Visit Aberdeen & Glasgow over Christmas Holidays

My son & his girlfriend are coming to visit during the Christmas/New Year's holidays and she would like to visit Aberdeen & Glasgow. We live south of London so travel will need to be air or rail. I remember from previous holidays that either there are major train works over that time period and/or the weather is poor resulting in flight delays &/or cancellations. Those reasons along with a rather lengthy list of places she wants to see in and around London make me think that adding a trip to Scotland should be deferred to spring break.

Any advice, experience or known holiday closures would be much appreciated. Following is a list of everywhere she wants to see  between her arrival on Dec 27 and departure Jan 7.

The West End, SOHO and Chinatown, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, Bloomsbury, British Museum, St. James, Buckingham Palace (Change of the guard) (Queens gallery) (Royal mews), Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Parliament / Big Ben, Marylebone, Madam Tussauds, Smithfield and St. Paul's Cathedral, Temple Church, Tower Hill, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Waterloo, London Eye, (London Aquarium),Bankside and Southwark, Shakespeare's Globe, King's Cross and Euston, The British Library. The places outside London are: Edinburgh & Glasgow, Scotland, Hadrian's Wall, Stratfod-upon-Avon, Bath, Stonehenge and Windsor.

I'd probably fly.  Aberdeen is the COLDEST PLACE IN THE WORLD, especially in January and the rail lines and roads do sometimes get closed due to snow etc.  This isn't so much of a problem south of Perth but I personally think anyone is insane to travel in Highlands/Grampian during the end of December unless they really need to.  It's also worth remembering since your schedule is quite tight that the 2nd of January is a holiday in Scotland too so no public transport, everything is shut etc.

I'd try persuade them to leave it to the Spring to be honest, there's nothing particularly charming about cold, cold, cold Scotland in December when it doesn't get bright until 9-10am and everything is pitch dark by 4pm. 

Has she been to Scotland before?

Edinburgh at Christmas is lovely, but Aberdeen???  Evden the Aberdonians I know avoid going back in the winter!


Vicky

My bad, she wants to go to Edinburgh  and Glasgow.

No she's never been to Scotland or Europe. She spent the summer working in a hospital in Chile and has traveled South America. This is her first trip east and our first time to meet her 

That makes much more sense!  Edinburgh is fantastic 365, and I think there are a few threads on the best things to do there.  But do make sure that she wraps up warm...she will get a massive shock if she has just been travelling around Chile!

I woudl agree that flying may be the best option, though the fares are starting to get pricey again now.


Vicky

The places outside London are: Edinburgh & Glasgow, Scotland,

I hope you just mean Edinburgh, Scotland and Glasgow, Scotland and not the entirety of Scotland, its a big place 

Its cold here in January!!!  I'd imagine you wouldn't have too many problems with the rail links between Edinburgh and Glasgow and London that time of year.  Not sure though... There are also cheap  flights up, so if she looks now, she may not have to pay too much on easy jet, etc

I just moved to Glasgow recently.  I think the main thing between getting between London and here is time.  Rail takes around 6 hours, while flights are between 2 and 3.  Your cheapest bet is Ryan Air (looks like it's around £30 return per person if you book about 2 weeks in advance).  Rail is around £20 one-way from London to Edinburgh per person on a sleeper with First ScotRail.  I'm not familiar with all of the rail services, so there may be cheaper.  Rail between Edinburgh and Glasgow is frequent and takes around 90-120 minutes.
I've gone to most of the tourist attractions outside of the many museums and they don't take too long.  I did it with my wife in about 4 hours total.  There are two really good deals for travel here.  FirstGroup has an all-day bus fare that you purchase on the bus (called the FirstDay) for £3.20.  That's what we used four our trip around here and got along fine without the subway.  The subway here in Glasgow is limited to the City Centre and the West End here.  The historical attractions (e.g. Glasgow Cathedral) are a few minutes walk from the subway line, which is why we didn't use it.  If you want to do the subway, they have an all-day pass as well for £2.75, but it's only available after 9am.  There are a few fun things to do, like visit The Barras on the weekend.  It's what Americans would consider a Flea Market (I think the term I heard here is a Junk Market).  We've gone a few times, but didn't find anything really worth getting other than fruits and veg.  Aside from that, we didn't pay for anything else as most attractions are free to enter.  Also, there's a tour bus which runs through the city and may be more worthwhile than the regular busses as it goes directly to many attractions and works like a day pass, but also comes with a tour guide (but it costs more).

Thanks for all the good info!! I was in Edinburgh briefly 17 years ago with a colleague. We had a plowman's lunch at an old pub near the University; if I remember correctly the floors were dirt... He drove me to Aberdeen for my meeting. It was summer, but I remember it as cool; much like Anchorage where we were living. Sigh. I miss those days. I traveled for work a lot to great places. Of course, now I live in a great place!!

Phatbeetle, you are correct I should have written Edinburgh & Glasgow Scotland. Again, my bad