JFC Travel Blog

It’s always great to have a weekend away to Brugge (the Flemish spelling, Bruges is the French spelling) in the run up to Christmas in order to get away from the stresses and hassles of London. Last year I had an excellent trip on the Eurostar to Brussels and stayed in the NH Brugge (which was the Sofitel Brugge when I booked, but confusingly was rebranded the week before I stayed there). This time around I will be flying bmi to Brussels and staying in the Crowne Plaza Brugge.

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One service that I’ve started to use recently is National Express dot2dot. The service is effectively a shared minibus taxi service from Heathrow Airport to Central London. The price is significantly cheaper than a taxi and compares favourably with the Heathrow Express. As this service picks you up at your door and drops you off at the terminal you don’t have the hassle of getting to the station and then fighting with the crowds. How does this compare with other means of getting to the airport?

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Last night thousands of people took part in a party to commemorate the last day that alcohol was allowed on the tube. I didn’t attend the party but as I was working late yesterday I decided to grab a few cans before jumping on the Hammersmith and City line home, then I got a bit more curious and made a bit of a diversion. (more…)

I believe that most people who voted for Boris Johnson did so not because they thought he’d make a good mayor but rather they believed he was the only option to get rid of Ken. Will this be a mistake? Personally I don’t think Ken did too bad a job, he was never a brilliant mayor but was better than most other mainstream politicians. (more…)

A weekend in Glasgow means that I’ll be travelling NXEC for the first time since they’ve taken over the GNER franchise. Money is tight after the Christmas so I’ll be travelling standard class. It’s frustrating to see how much the prices for flexible tickets has risen over the last few years, I wanted to travel sometime after 3pm on the Friday - the cheapest flexible return for that time of day is £158.50 return (£126 single) so I decided to book a cheap webfare instead for £40.50 single on the 15:00. As there’s engineering works on the East Coast over the weekend my return on Sunday was either going to be by plane or Virgin Trains, so for the first time ever I decided to give easyJet a try. (more…)

Update: Amex is now accepted on the NXEC site as of 25th January 2007.
Although I think most of us would agree that overall the new GNER booking engine (NXEC now use the same booking engine) is a big improvement over the old one that was based on thetrainline.com. However, it does have one drawback - it does not currently accept American Express (more…)

Now smoking has been banned, it’s time to focus on beer and whatever the problem the solution always seems to be more tax. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has proposed to his party that raising taxes on alcohol will tackle the binge drinking culture.

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As a non-smoker I tend to prefer smoke free environments but I do believe that the government’s action of banning smoking in England from July is a step too far on many levels. First of all, I think that if companies want to accommodate smokers they should be allowed to, what harm does having a well ventilated smoking room cause to the non-smoker, it’s not an area that they have to venture?

I can see the smoking ban affecting travellers the most, if you’re waiting for a flight going outside for a cigarette isn’t as easy as it is in a pub, you have to leave the secure area and then face all the hassle of getting back through security (and airport security is a terrible joke these days). If you’ve just come off a 10 hour flight and waiting at the airport for your connection, a cigarette is a smokers way of relaxing. Personally my way of relaxing is getting a beer at the bar or in the lounge. Put simply, banning smoking in airports is just going to make a stressful experience even more stressful for a large number of smokers out there.

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