Virgin Trains first class return London Kings Cross – Edinburgh Waverley
 

My name is Chloe. I am a very much loved pooch. This is my trip report written with the help of my human Ma, on Virgin trains first class return Kings Cross – Edinburgh Waverley in one day!
A bit of background about myself and my human parents (I call them Ma & Pa). I was born in Australia and adopted by Ma & Pa when I was just 8 weeks old. When I was 8 years old Pa got a job in London. So, Ma & Pa decided to move me and my play partner and mate, Coco (he was 9 years old at the time), to live in London with them. Sadly we lost Coco less than a year after we moved to London – he went to the Rainbow Bridge nearly 4 years ago. Ma still cries for him a lot.
We love living in London as the UK is such a dog friendly country – unlike Australia :td:. In the UK I am allowed to travel on all modes of public transport (trains, buses and boats / ferries). I can go into certain pubs with Ma & Pa. They have taken me on a lot of driving trips all around England, Wales and a little bit of Scotland and stayed at dog friendly hotels (mostly the Hiltons) and B&Bs. I have visited some English Heritage places and a few National Trust properties, and selected beautiful gardens belonging to Historic Houses. In London Ma has taken me to all the royal parks. I have also been to the zoo – the wonderful Cotswold Wildlife Park. Ma & Pa reckon it is the only zoo which allows dogs.
I digress, back to this trip report. In early October Virgin trains had a promo fare £30 one way first class from London to Edinburgh – compared to £90 normally. Ma promptly registered to get the code. She has read that the train trip from London to Edinburgh is quite scenic – particularly when it crosses into Scotland around Berwick on Tweed. Pa has taken that trip a few years ago to a conference in Edinburgh. Since Pa could not take time off work, Ma decided to take me to Edinburgh with her for the day on Virgin train first class!
This was not the first time I have travelled on Virgin trains in first class. In April this year Ma got a cheap promo fare from London to Glasgow. So I went there with Pa & Ma. We stayed 2 nights at the Hilton Glasgow, opposite the botanical gardens which was ideal to for me to go for walks.
Virgin trains allow dogs on trains and in first class lounges :p. Ma & I left home (near Canary Wharf) at 6:30am and we got home at 9pm. It was a long but enjoyable day.
First class lounges:
I am allowed in Virgin first class lounges so I took well-behaved Ma to the lounge at Kings Cross station. The lounge was spacious with funky red furniture – seats, tables & chairs, charging stations, TV, newspapers (The Times). There were small packets of crisps and cookies (?), water bottles and jugs of juices in the fridge, tea / coffee making facilities. Ma took a water bottle. A useful feature of the lounge was toilets just outside the door – Ma said she did not want to pay to use the toilets at the station. [There was no toilet inside the first class lounge area in Glasgow. However, Ma said there were more varieties of food & beverages at this lounge.]
On the return trip, I took Ma to the first class lounge at Edinburgh Waverley station. Ma said this lounge was not as nice as the one in Kings Cross. There was no food, only water in the fridge and tea / coffee making facilities. The disable toilet has a shower.
First class seats:
After consulting seat61.com Ma selected the single seat on the RHS going to Edinburgh, and on the LHS back to London for our trip. The trains were on time and the carriages were about 80% full. I love the big seats as I could share it with Ma. I could not look out the windows but Ma spent half of her time looking at the sceneries. She said they were very nice.
We were in car L and there was a big disable toilet. Ma said it was clean.
Food & drink:
Ma does not drink, so she only had water and tea. She brought along a small water bowl for me to keep me hydrated. Ma said the food was OK, nothing to write home about. On the way to Edinburgh she had the full grill breakfast. On the way back to London she had the salmon sandwiches (passable). She also wanted the sausage rolls but the attendant said she could only have one dish and not two!
Wifi and BEAM:
Ma said she could not get the wifi to work on her iPad on the way to Edinburgh, but managed to get it worked on the way back to London. The wifi was slow though so Ma said she did not use it much.
Ma downloaded (at home) the on-train entertainment app called BEAM on her iPad before the trip. She said it worked well on the trains, and she watched a movie, a documentary and read some magazines. The choices, however, were limited.
In Edinburgh Ma took me to the Princes Street Gardens near the station – about 10 mins walk. Ma brought along my lunch (home cooked chicken!) to have there and we had a lovely walk around the gardens before going back to the station for our trip home.
Overall, Ma & I had a great trip for the day. I am hoping for another cheap promo so I can go on another train trip.
Here are some photos of our day trip on the trains – mostly of me.

Sorry. The subject drew me in but you lost me well before the end of the first paragraph.

Chloe, your photo's are lovely. Thanks for sharing.

Something different .... see Virgin are being miserly with the food in First class now...

^^^

LOL!
When I saw the pics and realized it was from a dogs point of view, I I had to re-read the whole first part!

Fixed.

Not IME - we did London-York last month in First - Breakfast was Toast/Pastries (as much as we wanted), plus a choice of mains including a Full English Breakfast/Juice/coffee/tea - and later on a full bar service c/w snacks/tea/coffee. We were encouraged to indulge & we were both full by the time we finished - it was all delicious! Well done Virgin.

Looks like a decent alternative to the LHR/LGW-EDI flights. If it were normally more reasonably-priced, I'd be more inclined to take it.

I'm surprised Chloe didn't snag a sample of some of the food for herself ;).

The first photo of Miss Chloe sitting on the red bench is one of the cutest things I've seen in a long time.

Just goes to show how different we all are :). I'm back from an incredible trip and am sitting in my office on the first day back to work, wishing I were still on vacation. The cute trip report and photos of Chloe cheered me right up.

a nice little change! :)

I am sorry if I have misled / offended some forumites with this trip report. It was not meant to offend. I thought it was a bit fun to post the report with a few photos of Chloe. If there is a subforum for pet travel, I would post it there. Chloe is a seasoned traveller, very well behaved. She has the ability to generate smiles on people's faces (crying kids and grumpy old men) and put sparkles in their eyes (particularly giggling school girls). She got quite a few rubs from the conductor and pax who walked past us in the lounges and the cabins. [PS - I am strict with Chloe in terms of food. She has been trained not to ask for food from table. It is probably easier with a small dog than a large dog like a Labrador.]

Back to train trips, we have been on 4.5 hours train trips from London to Glasgow and London to Edinburgh, the sceneries were lovely. The English countryside is beautiful - rolling green fields and hills, narrow boats on canals, church and castle spires, flocks of sheep and cattle, bridges etc. I do like the trip to Glasgow going through the edges of the Yorkshire Dales and the Lakes District. Although the trains did go at high speed, the large windows helped to capture the sceneries (we have travelled on the shinkansen in Japan and Taiwan, and these trains are designed for speed so the windows are smaller making it harder to capture the sceneries).

If you live in the UK, there is a sale from Virgin East Coast at the moment till this Friday. The one way first class fare from London to Edinburgh is £30 - the same as what I paid - but terms & conditions may vary. Check out the website - travel is not until after the New Year though.

Thanks again for taking the time to post something different, I'm not yet a grumpy old man and this sort of thing keeps me young!!!

Never apologise - your TR was amusing, yet had some interesting facts about the trip and Chloe looks so well behaved. I have two Jack Russel terriers at home, and there is no way that they can do a trip like that. :D:D

Look forward to more "Chloe" trips.

Chloe's adorable and so well behaved sitting all prim like that!

I understand this style of TR's are not to everyone's liking and that's fine. Personally I enjoyed seeing something new and I look forward to more Chloe travelogues.