Goodwood with a little one
Discussion
Thank you everyone for your inputs!
I will try as early as I can, but unlikely as early as suggested. I will report with my experience back after the event though.
P.S. I know its not weekend yet, but I was checking traffic today in the morning via google maps and all the routes to goodwood were green until 10am (I stopped checking after that). Unlike M25 that was clogged up since 6am (although it will be better on the weekend for sure). Considering its a sold out even for today - should it give me some hope?
I will try as early as I can, but unlikely as early as suggested. I will report with my experience back after the event though.
P.S. I know its not weekend yet, but I was checking traffic today in the morning via google maps and all the routes to goodwood were green until 10am (I stopped checking after that). Unlike M25 that was clogged up since 6am (although it will be better on the weekend for sure). Considering its a sold out even for today - should it give me some hope?
Edited by someuser08 on Thursday 23 June 14:34
someuser08 said:
Thank you everyone for your inputs!
I will try as early as I can, but unlikely as early as suggested. I will report with my experience back after the event though.
P.S. I know its not weekend yet, but I was checking traffic today in the morning via google maps and all the routes to goodwood were green until 10am (I stopped checking after that). Unlike M25 that was clogged up since 6am (although it will be better on the weekend for sure). Considering its a sold out even for today - should it give me some hope?
Today was the worst Thursday traffic I’ve experienced since Thursdays were introduced many years ago. I suspect in part due to the rail strikes as my meeting on Tuesday the roads were equally bad. Coming from the west traffic started 4 miles before the fishbourne roundabout. Normally at 7am I’m parked up just after 0730, today it was past 8 and I used the cheat roads after the first bit of traffic which I’ve never had to do on a Thursday before. I will try as early as I can, but unlikely as early as suggested. I will report with my experience back after the event though.
P.S. I know its not weekend yet, but I was checking traffic today in the morning via google maps and all the routes to goodwood were green until 10am (I stopped checking after that). Unlike M25 that was clogged up since 6am (although it will be better on the weekend for sure). Considering its a sold out even for today - should it give me some hope?
Edited by someuser08 on Thursday 23 June 14:34
Having done it both ways much prefer going in earlier. Had to go later this year as it was a much bigger group and more kids so leaving for 5/5:30 was impossible.
Getting to the paddock around 9:30 there was still loads to see but the combination of larger crowds and cars going in/out meant getting stuck and also not getting around it all.
Next year I'm going alone
Getting to the paddock around 9:30 there was still loads to see but the combination of larger crowds and cars going in/out meant getting stuck and also not getting around it all.
Next year I'm going alone
So as promised, some feedback after we attended yesterday (Sunday). The event is amazing! It was our first and no matter what itinerary we would have planned - it was always difficult to stick to it as there is so much to see.
First, the traffic - after all the warnings here we didn't really experience any. We arrived about 9am from north east into car park M with zero queues. In fact I got strange looks from my family in the car "Are you sure we are going the right direction?" as there was no cars in front of us until we reached the gates of the car park. The section where we were guided to had just a few rows of cars in front of us (and on the way back we also saw just a few rows after us). Either we got really lucky with this particular car park or everyone, after reading this types of forums, arrived really early this year. Anyway, after parking it took us only 2 min to get to the ticket office, collect tickets (again no queues) and get in.
Of course once we were there - it was really busy by then and we decided to slowly explorer everything from where we were. Because we were south of the hill track we didn't get to paddocks until later in the afternoon. Once we did it was quite a carnage with cars moving, people queuing etc. F1 paddock was disappointing: at the time we were there - there was only Zak Brown around (plus huge crowd awaiting for George Russel to drop by Mercedes area).
In the morning though we did Electric Avenue, Future Labs (great for kids), commercial stalls, GAS show (again great for kids and this is where ear defenders really helped - thanks for the advice). Red Arrows - was the first time we saw them, so were really impressive, but a bit too far out from the centre of the show, hard to see from time to time unless they were high up in the air.
Lunch time queues for food were enormous, but we did bring ours with us, so didn't waste time on that. Picnic could be set up pretty much anywhere.
Good shout about getting a tractor up the hill - it was really good fun and we got really lucky with the timing: we got there just when shootout started so we saw almost everyone getting out of the cars after the finish, including Jenson Button and the winner, Max Chilton. Very reasonable amount of people up there as well comparing to the bottom. Walking down was easy from there, seeing rally cars on the way. Really dusty there though even if you don't spend much time stationary there. In some places we had to walk through the clouds of dust (from rally cars plus it was quite windy).
I agree that the best place to watch the hill action if you don't have grand stand tickets is the area half way up the hill. First its elevated above the hay bales, so you can even sit on the grass and still see the action and second they has small standing platform for public there and third, not that many people around. We got there very late though (on the way back from the top of the hill). Next time we know, but there is no way we would have just walked there straight in the morning on our first visit (even if we knew about it).
I think one needs a couple of days to really get the most of the FoS - one to spend watching the cars going up the hill and in the paddocks and second for the rest of the activities. May be we'll do overnight stay locally next year...
First, the traffic - after all the warnings here we didn't really experience any. We arrived about 9am from north east into car park M with zero queues. In fact I got strange looks from my family in the car "Are you sure we are going the right direction?" as there was no cars in front of us until we reached the gates of the car park. The section where we were guided to had just a few rows of cars in front of us (and on the way back we also saw just a few rows after us). Either we got really lucky with this particular car park or everyone, after reading this types of forums, arrived really early this year. Anyway, after parking it took us only 2 min to get to the ticket office, collect tickets (again no queues) and get in.
Of course once we were there - it was really busy by then and we decided to slowly explorer everything from where we were. Because we were south of the hill track we didn't get to paddocks until later in the afternoon. Once we did it was quite a carnage with cars moving, people queuing etc. F1 paddock was disappointing: at the time we were there - there was only Zak Brown around (plus huge crowd awaiting for George Russel to drop by Mercedes area).
In the morning though we did Electric Avenue, Future Labs (great for kids), commercial stalls, GAS show (again great for kids and this is where ear defenders really helped - thanks for the advice). Red Arrows - was the first time we saw them, so were really impressive, but a bit too far out from the centre of the show, hard to see from time to time unless they were high up in the air.
Lunch time queues for food were enormous, but we did bring ours with us, so didn't waste time on that. Picnic could be set up pretty much anywhere.
Good shout about getting a tractor up the hill - it was really good fun and we got really lucky with the timing: we got there just when shootout started so we saw almost everyone getting out of the cars after the finish, including Jenson Button and the winner, Max Chilton. Very reasonable amount of people up there as well comparing to the bottom. Walking down was easy from there, seeing rally cars on the way. Really dusty there though even if you don't spend much time stationary there. In some places we had to walk through the clouds of dust (from rally cars plus it was quite windy).
I agree that the best place to watch the hill action if you don't have grand stand tickets is the area half way up the hill. First its elevated above the hay bales, so you can even sit on the grass and still see the action and second they has small standing platform for public there and third, not that many people around. We got there very late though (on the way back from the top of the hill). Next time we know, but there is no way we would have just walked there straight in the morning on our first visit (even if we knew about it).
I think one needs a couple of days to really get the most of the FoS - one to spend watching the cars going up the hill and in the paddocks and second for the rest of the activities. May be we'll do overnight stay locally next year...
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