Thursday, November 24, 2016
London to Scotland Trip 3 day trip
London to Scotland Trip 3 day trip
Hi All,
In this blog Im sharing my experience and providing some guidance on my travel from London to Scotland during May 2015.
I planned to visit Scotland on 2014 but couldnt make it somehow, this time I dont want to miss it. I was initially planning to go through Tours as they provide Veg food and also they will plan everything but after looking into itinerary it seems not so good as half of the time operated by tours is lost on bus travel from London.
Hence I was looking for some other option and then my friend recommend the site call superbreak.com they are leading providers of Hotel Rooms at decent price apart from that they do provide train tickets and other sight seeing tickets as well.
Considering travel time we planned for 3 day trips (Starting Friday morning and returning on Sunday Evening).
For 2 Adults & 2 kids, SuperBreak offered me package for £632 which includes Train Tickets, 2 Nights & 3 day stay and Sight seeing
Day 1:
We started around 7:30am from our house in Ilford and reached King Cross Stations around 8:30am. There was long walk inside the King Cross station from TFL to National services. And Kings Cross is quite big station and very nice old architecture. Also kings cross hosts 8 3/4 platform from Harry Potters. After reaching to platform, at the beginning of train Virgin staff asked us whether we are for Edinburgh when we said they offered to collect baggage and hand over at Edinburgh station (like Airports). We were not sure but we handover the luggage (mistakenly the luggage contains ready to eat food which we missed, but it was quite handy after reaching to Edinburgh). The train was full but as we already booked seats we need not to find the free seats. Train started on time at 9:00am and reached Edinburgh at 13:30.
After coming out of station I wasnt sure where should I board bus for the Hotel, we walked wrong route initially for 10 minutes but bus operator suggested us the right place to board. After little walk we found there bus operating company and they provided details guide and map. And then we walked further for bus stop but we are not sure which side we need to board. We actually standing on wrong side but as soon as bus we have to run :-( which didnt look good. But the bus actually stopped just before the hotel which was good. We checked in hotel around 2:30pm and we have asked hotel staff whether we can move the compliment dinner from Friday Night to Saturday night they said fine. This was useful as we already have some food with us which we ate at night.
Holiday Inn City west was not as good as Marriot which we stayed in Birmingham. They dont offer free wifi service, when we enquired they suggested to be membership (which was free) and got subscribed. Even after subscription it didnt work easily have to call reception and they need to call support to fix it.
After check in and we took little rest for hour are so and then we are back to Edinburgh town (bus is for every 10 minutes and travel time was around 15 minutes. I initially wanted to start with Royal Mile but my wife was not interested but we went to castle and then to Camera Obscura (near beginning of Castle). It was worth visit both my wife and kids enjoyed really lot. Dont miss it. Please carry train tickets as they offer bargain for tickets if you have traveled via trains. Luckily I had tickets in my pocket they give tickets at discounted price. Also at the top of Camera Obscura you can see almost entire Edinburgh and they provided various binoculars to view it for free. After camera Obscura we had little walk around the castle and took our bus back to room. Was really long long day and very tired.
I will try to cover my day 2 in my next blog.
Day 3: We were tired again with our timberbush tours and had very good sleep. We went for breakfast had good food and then back to room and took some rest. Initially we planned to check out early and keep luggage at reception, but it dont sound well for me as we need to again comeback to hotel to pick our luggage. Hence we took some rest and checked out around 12:00pm. As we already having day bus pass, we went around the city, took my first tram journey in life, we went up and down on trams (you can use same pass for trams except for Airport drops). Then we gone through some high street shopping market and then to Royal mile. At the end of the Royal mile took wrong bus and went to the end of the city (but good sight seeing) then took bus and reached to Waverley station around 3:00pm. Then took train for London and thats the end of the trip.
Websites
Tour - http://www.superbreak.com/
Scotland 1 day tour - http://www.timberbush-tours.co.uk/
Local bus in Edinburgh - http://lothianbuses.com/ (multi vendor operated you cant board different vendor operated bus not like London).
In this blog Im sharing my experience and providing some guidance on my travel from London to Scotland during May 2015.
I planned to visit Scotland on 2014 but couldnt make it somehow, this time I dont want to miss it. I was initially planning to go through Tours as they provide Veg food and also they will plan everything but after looking into itinerary it seems not so good as half of the time operated by tours is lost on bus travel from London.
