It may seem mad, but these stories are adding a certain appeal to getting the boat and ferry again. Certainly for anyone in the region of Dublin/Dun Laoghaire or Rosslare it almost definitely will be cheaper and could even be faster door to door to use the Rail & Sail fares here - [broken link removed]
Total from the terminal in DL to Euston - 7 hours. If you live near Dun Laoghaire then it could take 1 hour to get to the airport, allow 2 hours to queue in the airport, 1 hour to fly, 1 hour to get into London (or faster with HEX). That's 5 hours of go, queue, stand, wait, go, queue, stand, wait, go compared to a couple more hours watching the world go by while there's catering facilities to hand and (relatively) a good bit of space to stretch out.
Definitely if I was bringing kids and grandparents I would seriously consider this option over an 0630 flight through the dual hells that are Dublin & Heathrow. At some point comfort takes on a value I am willing to pay a small premium of time or money for.
Now, if they re-introduced sleepers (not going to happen, though) they could well corner a significant number of business regular travellers between Dublin & London who value a good nights sleep over an ungodly-hour rising, a lot of queueing and a sweaty arrival in the office in London.
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