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[Backdated entry again]
For our final day in London, we had the gift of a 2 PM checkout from the Crowne Plaza King's Cross, so after having breakfast as late as we could, we spent time repacking our luggage, this time trying to optimize for the train trip. Our larger bags would go into storage on board and won't fit in our sleeper cabin. After checking out and storing our bags with the hotel, we set out for a final day of looking around London.
( Boats and Birds )
After the walk in the park, we took the Tube back up to King's Cross/St. Pancras, and for the last time made the approximately 1 km walk to the Crowne Plaza King's Cross. We reclaimed our luggage and the hotel called us a cab to take us to Euston Station, where our overnight train to Glasgow awaited.
( The Caledonian Sleeper )
Our impression of the Caledonian Sleeper: underwhelming. The equipment is much newer that the Sleeper we took from Glasgow to London after the previous Glasgow Worldcon, and it is very "tight" with no mysterious squeaks and other noises like the tired Amtrak Superliners make. However, Lisa observes that the sleeper can only be used for sleeping. There's no comfortable way to sit in it otherwise. Now since there are no journeys within the UK that are longer than one night, this is sort of understandable, but means that the room has no "daytime" configuration. You literally climb into the coach and then climb into bed.
Lisa notes that the upper bunk was so narrow that the anti-fall-out-of-bed sideboards left her with bruises. Lisa is limber enough to climb into the upper bunk of a Superliner without a ladder, but found the straight vertical ladder on the CS torturous. Finally, there is virtually no room to store items in your bunk other than a small metal U-channel box to hold a mobile phone being charged, and the box has sharp edges, at least on the upper bunk.
I was in the lower bunk and could feel that it was narrower than even the Superliner roomette bed; however, I managed to get more sleep that Lisa did, but I felt the lack of storage space just as Lisa did. I was able to power my CPAP by running an extension cord from the outlet, but the only place I could put it was on my smaller piece of luggage sitting on the floor and blocking the door.
We both found the room too warm. Even with the control set to maximum cool, the room would not cool down. We wished that there was some way to crack open the window and let in some fresh air. I ended up leaving the blind open, even though that let in the light from passing stations, in the hope the that window might radiate some of the heat from the room.
The en suite toilet was welcome, but the compartment has a bright white light under the toilet, and you cannot turn it off. I asked a staff member, who said that this was a health and safety requirement. I'm skeptical of this. And speaking of skeptical, Lisa is becoming increasingly dubious of sleeper trains with runs of less than eight hours. In such cases, she says that it would be better to upgrade the track and shorten run, which the Japanese have done. (They have only one remaining sleeper train, and the one we took in 2007 has been discontinued due to the extension of the Shinkansen through the Seikan Tunnel.)
We departed pretty much on time, and I think I got to sleep about midnight. I probably got a little over five hours of sleep. Lisa got much less.
For our final day in London, we had the gift of a 2 PM checkout from the Crowne Plaza King's Cross, so after having breakfast as late as we could, we spent time repacking our luggage, this time trying to optimize for the train trip. Our larger bags would go into storage on board and won't fit in our sleeper cabin. After checking out and storing our bags with the hotel, we set out for a final day of looking around London.
( Boats and Birds )
After the walk in the park, we took the Tube back up to King's Cross/St. Pancras, and for the last time made the approximately 1 km walk to the Crowne Plaza King's Cross. We reclaimed our luggage and the hotel called us a cab to take us to Euston Station, where our overnight train to Glasgow awaited.
( The Caledonian Sleeper )
Our impression of the Caledonian Sleeper: underwhelming. The equipment is much newer that the Sleeper we took from Glasgow to London after the previous Glasgow Worldcon, and it is very "tight" with no mysterious squeaks and other noises like the tired Amtrak Superliners make. However, Lisa observes that the sleeper can only be used for sleeping. There's no comfortable way to sit in it otherwise. Now since there are no journeys within the UK that are longer than one night, this is sort of understandable, but means that the room has no "daytime" configuration. You literally climb into the coach and then climb into bed.
Lisa notes that the upper bunk was so narrow that the anti-fall-out-of-bed sideboards left her with bruises. Lisa is limber enough to climb into the upper bunk of a Superliner without a ladder, but found the straight vertical ladder on the CS torturous. Finally, there is virtually no room to store items in your bunk other than a small metal U-channel box to hold a mobile phone being charged, and the box has sharp edges, at least on the upper bunk.
I was in the lower bunk and could feel that it was narrower than even the Superliner roomette bed; however, I managed to get more sleep that Lisa did, but I felt the lack of storage space just as Lisa did. I was able to power my CPAP by running an extension cord from the outlet, but the only place I could put it was on my smaller piece of luggage sitting on the floor and blocking the door.
We both found the room too warm. Even with the control set to maximum cool, the room would not cool down. We wished that there was some way to crack open the window and let in some fresh air. I ended up leaving the blind open, even though that let in the light from passing stations, in the hope the that window might radiate some of the heat from the room.
The en suite toilet was welcome, but the compartment has a bright white light under the toilet, and you cannot turn it off. I asked a staff member, who said that this was a health and safety requirement. I'm skeptical of this. And speaking of skeptical, Lisa is becoming increasingly dubious of sleeper trains with runs of less than eight hours. In such cases, she says that it would be better to upgrade the track and shorten run, which the Japanese have done. (They have only one remaining sleeper train, and the one we took in 2007 has been discontinued due to the extension of the Shinkansen through the Seikan Tunnel.)
We departed pretty much on time, and I think I got to sleep about midnight. I probably got a little over five hours of sleep. Lisa got much less.
