Questions about trains and luggage shipping Edinburgh to Southampton

[MickeyandLV]

We are taking the British Isles cruise from Southampton.  We originally planned on visiting London before the cruise but the coronation is planned during our visit. So we decided to fly to Edinburgh instead and visit there for 3 days before the cruise.  We currently are planning on taking the train from Edinburgh to Southampton. Planning on two nights in Southampton pre-cruise.

1) Any suggestions about which train company to use. We want to avoid London because we are traveling on coronation day.

2) Luggage.  We are going to be gone almost 3 weeks with pre-cruise and the cruise.  We will each have a large bag and a small bag. Is there room on the train for our bags? 

3) Shipping bags from Edinburgh to Southampton.  We have been researching companies that will ship your luggage across UK.  Has anyone used this service?

Thank you

 

[Scottishclover]

To avoid London, I would suggest taking an Avanti West Coast Line direct to Birmingham and then change there to a train to Southampton. It’s around 4 hours to Birmingham by train. Full disclosure, I have never done this and it will probably take much longer than using the East Coast Line. Also, there always seems to be a lot of work/ delays going on on the West Coast Line for some reason. If you were to go on the East Coast Line to Southampton with any company, you would always change in London as this would be the usual and quickest route.
 

 No problem to take luggage on the train,  if you are happy to lug it about when you change trains. Sorry, can’t help with luggage transportation.

 

You may not know this but you can actually fly direct Edinburgh to Southampton with Loganair ( if you like tartan, you will love Loganair😂)  The train however would be a greener choice, of course. 
 

Happy to answer any more questions you have about Edinburgh.

[Island2Dweller]

In normal times, taking the Avanti train service from Edinburgh to Birmingham then an onwards connection to Southampton is a great option.

But......   For the last few months the Avanti service has been little short of a disaster.  Endless cancellations, and the route from Edinburgh is especially badly hit.  This is because the management have failed to manage recruitment and simply don't have enought crew to operate the schedule. 

One would hope that by the time you travel, this crisis will be over and the service will be running smoothly again.  But they've had months to fix things and there is precious little sign of improvement, so if you are thinking of doing this option then you need a keep a watching eye on this.

[Globaliser]

On 10/29/2022 at 3:06 AM, MickeyandLV said:

1) Any suggestions about which train company to use. We want to avoid London because we are traveling on coronation day.

 

41 minutes ago, Island2Dweller said:

For the last few months the Avanti service has been little short of a disaster.  Endless cancellations, and the route from Edinburgh is especially badly hit.  This is because the management have failed to manage recruitment and simply don't have enought crew to operate the schedule.

 

I think that any travel ideas that might involve Avanti are best not planned at this stage. Without going into the ins and outs of Avanti's problems ("disaster" is certainly apt, but the problems are rather more complicated than this), the headlines are as follows: Avanti's contract was due to expire this month. There was widespread speculation about the chances that the government would take over the running of the operation (as it did some time ago on the East Coast Main Line), but Avanti's contract has been extended for six months. It is possible that Avanti may get its house in order and get a contract extension. It is also possible that the government simply needs six months to plan for taking over the operation. Or there could even be a new private-sector franchisee (although this is unlikely).

 

To avoid both Avanti and London, I'm wondering whether there might be some route that uses LNER and Cross-Country services.

 

Although personally, I would be changing my plans to be in London on coronation day. It's likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime event for many people. However scaled-back the event is, it will be a very special day to be here.

[John Bull]

On 10/29/2022 at 8:03 AM, Scottishclover said:

You may not know this but you can actually fly direct Edinburgh to Southampton with Loganair ( if you like tartan, you will love Loganair😂)  The train however would be a greener choice, of course. 

 

Yep, a direct flight from Edinburgh to Southampton would be simplest & quickest, and possibly the same sort of cost as by train.

Both Edinburgh and Southampton are small single-terminal regional airports - all very laid-back and easy, not like the zoos of major international airports

Three flights most days.

