Tell Trainline about the family days out you have planned - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

Trainline is developing a new days out tool to help with finding new places to visit and they’d love to know which family days out you’re planning this year, and – if you’re going by train – how you plan on entertaining your children on the journey.

They also want you to get involved with helping them to shape their new tool - you can suggest new attractions to be included in the tool using the “suggest” button.

Here’s what Trainline has to say: “At Trainline we’re always looking for ways to make journeys smarter. Clare Gilmartin our CEO, is a mother of three, and keeps us focussed on our customers by reminding us that “it’s the little things that make a big difference”, from saving a few minutes by using a mobile train ticket to getting a great deal using the best fare finder, and this is the ethos that we have at the heart of what we do. Our latest days out tool helps you to find and plan a day out by train, just in time for the summer holidays, but we want your ideas to take it the extra mile.”

So, whether you’ve got educational trips or adventure filled days planned for the summer holidays (and beyond!), let Trainline know about them and your train journey entertainment tips below.

All those who share a day out or tips for entertaining children on the train below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher from a store of their choice (from a list).

Please note that the days out tool is new and development of it is still underway. Some less popular train routes haven’t been added yet, but will be with time. There will also be more attractions added so please make suggestions on what you’d like to see next. Additionally, if you live in London please search from a mainline station to get the best results.

Thanks and good luck

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

Ikea have kids stuff on this holiday also local museums/art galleries.

Riding on the train is a day out for a 4 year old! We like to take the train to the airport, ride the free shuttle service and eat our sandwiches looking at the planes!

Forgot to say, I agree with previous posters about adding the option to include Childrens ages on the website and also different family sizes for costs.

We love getting the train to Balloch, always a lovely day out.

My top tip is always to book seats and when you board the train and (inevitably) find someone else in your seat, smile sweetly and ask them to move. It also means you can wait until the scrum onto the train has eased and take your time boarding! If we happen to visit a McDonald's we always pick up a few of the colouring tablecloths and take them on board, which works best on a table seat, and all dc can colour a bit at the same time! Other than that it's lots of snacks, iPads and chargers
Dd and I are taking the train to London at the weekend to go shopping, have lunch, see a show then home again and we cannot wait.

We tend to only use the train to go to London. We've never had a problem keeping the DC occupied - they have always loved looking out the windows and discussing what they see. They have been known to sing occasionally but we generally discouraged that.

We'll be doing all the usual things - the seaside, the Country Park, activities at local art gallery, etc.

Good old I spy keeps us entertained for hours on train journeys

I'm getting English heritage membership this holiday so have some days out planned with them. I rarely use trains as I drive but I know DC's adore it when we do use them. I do worry when going on a train as its only into London I'd use them and I still have a pushchair which isn't always convenient on some lines and with escalators to negotiate. May have a look at some journeys out of London. Can it really be cheaper and less hassle for a family of five to use the train though?

I think I this tool is a great idea. We've done lots of days out in the past by train and the children always loved it, quite often finding the train the most exciting part of the trip! This new tool will make planning much easier for people. As for entertainment on the train journey I used to make a little chart of places and things to see and spot en route which they loved although, as I said, they simply loved the train journey itself so travelling by train was always a pleasure.

Family railcards are such a good bargain. For longer journeys I'd always book in advance but this summer's train trips are going to be little London jaunts like Hampton Court and Kew Bridge (for the excellent Water and Steam Museum).

My DC are of an age where we just pack a book for each of them so that's easy although dissuading DS from choosing an enormous heavy Encyclopaedia of the Star Wars Universe or whatever is a problem.

I found the tool a bit confusing for a number of different reasons:

• It wasn't clear how the site had come about the prices for day returns or family of 4 because I couldn't get the prices to be the same for any of them, despite trying several variants.
• There was no indication of any entry fees to the attraction(s)
• There was no indication of how close the attraction was to the station, particularly if it was within walking distance or if there was a good local transport network with a regular and frequent service, or if you'd need an expensive taxi which could turn a good value day out into an expensive nightmare. *There was no indication of any of the offers that involve rail tickets - for example I know my local train company does deals for cheap entry into some attractions if you show your ticket, which could make a difference.
• If you suggest a location that has several attractions (for example, Birmingham was suggested to me, with 7 attractions highlighted), it would be nice to be able to open a separate 'Birmingham' page or maybe add options you like to a list you can then work through otherwise there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between pages.
• The list of attractions is fairly text and image dense. A little bit of white space between each attraction would help to make it easier on the eyes (and at the moment the line under the attraction name helps to separate the name from the details, rather than for them to be drawn together into a visually obvious section)
• If I'm organising a day out for the family or with some friends then I'm likely to do some research to create a short list, then send it out to others to get feedback or approval and then go about booking tickets. Even if it's just with dh and the dc, I'd do some research then show them the options before going ahead and booking. This seems very tailored towards doing everything at once - there doesn't seem to be a way to save what you've been looking at.
• Whilst travel time is important, cost is important too. So it would be nice to have the option of using cost in conjunction with travel time (or maybe instead of) so that the expensive attractions that are also an expensive train ride away get screened out early on. Or that there's a way to sort by cost (would need an option at least of combined travel and attraction cost) rather than just destination. It's not too bad now as there's not a lot of content to look through. But as a lot more attractions are added it's going to become more of a problem.
• It would be really nice to see what facilities are on trains - toilets, buffet car and wifi are the main facilities that spring to mind that are important when you're travelling with dc!

