London from Germany on train, good or bad idea?

[admylin]

Dh wants to go to London over Easter for 3 or 4 days. We live in Germany (Hannover) so if I can manage to find a nice hotel I think we might enjoy a train journey over. Any ideas or experience? Or is getting on and off ferries just as long and boring as having to check in for a flight?

Dc are 11 and 12 so old enough to busy themselves on journey with reading, nintendo etc. Has anyone travelled abroad by train?

My friend (no children) did it over Xmas in the other way - from London to near Bremen. It was nightmarish because of the snow and the eurostar delays and because she'd had to book tickets separately so it wasn't coordinated. I think she'd found it enjoyable (although long) coming back!

TBH, I think I'd rather fly. It will inevitably take you much longer on trains and be much more expensive.

Do you think it'd be more expensive than flying kreacher? Over Easter the cheap flights are all gone as far as I can see online, we've left it late as usual of course!
I've seen an offer for 49Euro one way with the train to Brussels then Eurostar to London and dc up to 15 can go free, one each with a parent. It's a Deutsche Bahn special to London.

TBH, I hadn't looked at the prices of flights, it was a knee jerk thing.
If you can get the train for those prices, go for it. It wouldn't be my choice but we went from Central Switzerland to Germany on the train and it was fine.
I think it took us about six hours and our DD was 7 IIRC. We took plenty of books and a DS for her.

We came back from Amsterdam by train on Friday, having gone out on tuesday. Door to door it was almost the same time as flying by the time you have travelled to the airport checked in waited for luggage at the other end etc. Price I can't comment as we had complimentary eurostar tickets.

The enormous advantage with DC is much more space on Thalys families get a table with electric plugs. We could get up and walk around. DD could look out window we played whose first to spot cow, sheep windmill etc games.
Changing in Brussels was dead easy and we had 20 minutes on the way out and 35 on the way in and no problems.

I will always look at train travel to european cities first in future.