Globaliser

No and no. If you're heading towards Tower Bridge, the HEX can be ruled out. But as already asked, more info is needed.

I can guarantee that the mechanism that decides whether to send bags either to the baggage belt for collection at the transfer airport, or to the facility that processes bags that are to be transferred directly to the next flight, will have had absolutely no idea whatsoever about what colour skin you have. That is not a piece of data coded into the barcode on the baggage tag. Whether you have to collect your bags at the transfer airport and then hand them back for the onward flight depends on: Which airport is the transfer airport (and what its setup does and does not allow it to do). What your routing is (and what the rules are for that routing). Whether you are travelling on one ticket or two separate tickets. If there are two airlines involved, whether they have an interline baggage agreement (if the two airlines are in the same alliance, this is much more likely to be a "yes" - but otherwise, alliances are not actually relevant and a transfer from one airline to another airline in the same alliance is still an interline transfer). If you are travelling on two separate tickets, what your first airline's policy is about through-checking bags onto the flight on the second ticket.

What happens if the child uses an Oyster for the journey in to London before the Young Visitor discount is set on the Oyster, and the discount is set later on the same day? Will the daily cap simply be applied at the 50% rate, even though the Gatwick --> London journey was initially charged at adult rate? Or will the system ring-fence that journey at adult rate and only apply the 50% cap to travel made after the discount was set? There's one small point of detail to mention about Kentish Town, which I think probably will not concern Ronaldo807 but they may see it mentioned: At the moment, Kentish Town Underground station is closed. It closed in late June 2023 for "up to a year" because the escalators are being replaced and other refurbishment work is being done. However, this does not affect Kentish Town National Rail station, which is the station involved in the route from Gatwick that gumshoe958 described. Also, in relation to the journey to Waterloo: I have a suspicion that neither Kentish Town Tube nor Tufnell Park Tube have step-free access, and I am fairly confident that the Northern Line at Waterloo does not. All this may be a consideration for travelling to Waterloo with luggage.

But one day, your own explicit caveat will come back to bite you. I had a late platform change just last weekend at East Croydon. It could have been from 1 to 4 (which is on a different island) but fortunately it turned out to be from 1 to 2 on the same island. I doubt that realtimetrains would have notified that change any earlier than we were told, while waiting on the platform.

If Hever Castle or Leeds Castle count as "old homes" for you, then you can stay at both of them.

As a German I confirm: Totally true. Interestingly, the Financial Times had a recent article about how Germany "has become ground zero for ATM attackers who have exploited a fragmented banking system and a decentralised police force — and Germans’ marked preference for cash over cards or digital payments" - see Bombs, car chases and ‘free money’: Dutch gangs blow up German cash machines (if you can get access to the FT).

Which is why it isn't a good idea to rely on that site to tell you which platform to go to at Waterloo if you're expecting to board a train and travel on it. You need to wait until the platform number is displayed on the departure boards at the station. And if you're going to have to wait on the concourse until then in order to be safe, the potentially-unreliable information on realtimetrains or other websites might as well be treated as useless. I love realtimetrains for all sorts of other uses, but this is one use that I would not recommend at Waterloo. In any event, there is no need to resort to any other information source to try to go to the platform earlier. There is plenty of time to get to the platform and onto the train once the platform number has been displayed.

If you leave yourself 15 minutes, that should be ample. There is a very big main concourse, above which there are departure boards that will show you which platform your train leaves from. Even with luggage, it won't take you more than 5 minutes to stroll to any of them and get through the gateline, and that will leave plenty of time to walk along the train until you see a carriage that has enough space for you and your luggage. In fact, at 15 minutes before departure the platform number for your train may not even be displayed yet.

It's definitely doable, but there's relatively little in the Paddington area compared to what you could see/do in central London. If you go directly to London when you disembark, you'll have a pretty full half-day plus an evening for London things, so there's a choice to be made between a central London hotel and a slightly less convenient journey to the airport on the morning, or a longer journey from central London back to your Paddington hotel for the night.

The only cash I have spent in the last four months is one £1 coin, which I had to put into the machine at the petrol station to check my car's tyre pressures. The only paper money I have in my wallet is one £10 note, and it has been there since before Easter. It's practically impossible to overstate how cashless the UK is (if you are prepared to do cashless transactions). These days, nobody will bat an eyelid if you tap a credit card for a £0.10 transaction. There are many places that will not accept cash, but very few that will not take cards.

This is a very important clarification required. ... Yes - I had merely assumed that context from the question in the post, but actually you're both absolutely right that this question needs to be asked.

