Great Western Coffee Shop

I would be most grateful for confirmation (or otherwise!) from the resident forum ticketing gurus that I can't do any better than the following:

2 Adult Passengers

Outward 14/01/16
DIG 1141
EXD 1155 / 1217
RDG 1420 / 1434
GTW 1551

Return 18/01/16
GTW 1403
RDG 1519 / 1533
EXD 1733 / 1753
DIG 1806

With a Two Together Railcard the booking sites offer ^25.10 out & ^31.00 back Advance tickets, giving a total of ^56.10, which seems pretty good to me.

I have looked at travelling DIG > EXC > CLJ > GTW but no Advance tickets are offered between DIG or EXC and CLJ so this seems like a non-starter.
The flight departure / arrival times are 1740 & 1155 so I have included a generous delay allowance (for both outbound train & inbound plane!)

Thanks in anticipation.....   

I'm not sure I would regard 1 hr 50 mins from arrival to flight as an overly generous margin on your outward journey. One cancelled train or a suicide closing the line for an hour and you will likely have missed the flight. Also, if you miss the connection at Reading It will be very tight.

Agree - 14 mins on the outward to Gatwick is a lot tighter than I'd run it...

I would aim to arrive Gatwick at least an hour earlier than that. Having experienced Gatwick last month, I arrived exactly 2 hours before my flight and it was cutting it fine (travelling with a 3 year old)

If you flying from north terminal allow longer as you need to use the shuttle from south terminal to North terminal which easily adds 10 mins on.

Security is likely to be tightened at the current times

I agree with the above posts, you should definitely allow more time on your outbound journey. I would at least catch the 11:12, arriving EXD 11:22, depart 11:39, arrive RDG 13:16, depart 13:34, arrive GTW 14:50.

Yes this does cost an extra ^11.90 total, but the added benefits of only leaving D&S 29 minutes earlier, an extra 4 minutes at Reading and getting to Gatwick an hour earlier.

Admittedly prices before the 11:12 then become ridiculous.

Rather more expensive - but still cheaper than an anytime fare - is a flyaway two  (or three or four) at ^140 total for the group

Main advantage is no peak hour restrictions and no advance booking needed. Must use the Reading - Guildford-Gatwick route

The other thing to consider when using advance tickets is that if your return flight is delayed such that you miss your booked train you will have to pay again

hi Bob,

Have a look at route from Dig to Southampton and then to Gatwick, couple of more changes but you can get advances to Southampton starting earlier seen 2 on the 8.13 arrive Southampton 11.04 for 22.00. Then you can get 2 off peak singles 2 together R/C for 20.10 which is an Off peak return and the same coming back so have slightly more choice of trains but limited Advance choice from Southampton.

Hope this helps
Basset

But if it isn't, you get to spend an hour or two at Gatwick station in drizzle and 12C heat, wearing shorts, flip-flops and a sombrero, because your jumper and coat are in your suitcase, somewhere in Sharm el Sheikh.

Airports - pah!

Give me the Isle of Wight ferry any day.

Isle of Wight for me next year for a short holiday. Queen are headlining the festival. Probably my last ever go at camping and a pop/rock festival, but not missing the opportunity.

I was too old for camping at 14. But I do remember being on the Isle of Wight during the 1970 pop festival and my parents trying desperately to distract my attention from the nude hippies on the beach by suggesting we built sandcastles.

Curious that GWR set the fares for Digby-Gatwick, and provide routeing options such as via Westbury/Salisbury and via Honiton. These are ^60 and ^80 respectively for a SVR (before railcard) and the time restrictions are, well, not very restrictive from the Exeter area.

There are 10 or so direct National Express coaches daily from Exeter coach station to Gatwick Airport, I'd say that'd be a much better option, no faffing around worrying about missed connections or carting luggage between trains.

Thanks to all for your input - I will have a look at the 'via Southampton' and SVR options.

I am afraid that the final suggestion from TG cannot be considered because I hate long distance coach travel and would not use such services unless there was absolutely no alternative.

Good luck!  :)

Just a quick one on this Bob, I thought of you this morning when I got to Reading (en route to Bristol TM) and the Gatwick service was suspended due to a broken down train - the fallback being suggested was travelling to Paddington, across to Victoria and out again to Gatwick - perhaps worth bearing in mind for your trip - if the Reading-Gatwick service falls over, there are very few other options other than that being suggested this morning which adds a large amount of time to your trip.

Well that was a damned close run thing! The up Paignton > Paddington service was delayed just east of Frome by an engineering work speed restriction - 'restricted' to the extent that the train was completely stopped for several minutes! - and arrived RDG 10 minutes late at 1430. However some spirited sprinting by SWTSMBO and yours truly allowed us to make the 1434 to Gatwick, as planned, with 2 minutes to spare. Credit to the Train Manager of 1A82 who, when asked, did his best to get a short hold on the Gatwick train (the response was 'GWR Swindon control says No') but I am certain that some sort of message must have got through given that the 1O78 TM was still on the platform looking back towards P7 as we approached.

On the plus side the booked GTW > DIG return journey yesterday ran perfectly - which is more than can be said for the preceding BA flight back from France that suffered a c. 60 minute delay largely because those muppets had overbooked it. They then tried to blame their online booking system.

And finally further credit to GWR for the provision of a pretty speedy WiFi service on all 4 sectors of the journey.   

Many thanks for that update on your rail travel adventure, Bob_Blakey!  ;D

Purely for completeness, I've added SWTSMBO to our 'acronyms/abbreviations (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/acronyms.html)' page. ;)