Cotswold Eagle

There's a danger of being too Anglo-literal - the title of the thread refers to 'towns' and many American cities are quite small places. It's the combination of Regency, coastal/beach and south-west that's flummoxing me - the Cobb is at least in Jane Austen 😀

Unless climate change has resulted in some dramatic rise in sea levels, we seem to be overlooking the coast and beach aspect of the OP's request! In which case, I might as well throw Cheltenham in as well. No doubt our chief South Coast correspondent, JB, will be along shortly, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank. Lyme Regis for the Cobb I suppose.

I dealt with this in my first reply - the way to get a senior discount on trains is by purchasing a Senior Railcard which allows a third off fares, but costs £30. It is unlikely to be cost effective for a single journey. https://www.senior-railcard.co.uk/about-the-railcard/benefits/ I am afraid the reply you are relying on, although no doubt well intentioned, was misleading in some aspects. I hope the subsequent replies, from folk who deal with these queries on an almost daily basis on this board, have set you straight about the issues around rail travel from Heathrow to Southampton. And do look through previous threads, which will have various recommendations for private transfer, which is the most obvious alternative to Heathrow Express, unless taking the International Friends sightseeing/transfer service the day of the cruise.

There are no direct train services from Heathrow to Southampton, let alone any run by SWR, which does not operate at the airport. There is no senior pricing on trains other than by virtue of discounts to holders of Senior Railcards, which cost £30. . There are roughly a gazillion posts on this topic on this board, which the OP can review. The upshot is generally a choice between bus or private transport, although there are a variety of ways to connect to the national rail network. .

That seems a lot, and is probably the full Anytime fare? I wonder if you priced that up before the Advance ticket window? There are £16 (or less) Advance tickets available on many of the direct services from Waterloo that day, so a total of £48 for three passengers.

I puzzled over this, and eventually found that by using street addresses, rather than the two stations, Google Maps will show a bus journey first. But the correct fare for the tube journey is shown lower down the list. The original post also used the inexplicable American habit of abbreviating British place and street names (and in this case, massively butchering one), so that may have played in to this too! The OP’s revelation that they also travelled on buses has probably cleared up the belief that they had been overcharged, although it would have been useful to have known the original amount of GBP charged by TfL, not a back conversion from the dollar amount paid.

Why are you persisting in posting things on this board about ports that are not covered here? Someone kindly went to the effort of linking all the European ports boards upthread. Please note also, that despite Slide 6, Rome is in Italy, not Spain…. The port map is virtually unreadable - I would guess it’s a screen grab, although there is no credit (by posting here you are publishing these files, so should be respecting copyright). And it seems odd to devote only 1 of 21 slides to what there actually is to see in Rome, with no practical information about what they are, what there is to do, how to get to them specifically and how to divide time between them. I am still struggling to see what the point of all this is, I’m afraid. The Ports of Call boards are designed for people with detailed knowledge to share it and, without wanting to be unkind, people will be much better off relying on that input rather than these basic presentations.

I’m afraid my knowledge of London pubs is rapidly fading into pre-history! There’s the Grafton Arms just round the corner. And you are not too far from the restaurants and pubs of Fitzrovia, centred around Charlotte Street (I used to have an association and squatting rights with a company with an office in Percy Street, but again any specific recommendations I might have would be dated!) Look, neither location is terrible, but neither is quite anywhere if you see what I mean (and that’s probably why cruise lines get good deals there). Forced to make the choice, I can’t decide which I’d pick 😀 If you are going to the British Museum, that’s an easy walk from the Grafton.

😀 Somewhat hilariously, it now seems to have been renamed the Radisson Blu Euston Square, which is, I suppose, the second closest tube station to the hotel.... One of our regular reminders that precision is often required with London street names. The hotel is on Tottenham Court Road - Tottenham Road is about 3 miles to the east.

There is, as yet, no firm implementation date for ETIAS. The necessary precursor, EES, has just been delayed and there may be a significant change of plan, with unknown impact on ETIAS. Why do you think your cruise line would have detailed knowledge of your visas status? It is always the traveller's responsibility to ensure they have the correct paperwork, but I would expect cruise lines will provide general information about the change....when it happens!

