottenham Court Road is close than any of these to the main entrance.

London buses ONLY take contactless payment, no cash. Debit, credit or Oyster cards or mobile devices, and you'll need one each.

That information is roughly 10 years out of date!

Well, pop in next time 🤣

Oxford is not a bad shout in my opinion. Very regular coach from Heathrow, tons to do & see, catch a bus to Blenheim/Woodstock, direct trains to Southampton. But I do have a certain ancient academic and current geographic bias 😀

I have had a flat on the south-east reaches of the Jubilee Line for 20 years and live by the old rule, “never change at Green Park, particularly with luggage” 😀 If you must, don’t follow signs for the Jubilee Line, head up the escalator for the exit instead. When you get to ticket hall level, don’t go out through the barriers, turn and go straight back down the escalator to the Jubilee Line.

Ah, but the things you see from the top of a double decker! 😀

The Westminster is closer to Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square than the Hampton Waterloo. No London hotel is close to all the things most people might want to see, but to say a hotel in John Islip Street is only handy for the Tate is frankly ridiculous! As I said in another thread, it is not particularly close to a tube station, but only 10 minutes walk or so and there are convenient bus routes.

We must have different definitions of “works” and “perfectly good” 🤣

It's your choice, of course, but remember that £7 non-refundable fee per Oyster card, if you are trying to compare the fees. I understand concerns about whether a credit card will work, but it's astounding to me that Canadians can't get a card that will work in the rest of the world!

If you can get decent price Advance tickets then probably not. Any others, I reckon it might be close….if you are intending to travel off peak. For others, the Two Together railcard costs £30 and gives a third off most off peak fares for two adults travelling together. So if an individual ticket costs £45 or more, the discount on one trip for two adults can be worth the cost (£45x2 =£90, less a third =£60, saving £30). Of course, this thread is about Southampton travel, not Swansea 😀

https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/tickets/ : "We only accept payments by bank or credit card."

Indeed! 'Those who have no choice' would have been kinder than 'no one in their right mind'. It feels as if Advance fares are more available than pre-pandemic on the Oxford/Cotswolds line, but almost always not on the trains I need...or if they are, often at a huge saving such as £3 😂

You are just on the cusp of a final working timetable being published for that weekend, I think. Maybe give it a few days and check again. It may be that the best routing will be via London, in which case I would always check each leg myself - avoid any suggested routes that divert you via Reading to Paddington, I think, as that seems an unnecessary change.

The Trainline, which the poster said they were checking, does offer split ticketing. In any case, connections on different operators is not generally what is meant by split ticketing.

That’s because the random date you have selected is likely to be affected by works on the West Coast Mainline, as the bulletin on National Rail clearly indicates. Well, that’s one of the routings, but a potentially better one (which clearly comes up as a one change option) is Southampton-Birmingham New Street-Glasgow. Unfortunately, this is the route affected by the works, which is also the reason it’s not showing for the date in September.

All the information you need about industrial action on the railways (pretty much) is on this page of National Rail. The answer to the first question will reassure you (in terms of not losing your money, at least!): "If you purchased an Advance, Off-Peak or Anytime ticket and choose not to travel at all because your service on either your outward or return journey has been cancelled, delayed or rescheduled then you will be entitled to a fee-free refund or change from the original retailer of your ticket." By the way, I'm pretty sure you mean Watford Junction, not Waterford....and presumably HP is Harry Potter, not the famous condiment 😀

🤷‍♂️ Actually, National Rail now gives you the choice of any of the TOCs (and authorised third party retailers), via a dropdown menu, so you can buy from your preferred one. There's no such thing as the "correct" one, although it defaults to the TOC for the service you are booking (assuming a single operator for your journey). I have seen this sort of comment before about SWR - it is odd, as they have an international address finder on the registration page, which works really well for a dummy American address I tried, but then it is giving me the same error, requiring a UK address! Globaliser has the answer - find a TOC that works for you and use that. If I remember correctly, people have had success with Great Western, a bit of searching might throw up a good strategy. This is also why Trainline is sometimes recommended - it has a reliable international interface, apparently, which may be worth their add-on fees to you.