SCOTLAND to Southampton via car with a 6 year old in tow

[Davebhoy]

The issue worth flying might be luggage restrictions - a lot of the budget prices don't include any hold luggage and the price mounts quickly if you add it. Also, one of the benefits of cruising is being able to take whatever weight/number of cases you can manage - that goes away if you fly.

 

This year, we got the train to London from Glasgow, stayed over in London, then the Eavesway transfer to the ship. The transfer was free this year, but not next, so we are looking at options too.

 

Currently thinking of a split drive down/back but not sure I'm up for the 7hrs+ when heading back to work...

[Bob++]

While flying or taking the train are attractive, they are a lot more expensive for two adults and a child.

 

Using https://raileasy.trainsplit.com/fares.aspx for a Saturday in September, the cheapest I could find would be £440 for the return trip.

 

Using https://www.thetrainline.com it's not that much different although I did have trouble finding a train that gets you to Southampton early enough.

 

It also looks as if you would have to change trains twice, although not in London.

 

If it was me, I would drive down in two stages, with an overnight somewhere South of Birmingham. Petrol should cost less than £200 and a family room around £60/70.

[Sue's Mom]

For a train journey where changing trains is necessary, I recommend splitting the tickets into two returns per person, i.e one return from A to B and another from B to C where A is the starting point and C is the end point. We did this a couple of years ago and got return first class tickets from Liverpool (A) to Southampton © via Birmingham New Street (B) for over £500 less for two people than exactly the same tickets would have cost had we bought them as A to C without splitting them.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Sue's Mom

[nurseshortie]

Great advice thanks everyone, my hubby looked at rough prices for trains this year and with. Family and friends railcard first class it was coming up at a really great price . Yes this includes one or two changes though. We are going with other who drive with a trailer so we even considered asking if they have room for our luggage so it would be easier if we chose to fly.. Only thing with trains is need to book three months in advance when tickets come out so that we get a good price.. I will also let hubby know about splitting tickets for better price as he is in charge of transport lol. We are also leaving on th Friday to travel and stay overnight in Southampton which should help should there be any delays or such like..

 

Lesley

[Jo42]

Hi Lesley

 

While our children were young we lived in Scotland and, when we travelled South for holidays, we would either drive over night or alternatively drive in the day and stop overnight around York, making the York visit part of the holiday. Now we have moved South from Scotland and 9 times out of 10 we fly back and forth, using Flybe between Glasgow or Edinburgh and Southampton. If you book well in advance (and outside the school holidays!) you will find it cheaper than the train. There are lots of inexpensive places to stay around Southampton pre cruise if necessary. Good luck with your plans.

[Shhmanning]

Hi Lesley

 

I'm a bit late in joining this thread, but thought I'd share our experience of driving to Southampton from just outside Glasgow in July this year with our 28 month old daughter.

 

We decided to travel on the Friday and had booked into a Premier Inn just south of Oxford. We made this booking 6 months in advance and it only cost £69 B&B for a family room. I estimated 6 hours of driving for this part of the journey, so including a couple of stops I reckoned 7 to 7.5 hours seemed sensible. The journey was an absolute nightmare and took 10.5 hours!!! Not fun.

The drive to Southampton the following morning should have taken about 90 minutes but took almost 2.5 hours. Suppose that's the downside of travelling during school holidays.

 

On the way back we decided not to pre-book a hotel but just see how we got along and pull in to a hotel when we got tired. Amazingly we did the entire journey home in 9 hours door-to-door.

 

So I'd definitely advocate travelling the day before and always have a back up plan.

 

All the best

 

Scott

[tartanexile81]

Thanks for this great your on our cruise.. Can you please advise were you got the train prices from as I couldn't get next years dates up yet. Thanks Lesley x

 

 

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Lesley

We do the train regularly to Southampton from Edinburgh and book 12 weeks in advance. I think those quoting prices are just going on current fares. We try to avoid London now although we used to do that.

 

We leave Edinburgh at 9:30, arriving Newcastle 11:00 then from Newcastle at 11:35 to Southampton, 5:17. It depends on which day of the week you're travelling on as to whether 1st class is a fair price. We then stay overnight in Southampton.

 

Only you know if your little girl would cope with that length of time on a train. I suppose the advantage of car is you can stop as often as you like - e.g. in a village near the M6 so your little one can have a run around.

 

We came up by coach last week from Southampton and the traffic on the M6 was just awful during the day. We used to live down in Oxfordshire and we always found leaving Edinburgh later in the day (around 4 p.m.) meant we'd missed the heaviest traffic when we reached the Blackpool turn-off It's from there that you got the worst of the jams. Leaving at that time also meant we arrived home at a reasonable hour whereas if you travelled overnight you'd probably be too tired to enjoy the first couple of days of your cruise.