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Tag: Scotrail

Back to Glasgow

Published by Martijn on 25th July 2016

Starting with a last breakfast at Molmeg Cottage, we spent most of Sunday in DRT’s, buses and trains — and an hour in Perth — travelling back from Balquhidder to Glasgow.
After an early arrival and checkin in our hotel for the last night, we had dinner at one of the newest smoke and barbecue places of Glasgow: Smoak. We can’t wait until this food trend reaches Brussels!
Since our last visit to the city, some more new places opened, so we quickly visited the Hippo Taproom and Shilling Brewing Co. as well, before saying our goodbyes — and drink a couple of great beers — at BrewDog Glasgow.

On Monday, we had breakfast at Where the Monkey Sleeps and a quick round of geocaching, before boarding our train to London.
There we went to the Basement Bar of BottleDog Kings X, but they seem to have misplaced their taps… Not a problem though, plenty of choice in their fridges!
The Eurostar was on time this time, which means we were in our Brussels home again before midnight.

Caledonian Sleeper Train – part 2

Published by Martijn on 27th June 2014

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:

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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…

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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!

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But until that time: Megabus Gold, prepare a bunk bed for me! 🙂

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Caledonian Sleeper Train

Published by Martijn on 1st June 2014

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?