OliveTreeY

DH and I will be travelling to Europe with our pre-teen daughter in August and plan to take the overnight Ferry from London (Harwich) to Amsterdam, on the "Dutch Flyer train & ferry". We will be staying in London and plan to take a day trip to Cambridge, I am wondering whether we should make the day trip to Cambridge the last day and depart directly from Cambridge? We only have carry on size luggage. How doable it is to carry the luggage with us walking around whole day in August. It does save us a train ride back to London though...advice? Also, should I buy London - Cambridge train tickets in advance and is there any advantage doing so?

bilboburgler

Cambridge is a walkable town so practically you could do it, but you couldn't punt with them or visit a college with them so tricky to say the least. Sometimes "station cycles" stores luggage if you hire a bike, it might be worth dropping them an email. I think the station is being re-developed at this time which may have put pressure on one of their stores.

No left luggage at Cambridge station itself.

Generally prices on trains are cheaper the earlier you buy them, but read the conditions carefully. seat61.com should explain

OliveTreeY

Thanks Bilbo. Will check out the station cycles. I did use seat61 a lot - a great website. Unfortunately, two days after I bought non-flex Eurostar tickets Paris to London at 60GBP price came down to 40GBP learned my lesson to be early but be patient.

OliveTreeY

seat61 says for short trips like London - Cambridge buy the ticket same day and hop on. However a quick search showed that online tickets are selling at 5GBP or 10GBP? Price does seem to vary a lot from the web offerings. confused

dotheboyshall

Last I heard station cycles was closing

chelseaboy

If you tell me what time you need to be at Harwich Int'l I will provide you with the best train time from Cambridge. There is a direct train (no changes) at 1944 that arrives at Harwich Int'l at 2130. Earlier trains take longer and involve 2 changes. Price ranges from £8.00 to £19.40 on the train company site (http://www.buytickets.greateranglia.co.uk)

If you decide to go direct from London (and do Cambridge earlier in your trip) then there are more choices of train from London (Liverpool Street), more frequent, one change (at Manningtree), less time on the train than going from Cambridge and cost from £5.00 up to £30.00 for a one way "standard" class fare

bilboburgler

station cycles, just the station site due to the refurb, the other 2 stores are open

flanneruk

Seat 61 isn't infallible, and no free service - about anything - can change generalised recommendations every time the world changes in some small way.

Train operating companies constantly adjust their pricing strategies. For journeys between London and places 100 miles or less away, the norm a few years ago was not to bother selling advance discounts. Over the past couple of years, operators on some touristy routes have started offering advance discounts. From memory, I think this is true for only one of the London-Cambridge operators.

The prices offered through the National Rail site are accurate. "Be early but be patient" is not a good lesson to learn about railway prices in Britain. As far as domestic journeys are concerned, once an operator has put its advance prices out onto the web about 12 weeks ahead, those prices only ever go up.

Your Eurostar lesson indicates that the French do things differently. It's still the first time I've heard of such a case though.

OliveTreeY

We need to board the Ferry at Harwich before 22:30 when check in closes. That makes the 1944 train from Cambridge the perfect choice if we go that route. Still deciding...

OliveTreeY

Flanneruk - what you say makes a lot of sense. That the operators are changing their policies. Good advice on British railway prices and will book my tickets as soon as booking opens.

I almost got a heart attack when reading "It's still the first time I've heard of such a case" I thought I might have booked the wrong direction! I looked at my tickets, whew!!! Today the price is back to 61. It looks like Eurostar is making a yo-yo of their pricing. Not sure it's the French because it's the same website http://www.eurostar.com/uk-en/book/train/outbound-train I go to all the time and I was quoted in GBP always.