Caledonian sleeper - with kids?

[iloveblue]

Hi
I've always loved the idea of travelling to Scotland overnight on the sleeper, and I think my boys would love it (aged 5 and 7).

Would love to hear of any experiences anyone has had on it, in particular
where did you get on/get off?
From what I can gather from the website we would have to have two separate cabins as they only sleep 2 - is that right?

Thanks in advance

I have been on the Caledonian sleeper twice, once as a child and once as an adult before having children. So I can't tell you first-hand how it would be as a parent - but I have it on my list of things to do once our DCs are older.

The cabins sleep 2, and they are VERY compact (just a bit of standing room next to the bunks, and a tiny sink hidden under a folding bit of table). From what I remember there are doors between adjoining cabins that can be opened so that a family of four can share two cabins together.

When I was a child and we did this for a family holiday (family of five! I had to share a bunk with my small sister), we were going all the way from London to the far north of Scotland to catch a ferry to Orkney. I still remember waking up in the morning and opening the blind to see mountain scenery and a huge blooming stag thing. It was pretty exciting.

The more recent trip, as an adult, was to Aviemore. Part of the reason for choosing that destination was that we could get cheap tickets using their Bargain Berths offer - we paid something like £39 each way (and they have tickets starting from £19 if you can get them. Though probably not coinciding with such busy times as school holidays...)

Anyhow, hopefully someone will come along who can give you more advice on good destinations and things to do with DCs. Our week in Aviemore was spent walking and drinking whisky, so not much help there.

This is interesting as DH would like to do this with the DC. However we have 3 DC and one of them is only 11mo atm.

We would be heading sout rather than north though.

I've only done it before we had the children but it was great, worked out much cheaper than the alternatives if you can get a bargain berth. We were heading south when we've done it before (think we did leuchars to euston). Now live down south and are considering it for a trip to scotland later in the year.