Fair enough for you to trust the BBC over me, but really it's the other way round - the information I provided, drawn directly from the EU JHA Council, confirmed the press reporting 🤣 That BBC article is mildly inaccurate, but not enough to make a material difference for these purposes. Other press outlets, who had bothered to speak to EU policy geeks, picked up on the point that I made, that this may require a change to the EU legislation, which would push implementation back considerably.... Again, other way round in this case, surely? It has been the Commission and in particular the current Commissioner promising, and the politicians (via the Council) who have been pushing back and sceptical (and, I understand, are now furious!)

Just to note that the 10th November introduction of EES is no longer happening, as has been widely reported in the press after the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting last week. As far as I can see, neither the EES website nor the Commissioner’s website has been updated to fully reflect this, but it is buried in the report of the meeting, which states that “To ensure a smooth transition, the Commission outlined plans to roll out the EES in a phased manner. The details of this approach will be established in the coming weeks.” Personally, I’m not entirely sure that is lawful under the current instrument and it’s a little hard to see how ETIAS would operate with partial EES (and I think de-linking them would require a Council decision). To stress again, practically this doesn’t matter - either you will have your biometrics recorded on entry or you won’t.

On the other hand, fresh air and a view of the horizon assist with motion sickness.

A bit of gratis consulting advice, it looks to me as if you have ‘saved as’ a previous deck to create new ones and have failed to remove all the previous slides when you edit. A much better way to approach this would be to creat a template for your presentations in PowerPoint, to provide a consistent look and content, and use that to create new decks. I’d also take the time to update the design - the inbuilt features and suggestions are not awful for your purposes. And as others have mentioned, spamming various Cruise Critic message boards in the fashion you have done is an inefficient way to distribute this material, not least because any changes you make requires reposting, as above. I don’t know who asked you to do this! Store one shareable copy somewhere as suggested above and provide links to it, and your version control becomes much easier. Oh, and date your content, as this is an area in which things can change rapidly (restaurant recommendations in particular!) I’m sure some people will find these interesting and useful, and I appreciate the effort you have gone to, but as the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a good first impression…. And to reiterate, none of these ports are covered by this particular sub-forum anyway!

Indeed, none of these appear to relate to this board. Out of curiosity, I looked at the one for Valletta, Malta and a significant amount of the information appears to relate to Messina in Sicily, including the map….

Balmoral is open daily during its short summer season. I can see nothing to suggest this will change next year.

Yes, GWR appears to be an outlier in this space, because they have chosen to implement changing an Advance ticket by utilising their refund system! It is important to be very clear when making the claim that you are applying the terms for changing an Advance, by following the instructions, even though it looks very much like a refund.... As Globaliser says you will be net no worse off, although you will have to fork out for the changed ticket and wait for the refund of the Advance tickets. Make sure you buy your new ticket before the scheduled time of the service your Advance was valid for.

In absence of an answer to your question from the OP, I had a look at a likely tour on Viator and it is not available on any Monday next summer, which to me suggests it is simply an issue of the local operator not offering it on Mondays.

It’s not really possible to help you if you won’t provide details of your purchase - e.g. via app or website, which retailer, method of payment). I suggest you contact customer service of whichever retailer you used. Advance (note, not “Advanced”, which I guess is a typo?) tickets should be changeable as per the national terms and conditions.

How did you buy the tickets? Advance tickets are changeable (date/time) up to the time of departure of the original train you booked, so you may need to do this before you fly if your arrival is now later (it’s not clear from your post)? Note, it will be a fee plus fare difference for whatever ticket is now available on the train you want. If you cannot change, it is possible that travel insurance may cover the cost, but airlines will not normally reimburse such consequential losses.

Probably. Give it no further thought this year. Yes. Give it no further thought this year 😀

I applaud the philosophy, particularly after the absolute carnage on the thread when I just tried to raise such awareness, but of course there is now a firm timeline for ETA, and the OP will need one.

The ETA is a travel authorisation for visa-exempt travel. If you need a visa now, you’ll still need one when the ETA applies. As Globaliser notes, many people do require an airside transit visa. And they will still need one after ETA. Many people who do not require an airside transit visa will require an ETA to travel to the U.K. even if they have no intention of entering.

There is free WiFi across Heathrow.

Not necessarily - with a modicum of planning (Advance train tickets) the difference is only about £5. I personally would pay a much larger premium than that to spend an hour or more less on a train over a bus 😀