Aibu to not buy 2 year old dd a train ticket for a long journey?

[Bigwheel]

I'm hoping to travel up to Scotland in the new year to visit my parents. The train journey will take about 8 hours in total. I will be travelling with my 2 year old and 5 year old by myself. Money is tight so I was please to discover I didn't have to buy my 2 year old a ticket. However I have since learnt that she doesn't automatically get a seat, she can only sit on one if it's not reserved. I have no idea if the train will be busy (crewe to edinborough, edinborough to Aberdeen) on a Thursday and returning Tuesday in early jan. it will cost about £30 more to buy my 2 year old a ticket, which is a lot to us. Aibu to hope that the train will be quiet and dd will get a seat or should I just accept that this trip is going to cost more than I thought?

Depending on your ticket, the terms and conditions might oblige you to sit in the reserved seat, rather than the one you prefer. And yes, I have seen this being enforced, especially on busy trains where it matters which seats are reserved and which are available

Have a look at the trains on megabus.com, you might be able to get the extra seat cheaper there?

the thing with reserving is that you might have chosen a specific seat - an aisle seat facing the direction of travel if trains make you nauseous etc.

I think you should seriously consider buying the ticket for peace of mind (and comfort!). 8 hours is a long journey if the 2 year old has to sit on your knee, even if only for part of the trip. Or buy a single for the journey up only as that is likely to be heaving with people travelling for the holidays - less likely that the Scottish trains going down in early January will be so packed on that leg?! (I'm Scottish, I'm allowed to say this )

I travelled up from England on the East Coast line a few weeks ago - I had booked two tickets and reserved seats, (for Dc1 and I, Dc2 small enough to sit between us for journey of two hours). Due to rail works this was the first train up the line that day and it was beyond packed. Found two burly young men in our seats when we got on, who tried to argue the point that there were no reservations as the printer at King's Cross?! wasn't working - they weren't for moving at all and then just ignored me by putting their heads down. Having read a thread on here the previous week about 'How MN has changed me' I girded my loins and projected said 'are you really going to make two small children stand all the way to Edinburgh while you sit in our reserved seats'? All heads in the carriage swivelled in their direction and finally they, grudgingly, moved.

Have a great Christmas break whatever you decide.

In order of priority (IMO):

Person who needs seat such as elderly/disabled (although they should sit in a non-reserved seat unless there are none left)
Person who has reserved a seat
Parents with small children
Everyone else (first come first seated!)

(First point) by which I mean that the entire train is reserved, (unlikely I'd have though?t) not that other people are sitting in the non-reserved seats.

Thanks all. I think I will buy her a seat. I was hoping you would all tell me how quiet the trains up to scotland would be, but it seems the opposite is true. She's also a big 2 year old, almost 3, and highly independent so will probably prefer her own seat. I wouldn't dream of letting her have a seat which someone else had reserved, however I am slightly concerned that if the train is very busy people will expect me to put her on my lap despite having paid for her seat. Will stand firm on that one though! Thanks for all the thoughts, fingers crossed the journey isn't to hellish and we all enjoy our first ever visit to Scotland. And sorry, Edinburgh not edinborough [embrassed]

We were in our reserved seats in first class when a woman stopped and announced to my son "I think you are in my seat!" She was really quite rude, but I was there with the seat reservations on the table and I was ready to do battle because of her rudeness, when my dh looked at her reservation and said "Oh look at that you're in coach K while this is coach L and my son is in his correct seat!" She slumped off and never even apologised to my son.

I'd always buy the kids a seat as it makes for comfier sitting on a long journey.

isoldeone she wasn't being mean she was rightfully claiming her reserved seat.

Its not easy to work on those flip down trays with paperwork and theres more legroom at the table - perhaps she had some physical reason she didn't want to sit in the other seats. Also as someone else said on some trains you have to sit in the reserved seat. Regardless she wasn't wrong in anyway.

Putting sleeping child in the seat is one thing but why did you have to move all your bags if your parents were still sat there?

If you have reserved a seat for your DD nobody can ask you to move.

Definitely look into family railcards, sometimes you can make your money back on just one long journey.

Also bear in mind that two single journeys can be cheaper than a return ticket.

If you buy 3 seats though, even if 2 of them are for children, you are quite likely not to get them round a table, just because there aren't that many tables any more, it's mostly airline style pairs. Even if you say you'd prefer a table. So you might end up paying the extra money for a seat across the aisle that your 5 year old doesn't want to sit in by herself! (Assuming you would have to sit next to the 2 year old.) I've had 4 tickets (1 adult, 3 children) split up like that going from London to Berwick - could see the other 2 kids but not talk to them from my seat without being an annoyingly loud parent.

If you buy via the East Coast site you can choose where your seats are - I always make sure they're round a table and near the end of the coach.

Ooh can you? That's good to know :) (Have bought from East Coast I think, but it was a few years ago.)

Oh, disappointed - I have tickets to buy for December so went to East Coast, but (on the mobile site at least), it's just the usual give your preferences - I was hoping for cinema-style individual seat picking! So you can say you want a table, but if there aren't any left, you might not realise. I have spent a fair bit of time whilst making bookings looking up seating plans and so on - I don't know why the operators aren't more transparent about these.

I don't know about the mobile site, but on the full website, there is an option to look inside the carriage and move your seats - it's the page after the one where you give you preference and it's the "view your seat" option on the right hand side. Once you've opened that there's an option to "change your seat" which then shows you what other seats are already booked and you can move your seat to any of the empty ones.

I travel regularly from London to Newcastle and/or Scotland by myself with 3 DCs and I never buy tickets for the under-5s. At one point this meant I had one ticket for the four of us, in which case i used to go first class - first class upgrade for one person was still cheaper than the extra child ticket and first class is always empty enough to mean there were plenty of seats round a table.

At the moment, i have one under-5 so I buy 3 tickets and the children squash up on two seats if the train is busy. We always get a table (on East Coast and I never book massively in advance). The train always empties after Newcastle but can be very busy before then, particularly if you are travelling in the school holidays so I plan for the children to eg, watch a film for the first two-three hours and then save the colouring/moving around etc for the bit past Newcastle. And book the fast trains - that extra 30-60mins makes a big difference to bored children.

Sorry, isoldeone, but 'someone was mean enough to move DS'. From a seat that she had reserved and paid for? Are you for real?

She just thinks her baby's such a special little snowflake that no one should expect to move him to sit in the seat they have reserved.

YANBU

At 2 and 5 you can all 3 squish on 2 seats if needed anyway. Just make sure you reserve 2 together.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha isoldeone entitled much?

Woman pays for train ticket and reserves seat.
isoldeone plonks ickle wikle bikle boo boo one year old on said lady's seat.
isoldeone gets cross when woman want to sit in said reserved and paid for seat.
isoldeone out of touch with the real world!!!!

Bigwheel -I did London/Edinburgh the week after Christmas a couple of years ago and it was packed both ways. If you can stretch to a ticket for her, I'd do it.

Isoldeone have a from me. The world doesn't revolve around your baby.

sits on isodeone's baby without a ticket