Personal Site & Travel Blog
After all this preparation and anticipation, I’m finally on my way to Glasgow again! This time I’m travelling with my girlfriend, which will make the trip even more enjoyable.
Our Megabus arrived quite on time, is not too full, the power plug is working—unlike the USB plug—and it’s only a little bit too warm. I’ve had worse. 😉
Well, it seems my trip with the Caledonian Sleeper will not be happening in the foreseeable future…
I’ve been warned that foreign cards wouldn’t work to order the berths I wanted, so I tried to get a British debet card. But apparently the Scottish bank in Brussels is not really for normal accounts, and banks in Scotland require you to actually live there to open an account. So this morning, when the Bargain Berths for the dates I’d like to book became available, I tried to book them with my Belgian credit cards anyway — I had some luck with them before — but:
Fine, just use a Fastticket machine then, you’d say? Well, unfortunately Bargain Berths are only sold as Print@Home tickets! Strangely enough, in their explanation about those Print@Home tickets they mention ‘overseas customers’. As long as those ‘overseas customers’ have British credit card then, I guess…
So, unless ScotRail introduces a payment system fit for customers worldwide, no Caledonian Sleeper for me. 🙁
Hopefully Serco — who will be taking over the service in 2015 — will have some berths or ’Pod Flatbeds‘ available for an interesting price AND better payment options!
But until that time: Megabus Gold, prepare a bunk bed for me! 🙂
For my trip to Glasgow in September — yes, I want to be there for the referendum — I’m seriously considering travelling using the Caledonian Sleeper train from London. I’m quite happy with the MegaBus Gold sleeper service, but the train seems to be just a bit more comfortable and roomier. And when GlasgowFoodie wrote an article about the sleeper, I became even more interested to try this sleeper train at least once.
Unfortunately the full price tickets are quite expensive — easily over a £100 — and the cheaper Bargain Berths are only available on the ScotRail site, which doesn’t accept foreign credit cards for some reason…
Well, I still have some time to find a solution, since bookings for my preferred travel dates haven’t opened yet. Any suggestions?
After a speedy night ride to London — we arrived half an hour early — I managed to grab the front row seats again in the bus to Brussels, and this time nobody insisted on joining me there.
Eurotunnel went as planned as well, France was a breeze, but Belgium slowed us down with a traffic jam before Ghent. Welcome to Belgium?
So, I guess that was the end of this trip again already…
Start the countdown to September! 🙂
About half an hour ago we entered Scotland, where — believe it or not — the sun is shining brightly and there are hardly any clouds! It would be nice if it stays that way…
