Good evening all,
I'm planning a day out to London with the wife and three children (9, 6 and 4) at the end of April, most probably Friday 25th. Likely to be driving to Birmingham International and travelling from there to Euston. While we're slightly price sensitive - so Advances are fine - speed is of the essence with three lively children, so I'm more set on travelling with Avanti than slogging round Northampton on LNWR or trundling down to Marylebone on Chiltern. Planning to depart from Birmingham International at 07:30ish and return from Euston 20:00ish. We don't have a Family and Friends Railcard but the wife and I have a Two Together; I don't know if it will make any difference travelling at that time of the morning anyway. A few queries if anyone's able to offer any pointers:
Question 1: I'm intending to reserve seats, particularly with the intention of getting a table of 4 (wife and kids will probably have that, and then I'll sit as nearby as possible) but I'm slightly mindful that there's always the possibility of someone already in the seat and refusing to move, and I'm not really up for that sort of confrontation first thing in the morning with the children in tow, so I'm trying to pick the quietest option. There's two departures in quick succession from International, 0728 and 0733; the 0728 originates in Wolverhampton and goes non-stop from Coventry to Euston; the 0733 originates in New St and makes a few more stops en-route. I'm minded to pick the latter as I'd have thought it's likely to be a bit quieter as most of the London passengers from both Birmingham stations on flexible tickets will probably gravitate towards the 0728, meaning the 0733 will be much quieter. Just wondering if this assumption is correct; does anyone here use these trains with any regularity or have much experience with them? Does the second of the two tend to be quieter, or do they manage to spread demand out with pricing? If the passenger loads are likely to be fairly even, we may as well opt for the first one.
Question 2: We will be needing to travel around a little bit on tube/bus services (although don't have a concrete plan of what we're doing when yet.) Normally we use contactless bank cards to get around. I've been looking at the TfL website and I'm struggling to decipher whether we need any sort of tickets for the kids or not; on one hand it says "a fare-paying adult can travel with up to four children under 11 free of charge" but then there is a whole page on the 5-10 Zip Oyster card - if kids travel free then I can't work out what this is for, as I don't know who in their right mind would let a 5-10 year old out on the tube or a London Bus on their own. Just wondering if anyone can clarify if I have this right - can we just pay for the two of us, and then the kids travel free? And if so, how does it work at the Tube barriers - do we have to get the staff to let the kids through once we've tapped in/out? Or is it better to book train tickets that have a Travelcard included (we're likely to not be going outside Zone 1.) We've travelled through London plenty of times on our own, but never with the children.
Question 3: Years ago, when we only had the oldest and he was small, I remember travelling out of Euston with Virgin and they offered the possibility for families with young children to request pre-boarding in advance of the Euston scrum. I can't find any mention of this on the Avanti website - have they stopped offering it? I note they do advertise the Sunflower scheme; our older two have ASD which I don't really make a song and dance about in public, they cope with a lot of situations fine - but if they don't offer family pre-boarding any more, then this might be the only option as the thought of the Euston boarding stampede with them in tow bothers me. The boys have Sunflower lanyards; are we likely to receive some sort of help at Euston if we show them? I'm mindful that a Friday night in Euston could be absolutely evil, even as late as 8-8:30pm.
Thanks so much for any advice on any of these - just trying to make things as stress-free as possible without throwing money away!
I'm planning a day out to London with the wife and three children (9, 6 and 4) at the end of April, most probably Friday 25th. Likely to be driving to Birmingham International and travelling from there to Euston. While we're slightly price sensitive - so Advances are fine - speed is of the essence with three lively children, so I'm more set on travelling with Avanti than slogging round Northampton on LNWR or trundling down to Marylebone on Chiltern. Planning to depart from Birmingham International at 07:30ish and return from Euston 20:00ish. We don't have a Family and Friends Railcard but the wife and I have a Two Together; I don't know if it will make any difference travelling at that time of the morning anyway. A few queries if anyone's able to offer any pointers:
Question 1: I'm intending to reserve seats, particularly with the intention of getting a table of 4 (wife and kids will probably have that, and then I'll sit as nearby as possible) but I'm slightly mindful that there's always the possibility of someone already in the seat and refusing to move, and I'm not really up for that sort of confrontation first thing in the morning with the children in tow, so I'm trying to pick the quietest option. There's two departures in quick succession from International, 0728 and 0733; the 0728 originates in Wolverhampton and goes non-stop from Coventry to Euston; the 0733 originates in New St and makes a few more stops en-route. I'm minded to pick the latter as I'd have thought it's likely to be a bit quieter as most of the London passengers from both Birmingham stations on flexible tickets will probably gravitate towards the 0728, meaning the 0733 will be much quieter. Just wondering if this assumption is correct; does anyone here use these trains with any regularity or have much experience with them? Does the second of the two tend to be quieter, or do they manage to spread demand out with pricing? If the passenger loads are likely to be fairly even, we may as well opt for the first one.
Question 2: We will be needing to travel around a little bit on tube/bus services (although don't have a concrete plan of what we're doing when yet.) Normally we use contactless bank cards to get around. I've been looking at the TfL website and I'm struggling to decipher whether we need any sort of tickets for the kids or not; on one hand it says "a fare-paying adult can travel with up to four children under 11 free of charge" but then there is a whole page on the 5-10 Zip Oyster card - if kids travel free then I can't work out what this is for, as I don't know who in their right mind would let a 5-10 year old out on the tube or a London Bus on their own. Just wondering if anyone can clarify if I have this right - can we just pay for the two of us, and then the kids travel free? And if so, how does it work at the Tube barriers - do we have to get the staff to let the kids through once we've tapped in/out? Or is it better to book train tickets that have a Travelcard included (we're likely to not be going outside Zone 1.) We've travelled through London plenty of times on our own, but never with the children.
Question 3: Years ago, when we only had the oldest and he was small, I remember travelling out of Euston with Virgin and they offered the possibility for families with young children to request pre-boarding in advance of the Euston scrum. I can't find any mention of this on the Avanti website - have they stopped offering it? I note they do advertise the Sunflower scheme; our older two have ASD which I don't really make a song and dance about in public, they cope with a lot of situations fine - but if they don't offer family pre-boarding any more, then this might be the only option as the thought of the Euston boarding stampede with them in tow bothers me. The boys have Sunflower lanyards; are we likely to receive some sort of help at Euston if we show them? I'm mindful that a Friday night in Euston could be absolutely evil, even as late as 8-8:30pm.
Thanks so much for any advice on any of these - just trying to make things as stress-free as possible without throwing money away!