Base fare about £80 pp. but ...................

- like most regional airlines the fares are fluid, typically much more expensive for late bookings

- included baggage is only 15kg (33lb) and there may be other add-ons, so you'll  probably need to do a dummy booking to get a true total cost.

Add about £20 for a taxi from Southampton airport to city centre or cruise terminals.

 

Sorry, can't help with suggestions for luggage forwarders - but even allowing for the cost of extra luggage on Loganair, with just one checked bag and one carry-on each, I can't imagine that luggage-forwarders would be either economical or worthy of the complication.

 

https://www.loganair.co.uk/en-gb/flights-from-edinburgh-to-southampton?redirecturl=true&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwfiaBhC7ARIsAGvcPe4CU6Dy4fdT4vbFZMpT6_d0KgSSjOpiZVQQ_dKBoj40thxPH-CEzSoaAi1REALw_wcB

 

JB 🙂

[Turtles06]

9 hours ago, Island2Dweller said:

For the last few months the Avanti service has been little short of a disaster.  Endless cancellations,

 

Yup.  Months ago, we booked an Avanti train from Glasgow to London for a specific date in October.  Avanti cancelled it at the last minute.   For many weeks prior to that journey (but after we'd booked), Avanti's web site kept warning about "reduced timetables."  

[MickeyandLV]

We have been warned about Avanti,  They messed up my sister and her husband's plans in August of this year. We have looked at Cross-Crountry and they seem to have a schedule that will match our plans. The reason we are looking at a train instead of flying is so we can see some of the countryside on the way.  My brother-in-law says it starts to look the same after awhile. We just thought the train would be something we have not done before. We do not have any train service here that is close to our home. We would have to drive about 4-5 hours to catch a passenger train that goes anywhere.

I know the coronation is a once in a lifetime event but crowds are not our favorite.  My niece just loved Edinburgh the year she was there for school and is excited we are going to see it.

If you didn't drive "on the wrong side of the road" 😀, we would just rent a car and drive around the countryside.

Thank you again for all your suggestions and help.

[Bob++]

The East Coast line is by far the most scenic, but it means getting from Kings Cross to Waterloo in London. The transfer in Birmingham on the Western route is only a change of platforms in Birmingham New Street station.

 

Unless travelling by train has a particular appeal, I would choose to fly.

[sleepingcat]

On 10/29/2022 at 3:06 AM, MickeyandLV said:

We originally planned on visiting London before the cruise but the coronation is planned during our visit.

just to note also that there is likely to be at least one extra public holiday (ie on weekdays) around that time because of the Coronation ( this year there were two extra ones in June for the late Queen's jubilee celebrations). This may disrupt train timetables, and mean some facilities being closed when normally open.  As far as I know no dates apart from the coronation date have been announced as yet so the train companies will not yet be able to plan for them.

 

concerning luggage forwarding, you havent said which  cruise line you are going with but I would expect them to be able to help on this.  We ve only done it once when we sent luggage unaccompanied on a P and O ex UK round the world cruise, we then caught our luggage up when we boarded the ship in NZ.   it was super efficient pick up from our house and a confirmation that yes, our luggage was definitely on the ship.  Can't remember the name of the forwarding company but it was organised via P and O. 

 

Agree with the comments above re train journey, Edinburgh to Southampton will be a long and tedious day of travel. 

[MickeyandLV]

We have looked at flying instead of the train. Flying may be winning.  It seems a waste to spend a full day on the train, when we could fly in a few hours.  If we fly we do not have to worry as much about luggage, we hope.

We were worried about extra bank holidays around the coronation. One place I read, it was suggested that Friday or Monday may be a bank holiday.  We ran into that the last time we were in the UK. We took the Princess transfer with stop at Windsor and ended up standing in line for hours outside. We ended up only having about 30 minutes inside Windsor. Because it was a holiday, everyone was there visiting.