National Rail Strike

We just found out that there is a National Railroad strike in England scheduled for the period Nov. 3-9. Is this going to be a problem? It could have been and might still be as strikes can be unpredictable. We have five train trips planned outside London by rail and there are very few alternatives. All three of our comedy shows require the train, as does our trip to/from Paris. Fortunately, the strike schedule appears to have spared us. The strike days are the 5th, 7th and 9th and our comedy shows are on the 6th, 10th and 12th. In theory the train schedule for those days is unaffected so we should be okay, but we really don't know. There is also a minor issue in that the tube is also shut down on the 10th, but we should be able to take a bus or Uber to the train station that day, so not a big deal (I think).

Now for the Eurostar trip days. Eurostar is exempt from the strike, but because they share rails with the striking lines, they are forced to reduce traffic. The bottom line is they had to cancel some of the trains scheduled on the 7th (when we go to Paris), but not our train so we're okay (fingers crossed). They haven't rescheduled for Nov. 9 (our return) so we're in wait-and-see mode on that one.

Pre-Trip Planning

The planning for this trip started on 2/22/22 when we purchased our airline tickets to London. As this is a celebration of our 50th anniversary, we wanted to take a special trip and we were considering either London or Rome, but on that date with all the 2s, United had a one-day sale where you could go to London for 22K miles each way and I had enough miles for both of us to fly for free, so it worked out perfectly.

The next step was to figure out what we wanted to do once we got there. It's not that easy as we have been to London before and have seen most of the "must see" sights. So, what we decided to do is split the trip in half and take the Eurostar to Paris via the Chunnel. We both like riding trains and it is quick (2.5 hours) and not that expensive. About $60 each way. So, we are going to London for 3 nights, 2 nights in Paris and back to London for 5 nights. Fortunately, I was able to use hotel points for all the hotels, including nice Hiltons in London and Paris so it's a bit of a deluxe trip without the expense.

Other things we plan to do:

1) Three comedy shows in London - Dara O'Brien, Sarah Pascoe and Jon Richardson.

2) Two high teas including one at Kensington Palace on our actual anniversary.

3) Dinner and a show at the Moulin Rouge in Paris

4) Hop-on Hop-off bus tours in London and Paris

Sounds expensive but again most of this was booked with points so not really.