Cotswold Eagle

Yes, that's the Council's current timeline. I'm not sure if the EES delay is the sole reason - unless they look further into decoupling, ETIAS can only be about 6 months after EES, but that assumes all is well in the ETIAS programme too! I'd take Spring 2025 as a 'no earlier than' date 🤣

When the Parliament agreed the text of the Regulation in July 2018, the Commission was saying “end of 2021”. I doubt any Euro-watchers believed that even then, though 😂 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_4367 Following their publication in the Official Journal of the European Union (EUR-Lex), the regulations will enter into force 20 days later, which will enable eu-LISA to start building the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) and make these new information systems operational by the end of 2021.

But you were in the lounge 75 minutes before that flight, why would you want to leave earlier? 😀 You can only book a slot from three days before. You fill in your flight details and the system will give you suggested slots based on their predictions. You can usually choose from really quite early to very early indeed!! This all assumes you won't have fast track through status or booking, nor Previum.

Never a bad thing 😀 Personally, I would have been very relaxed about your flight, but everyone's risk appetite is different, and it certainly removes any last night worries and allows you to have a carefree disembarkation rather than scrambling off at 7 am!

I wouldn't bother. AMS had a horror with security delays last summer (and I don't know why CruiserBruce didn't just say that!). I don't know what his source is for saying that it's not completely fixed, but there are no systemic delays there at all now to the best off my knowledge. In any case, the appointment system mitigates the risk.

Yes, very good point, although the walk from the Hilton is at least all under cover. I think people just like to feel that they are at the right terminal! And if you are going to use the station more than once, maybe that goes in its favour. But the transit to the South Terminal from the North is so easy and both the Sofitel and Premier Inn are right by it, as you say, so I'd always go there. It's nothing like LHR, which is more like 3 separate airports sharing two runways 😀

As long as you understand the concept (nature of the rooms and lack of anything else in the hotel), why not? Personally, I like to have somewhere to eat or drink that isn’t an airport outlet, but that’s a choice. The Courtyard by Marriott is about a 10 minute walk (signposted, I think) from the South Terminal. I don’t know it all, I’m afraid.

It’s absolutely fine and obviously marginally more convenient for the South Terminal and the station. Also more facilities, such as a gym. I use the Premier Inn purely on price, although there are good rates to be had at the Hilton (I just looked and it seems to have a standard HH members’ advance rate of £136, which is tempting - the nature of most of my travel is short term planning and I have seen it at £170, I think) - essentially I trade off the price of my dinner for the inconvenience of using the inter-terminal shuttle!

Another vote for the Premier Inn North Terminal. It is literally across a road from the North Terminal and the first thing you come to is the station for the inter-terminal shuttle to get to the South Terminal in a few minutes. It's huge (about 700 rooms, I think) and at busy times the restaurant and bar can get little overwhelmed in my experience, although I think staffing issues have eased. If you want dinner, book a table at the restaurant as soon as you check in. In recent times it's consistently been about £100 per room.

Airline pricing is generally a lot more nuanced than that, using various revenue management strategies. Advice is quite often not to buy when tickets first go on sale as prices may be set high to 'catch' people who have plans and want to secure the flights. Similarly, it is not unusual for prices to rise towards the flight date, as airlines know there will be a percentage of last minute travellers who are not particularly price sensitive. Google Flights have various tools that can help with this and I certainly wouldn't dismiss a Christmas trip on the basis it might be expensive, when now might be a great time to book 🎅😀

I don’t know the significance of you saying this, but Warren Street is not particularly close to King’s Cross - it’s the best part of a mile away. Only two stops on the tube, though.

Not this year. The Royal Ballet are doing at the Royal Opera House throughout December and in to January, though.

This question really should be in a separate thread. This one is about eating in Southampton, so even by CC standards staying in Portsmouth is considerable thread creep!

Thanks for pointing this out - not a TOC I use very often! Also that they have moved to simplified ticketing and that two singles are required. But looking at the booking engine on their website, I can't see flexible tickets in early February - just Advances, many of which are over £100, so more expensive than an off-peak. I would not book until all the fares are loaded. If the OP is arriving LHR early afternoon, I wonder if they will hit an afternoon/evening peak on this route?

