Travelling to London next weekend. HELP

[PeggyLeggy]

I am going to London next Friday for a long awaited concert. I have paid a fortune for the tickets and waited almost 3 years to see this band. We have a (none refundable) hotel Booked and trains booked from Stafford to London Euston on Friday. We are then leaving London on Saturday morning and I have a 60th birthday party I can’t miss on Saturday night .

Somehow the train strike has kind of passed me by. However I’ve now read all
about it and I’m totally panicking. We can’t leave any earlier than we are due to work but I’m more worried about being stranded in London on Saturday! Is it going to hell (stupid question I know)

I did think about driving but im
worried we’ll get caught in traffic and I’ve never driven in a big city before, driving in London would terrify me. Plus it’s a 3 and a half hour drive, we’d be cutting it very fine

I’ve just had a look a parking and there’s nothing available near by 😭

Some trains will run on Saturday, you can check if your route is affected, even if partially, or of you can book seats on one of the running trains . Is there a coach option instead to anywhere close?

National Express coach.

I’ve checked the National express, it
says it’s 6 hours and all the morning ones are sold out so no good.

If no direct coach you could drive to Oxford and get Oxford tube (a coach) which goes about every 15 mins. It has stops outside Oxford city centre so you might be able to find free parking. You should be able to get full refund on your train.

Where is the gig and your hotel? You might be better off driving to an outlier Tube station where you can park overnight.

I was thinking of park and ride. Somewhere en route so we don’t have to go out of our way but I haven’t got a clue where to park and where to get the train in from

Where’s the gig? Is it the chilli peppers?

Where are you going in London?
You could drive to somewhere like Cockfosters and tube it in. Or any suitable outlying tube station. How were you getting from Euston to the venue?

It’s at London Stadium and we’re staying near Euston. Because we can’t get the train till early afternoon we booked a hotel near the station so we could get ready on the train (we’ve booked first class but will basically just need to freshen up), dump our bags and head straight to the concert.

We we’re just getting the underground to the stadium

It’s Green Day/Fall out boy we’re going to see

I am at the 02 on Tues. Rail and tube strike. 50th birthday gift postponed twice. Having to pay more than the ticket cost in a private car to get us there... goodness knows when we will get home....

I say just bite the bullet and drive. It sounds like your best option by far. There will be more traffic than usual so it will be very stop start, not as scary as you think. Good luck!

OK so you need an outlying tube station on one of the lines into Euston. I don't know about those but pick one like Mill Hill East or High Barnet and look up the station facilities. Quite a lot will have parking. However as there's a train strike they will might be v busy.

Then drive there and tube in. Will take longer than the train tho.....

I would cancel the hotel in Euston and book somewhere to stay in Stratford nearer the stadium. Then I'd drive to Shenfield at the end of the new Lizzy line and get the Tube to Stratford and back from there. There's no need to stay right in the centre of town and you'd have a much quicker getaway on Sat morning.

There will be trains from Euston and the tube will be running. Suggest you come back earlier than planned on the Saturday morning. Check the Avanti website.

Don't be a basket case with worry!

Ah, just saw it was a non-refundable hotel.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I’ve just called the hotel and they said we can move the reservation to a different date if needed so that’s a possibility, I go to london once every few months to see a show/ do all the touristy bits.

if I could find parking near the stadium it would br ok but it appears everything is booked up. Does anyone have any idea about where the best place is to park (coming from the north) that is an easy train in?

@balalake 🤣🤣 love it

will reservations be suspended on Saturday with their being a strike? So we can get any train? We were planning on a morning in London but we won’t be too bothered if we can’t, we can just get up and head to the station and catch a train that gets us close to home!

There*

I’ll look at Shenfield, Oxford and Cockfosters now!

Shenfield will be too far, it’s 3hours 40 from my house then 50 minutes on the tube

Reservations may be suspended or you can change for free.