£41 is the maximum that you should expect to have to pay, because that is basically a walk-up fare with no capacity constraints. It should be available to buy even if you buy it only 5 minutes before the train departs. Advance tickets do have to be bought in advance, but they are not always on sale immediately that the trains come on sale. This page on Southwestern Railway's website gives you more information. At the moment, Advance tickets are only on sale up to 20 October. Keep checking back to see when the applicable period is extended. If you find that your travel date is a blackout date, then feel free to post again for more advice. London Waterloo is the station that you need for trains to Southampton Central. That is not normally the final destination of those trains - from memory, I think that they're usually bound for Weymouth or Poole - but there should be no lack of clarity about which trains will call at Southampton Central. Trains from London Waterloo East go in the wrong direction for you.

The HGI is almost part of T2, so if that is an option it would be the more convenient one for you to reach. I'm not sure whether John Bull was referring to the number of cruise passengers arriving at the current incarnation of T2, but the profile of flights arriving there is now different from those that used the old T2. I'd be surprised if there isn't now a significant number of cruise passengers there, given that it's basically the Star Alliance's terminal at Heathrow, and (for example) hosts all of United Airlines' flights.

They're bookable. Not SOU-SZG-LGW, specifically, but it's not hard to find SOU-DUB-LGW or SOU-GLA-LGW. Or LHR-CDG-EDI. As for YVR-ORD-YYZ: If there's a problem, I would expect that to be cabotage. But even so, I could readily find prices for it on AA.

This is the thread you need: Transfer: Southampton—London (incl. LHR/LGW) train, car, other?

What time is your flight? What you've put together is sensible if your flight out is any time up to mid-morning. But if it's later than that, then there would be an argument for going direct to a hotel in central London, do some central London things at your pwn pace that afternoon and evening, and then transferring to Heathrow by car in the morning (which would drop you off on the terminal forecourt). The walk through the underground tunnels really isn't anything to be apprehensive about. As gumshoe958 says, it's an easy walk, and you can definitely do it at your own pace. If you don't want to drag your luggage on its own wheels, you should be able to use the airport's luggage trolleys.

Have a look on the Northern Europe board - that's where Norwegian fjords are discussed. In fact, the topmost thread on that board is a sticky entitled Norwegian Fjords.

It's what you can do with a small amount of local knowledge.

That sounds like it'll be what the Spanish call a late lunch.

I see that ECP (as I still call them) has now finally emailed specifically about the McDonald/LaBelle cruise.

Of course, the Irish pubs here might argue differently. 😉

If you are travelling on a through ticket, then yes.

Because most of the time, it does work. And the most profitable passengers are typically those who really need to minimise their time in transit and who are most able to deal with problems if/when they arise.

I'm vulnerable to flattery as much as the next person, but there was no sleuthing involved. 😀 The Trainline's website tells you the split when it offers you split tickets, and also tells you the type of ticket which each of the tickets is. It's also easy to check that what is being offered on split tickets is a through train from Waterloo to Southampton by using realtimetrains, which also confirmed that split tickets are offered on the through trains that call at Eastleigh, but not on the through trains that do not call at Eastleigh. That's in accordance with the rules on using split tickets. What I was more interested in was why there are Advance tickets to Eastleigh (or Shawford) but not to Southampton. In addition, there are Advance tickets to Winchester, but only on trains that then call at Eastleigh. Trains that do call at Eastleigh divide there, with part of the train going to Portsmouth (not via Southampton), and the other part going via Southampton to Bournemouth. Now that we (or at least I) have a better handle on TOCs' approach to Advance tickets and disruption, thanks to this year's strikes, the obvious answer seems to be that the absence of Advance tickets to Southampton is to protect the Eastleigh-Bournemouth service against the possibility of a timetable alteration (eg for engineering work) that may require those trains to be cancelled. And for that reason, I adhere to the previous suggestion that the OP does not buy train tickets now. Otherwise they could be stuck with an Advance ticket to Eastleigh that they can't sensibly use because it'll require them to get off there and get on a rail replacement bus, in which case they might as well have used their backup National Express coach ticket, as gumshoe958 wisely suggested.

The interesting thing about those cheap tickets is that they seem to be valid only on trains that call at Eastleigh. The price is the sum of two cheap tickets, one Advance ticket from Waterloo to Eastleigh and one flexible ticket from Eastleigh to Southampton. This split ticketing only works if your train calls at Eastleigh. SWR is also selling Advance tickets from Waterloo to Eastleigh. I therefore wonder whether the uncertainty about timetabling concerns the part of the route beyond Eastleigh through Southampton. If, for example, the timetabling uncertainty is because of possible engineering work on those weekends, it may be that any such work will close the line beyond Eastleigh through Southampton, but not affect running as far as Eastleigh.