There are no inter-city trains from Heathrow. As you suspected, you will need to go to London King’s Cross and take the LNER service from there. LNER is one of several Train Operating Companies in the U.K., which are franchises running train services in and to particular parts of the country. To get from Heathrow to Kings Cross, I would suggest simplest is best. Take the London Underground service, the Piccadilly line, direct to King’s Cross. This will all take about three hours. If you are coming back to London, you will need to see if two ‘Advance’ single tickets (discounted tickets only valid on a specified train) or one return ticket is the best value. With a connection off a flight and timing uncertainty, a simple return, which will be valid on a number of trains may be best, if not cheapest. It’s too early to book rail travel for February, but trying dummy bookings now on similar days in say late December will give you an idea of fares and timings.

Not sure I agree with that, and I would bet Whitbread don’t think so. I’d bracket Travellodge with Ibis and Days Inn as genuine budget chains and they’d have to be at a significant discount to a nearby Premier Inn for me to even consider them. As Harters says, there is a much wider inconsistency across their locations. The new design looks good, but I haven’t experienced it. Some of the older ones are not great at all!

You are quite right to say “may”! In practice, in London I often see the Hubs priced more or less in the same range as nearby Premmier Inns. More generally, I feel that Premier Inn’s dynamic pricing model has got considerably more dynamic since the pandemic. You can still find rooms in London or at the airports priced at around £70 (which to me represents remarkable value) , but on other dates the same rooms willl cost you over £200, including Hubs. Certainly the average room rate is up significantly, but Whitbread have pulled off a neat trick of still positioning Premier Inn as a budget hotel brand in the public perception. That’s not a complaint, I admire them for their success. Of course, value can only be judged against their competitors in the same area on the same dates, but I struggle to imagine paying £248 for a Premier Inn 😀

Without wanting to be rude, three nights in Rotterdam pre-cruise and a stay in Amsterdam post-cruise seems like a lot of time in a fairly small part of Europe, particularly when (as it seems) you don't really have a pressing reason to stay in Rotterdam? But if so, Hotel New York, Nhow Hotel or Inntel Rotterdam Centre have previously been mentioned on this board. 'What to do' is so subjective to your own likes and dislikes that it is hardly worth trying to guess! Rotterdam is a very strikingly modern city, but nonetheless quite easy to walk. But personally, I'd be visiting other towns in the Netherlands, at least, or staying in another great European city.

Although often repeated on this board, this is not strictly true. Portland hasn't been a Royal Naval base since 1996 - it is a commercial port, managed by a Port Authority, that is visited by Royal Navy vessels. It is true that they maintain very high maritime security standards, implemented through the Portland Port Police.

That’s just one of the many options you have. As mentioned it’s a really easy day trip from London, which would be a more economical way of doing it! Just to say, HRW is not widely used as an abbreviation for Heathrow. More common is its airport code, LHR.

I found your long post a little hard to follow, but yes, the town is called Windsor and Windsor Castle is pretty much right in it. It's not too far out of the way to call at on a London -Southampton transfer - you are heading generally west anyway. If taking a private transfer, this is surely as simple as asking for a quote to include a stop in Windsor?

I feared it would be something like that. As you say, a real shame they haven't put a proper path in. On reflection, there may be a better supply of taxis in Cambridge, so I'd suggest getting some quotes. It will be quite expensive either way, I fear, maybe around £40-50 each way? It is possible to fly in to Duxford on non-airshow days, but chartering a plane or helicopter probably more expensive than train/taxi 😀

There are much quicker trains from London St Pancras and London Kings Cross to Royston, which is at least in a town (Parkway stations tend to be a bit remote!) and has a taxi rank. That may be the better bet, but I always drive to Duxford.

That's the nearest station to Duxford, which has a bus service, but literally one bus mid-morning that would work, it seems. I think you can walk it in about 30 minutes, but I have no idea how easy that is.

I think the other one you may have seen is Cascais (code CAT), which is a regional airport to the west of Lisbon. I think the only scheduled services are to other Portuguese destinations.