Hence I was looking for some other option and then my friend recommend the site call superbreak.com they are leading providers of Hotel Rooms at decent price apart from that they do provide train tickets and other sight seeing tickets as well.
Considering travel time we planned for 3 day trips (Starting Friday morning and returning on Sunday Evening).
For 2 Adults & 2 kids, SuperBreak offered me package for £632 which includes Train Tickets, 2 Nights & 3 day stay and Sight seeing
- To & Fro tickets from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley station through Virgin Trains (more details below)
- 2 Days & 3 Night stay at Holiday Inn with Break fast along one day compliment dinner.
- Timberbush tours
- Over view of Train tickets
- To & Fro tickets from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley station
- SuperBreak sends confirmed train tickets via First class mail delivery, still no online delivery not available
- Waverley station is the main station in Edinburgh, the station is at center of the city similar to Kings cross
- These trains are operated by Virgin Trains
- The tickets with open return tickets (except non peak hours). You can book tickets during peak hours as well with additional charge.
- The return ticket is valid for return within 30 days
- They do provide reservation option during booking but its not necessary you need to travel on booked train (unless you have chosen fixed ticket)
- Usual journey times is 4 hours with train operating for every half-hour.
- If your boarding for final destination then you can handover luggage at the beginning of train
- Also superbreak provides tour document along the tickets. These tickets are valid only with tour documents. So keep them along the tickets.
Day 1:
We started around 7:30am from our house in Ilford and reached King Cross Stations around 8:30am. There was long walk inside the King Cross station from TFL to National services. And Kings Cross is quite big station and very nice old architecture. Also kings cross hosts 8 3/4 platform from Harry Potters. After reaching to platform, at the beginning of train Virgin staff asked us whether we are for Edinburgh when we said they offered to collect baggage and hand over at Edinburgh station (like Airports). We were not sure but we handover the luggage (mistakenly the luggage contains ready to eat food which we missed, but it was quite handy after reaching to Edinburgh). The train was full but as we already booked seats we need not to find the free seats. Train started on time at 9:00am and reached Edinburgh at 13:30.
After coming out of station I wasnt sure where should I board bus for the Hotel, we walked wrong route initially for 10 minutes but bus operator suggested us the right place to board. After little walk we found there bus operating company and they provided details guide and map. And then we walked further for bus stop but we are not sure which side we need to board. We actually standing on wrong side but as soon as bus we have to run :-( which didnt look good. But the bus actually stopped just before the hotel which was good. We checked in hotel around 2:30pm and we have asked hotel staff whether we can move the compliment dinner from Friday Night to Saturday night they said fine. This was useful as we already have some food with us which we ate at night.
Holiday Inn City west was not as good as Marriot which we stayed in Birmingham. They dont offer free wifi service, when we enquired they suggested to be membership (which was free) and got subscribed. Even after subscription it didnt work easily have to call reception and they need to call support to fix it.
After check in and we took little rest for hour are so and then we are back to Edinburgh town (bus is for every 10 minutes and travel time was around 15 minutes. I initially wanted to start with Royal Mile but my wife was not interested but we went to castle and then to Camera Obscura (near beginning of Castle). It was worth visit both my wife and kids enjoyed really lot. Dont miss it. Please carry train tickets as they offer bargain for tickets if you have traveled via trains. Luckily I had tickets in my pocket they give tickets at discounted price. Also at the top of Camera Obscura you can see almost entire Edinburgh and they provided various binoculars to view it for free. After camera Obscura we had little walk around the castle and took our bus back to room. Was really long long day and very tired.
I will try to cover my day 2 in my next blog.
Day 3: We were tired again with our timberbush tours and had very good sleep. We went for breakfast had good food and then back to room and took some rest. Initially we planned to check out early and keep luggage at reception, but it dont sound well for me as we need to again comeback to hotel to pick our luggage. Hence we took some rest and checked out around 12:00pm. As we already having day bus pass, we went around the city, took my first tram journey in life, we went up and down on trams (you can use same pass for trams except for Airport drops). Then we gone through some high street shopping market and then to Royal mile. At the end of the Royal mile took wrong bus and went to the end of the city (but good sight seeing) then took bus and reached to Waverley station around 3:00pm. Then took train for London and thats the end of the trip.
Websites
Tour - http://www.superbreak.com/
Scotland 1 day tour - http://www.timberbush-tours.co.uk/
Local bus in Edinburgh - http://lothianbuses.com/ (multi vendor operated you cant board different vendor operated bus not like London).
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