Train Strike - Ideas please to save a shortbreak

Moneybox

Please can anyone help:
Tickets for Grease booked ages ago using the kids half price promotion. £159
(Cannot cancel or rebook)

Hotel booked Premier Inn £91
(Cannot cancel, can only move date same hotel)
Train Tickets Tiverton-London £115
(Strike action on the Friday return date. Only service being provided is at 7.28pm with a 10 hour wait at Bristol then a train at 7.41am 😂)

Insurance won’t cover as industrial action. 

Just not sure what to do to save a break planned for the kids at the end of summer holiday.

Have thought maybe we drive to Bristol and get a train from there assuming on the Friday the 7.28pm service runs back to Bristol (it’s going to be full for sure 😱).

Or try and find a budget hotel and return Saturday (we have super off peak and what I can understand is that it would be valid due to the previous days strike). I found a hotel for £130 with free cancellation which would mean if the strike didn’t happen we could cancel and get a train on the Friday as planned.

Can anyone help as a fresh head may have ideas or see issues I have overlooked. Is the train strike a definite?, not sure where the unions are at with negotiations?

thankyou. 🙏.

Moneybox

Seems to be getting worse! I now see strikes are also planned for the Saturday so potential
of being stuck in London on the Saturday too. Trainline will not refund tickets other than if a train didn’t run. So the train outward runs on the Thursday so would be paid 🤔. I support the strike but it’s awful trainline are not prepared to refund disrupted return tickets.

They are prepared I think to change dates but if the new date is more you pay the extra, but if it’s less you don’t get any refund. 

annabanana82

You could drive to Bristol/Exeter etc and get the megabus of flix? 

gwynlas

National Express from Bristol to London and return would appear to be the quickest.