I liked:

• Simple to type in my 'home' station and get going
• That I had the option to only look at direct trains
• The (mostly!) subtle colour changes in the list of attractions to help emphasise or separate appropriate sections
• Use of photos included some from social media rather than all being perfect ones issued by the attraction

We have a Family & Friends railcard, it's fantastic. It paid for itself the first time I took the DC to London. Sadly where we are it's still often cheaper to drive than take the train, but I love going by train and it's much easier to entertain kids - I take them to WH Smith at the station beforehand, stock up on magazines and snacks, and off we go :)

I'm hoping to take them on a day trip to Cambridge by train one day in the summer, so many fantastic places to wander round and they love the museums.

Train companies really need to get into the 21st century and offer free WiFi on all trains as standard, though!

We tend to use train for trips rather than a day out, we may get the local train somewhere but I'm guessing that's not the sort of journey meant because they don't really need entertaining as it's not long, just look out of the window

Longer journeys normally come with a new story book and sticker/activity book each to keep them occupied, possibly linked with something we will be doing while away, they know this but still get excited because they don't know until we are on the train what ones we have bought for them. Sometimes take a wheres wally book and do it as a family too

We pretty much get the train everywhere as we do not drive.

Recently got a Friends and Family railcard, which we over the summer will more than make the money back on in savings.

We are using the train to get to London, Butlins, visiting family etc..

We always try and get our tickets well in advance, and try not to be too bothered about time if we can help it, as going earlier or maybe a bit later in the day can mean quite a difference with the cost.

Still always get nervous getting on the train though, in case someone is sat in our reserved seats, had a bad experience when travelling a few years back with the children, and we had reserved seats, that people point blank refused to move and were actually horrible about it.

I just took my 5 year old on a train journey to Cardiff from Bristol.

We had finished watching "train spotting live" on TV and he wanted to see all the different trains

We spotted a class 33, and 45

But no flying banana, sadly.

We played I spy, which started with R. rails. T. Trains.

All fantastic ways to while away the time

We used the trainline for this journey and a day out planner would be something to use.

This is very low tech but you can keep LOs happy for hours tearing up small bits of paper and posting them into an empty drinks can. No littering please!

We will be going on a short train trip, with our family railcard, to Leicester. We'll visit the fab New Walk museum, 5 minutes walk from the station and it has dinosaurs and hands on exhibits.
We're going further afield to London and we'll be using the 2for1 days out train vouchers to afford our trip to London zoo.
I like card games, pass the pigs, dominos etc to play on the train, as long as we've booked a table seat in advance.

I love family days out, we've already had a day out in York walking round the City walls, but are planning on returning to York for a day at the National Railway Museum. Haven't been for ages, and it's a fabulous (free!) day out.

I'm going to take my sons for a day out in London on the train. Probably the science museum then meet some friends at the Diana fountain.

Best way to entertain them is an iPad mini each. They are light and compact and they can play games, be creative or watch downloaded tv shows.

I have lots of family days planned this week, including the zoo, a trip to the beach, to the science museum and to the swimming pool. We are going by train to all of these, as this is part of the 'adventure' vibe! We love playing games such as I-Spy and 20 questions.

We love days out, and our little one loves any form of public transport, but our local train is too expensive! We tend to do a trip out to somewhere like a beach, and we take a picnic and try and add in a walk somewhere.. If we could get a cheaper family ticket on the train, she'd love it. We went to London a few weeks ago and she loved going to see museum.. Then she made pictures of what she had seen afterwards..

I know I've said it on these forums before but 'I-spy' books at less than £3 each they are brilliant, cheap entertainment. Every time we go on a journey we use our 'I-spy on a train journey' book at the station and whilst we are travelling.

We then use this to add our own 'i-spy' games like counting gardens with trampolines in, counting how many fields with sheep in etc - it is a simple diversion but always enjoyed.

In the next month we're planning days out to Tropical World in Leeds, Skipton Castle and York. Our dc are 2.7 and 1 so the youngest tends to sleep and we're lucky in that the toddler is still quite happy to look out of the windows if it's not too long a journey.

I took dd on the train to Scarborough last week purely to transport the buggy there, the rest of our party drove, I was there hours before as the train was so much more convenient!

Train trip from Reading to London with 19 month old then to London zoo. Using the same tactics I used in the plane 6 months ago, toys that won't roll away if dropped on the floor! Last thing I want to do is crawl on the floor, looking under people's legs for a Happyland character!

the train journey IS part of the attraction! much more entertaining and easier to emtertain kids than driving