Travel advice for British Isles cruise please!

[TLP127]

Hi all!

We are booked on the Sept 8, 2024 BI cruise and have never traveled outside the US, so I’m a little lost with coordinating our travel.

We want to fly into London and spend 3 or 4 days there first. I’m trying not to rent a car, but will if necessary.

Can someone please tell me….

1. The best airport to fly into?
2. Any ideas where to stay so we’re central to London activities?
3. The best approach for getting to the cruise terminal? Should we get to a Southampton hotel the night before the cruise and then take Disney transportation? Is it easy to get from London directly to the port?
4. We’re coming home directly after the cruise. Do we have to go back to London to fly back?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

Hi all!

We are booked on the Sept 8, 2024 BI cruise and have never traveled outside the US, so I’m a little lost with coordinating our travel.

We want to fly into London and spend 3 or 4 days there first. I’m trying not to rent a car, but will if necessary.

Can someone please tell me….

1. The best airport to fly into?
2. Any ideas where to stay so we’re central to London activities?
3. The best approach for getting to the cruise terminal? Should we get to a Southampton hotel the night before the cruise and then take Disney transportation? Is it easy to get from London directly to the port?
4. We’re coming home directly after the cruise. Do we have to go back to London to fly back?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

I did the 4 night Spain cruise from Southampton in 2023 and Im booked on the 5 night Spain cruise in 2024.

I also used to live in London.

The main international airports are Heathrow and Gatwick. It will depend on the airline and where you are flying from as well as your budget.

There is a direct train from London Waterloo to Southampton. Its about a 2 hour journey time.

There are ongoing train strikes in England since last year, there is no way to know at this stage if there will be train strikes which will affect you.

There is also a National Express bus from London Victoria bus station to Southampton.

Yes I would get to Southampton the day before the cruise. I did this in 2023 and will do the same for my 2024 cruise. I stayed at Ibis Southampton Centre and got a taxi to the cruise terminal. It was about a 10 minute drive from the hotel.

There are a lot of hotel in Southampton within a 15 minute drive to the cruise terminal, in all budget ranges.

Disney have transport on the cruise departure day from London and the London airports only. They dont do transportation in Southampton to the cruise terminal.

Yes you will need to get go back to either Heathrow or Gatwick after the cruise to return to America.

 

[hrhdhd]

Don't rent a car. Pick a hotel in central London and walk or take the Tube to the places you want to see. (You should pull up a map and locate those places, then look at hotels nearby.)

Not sure the size of your party, but I'd take a private car from the airport to your hotel, from London to Southampton, and from Southampton to the airport. Lots of companies recommended on the appropriate Ports of Call board on Cruise Critic (might be called Western Europe ports?). For the trip to Southampton, you could arrange a stop at Stonehenge (for example), which will give you something to see even on a travel day.

 

[jdb in AZ]

We took the train/tube from Heathrow into London which would have been fine but we had trouble finding a tube station near out hotel that had an elevator so we wouldn't have to haul our cruise luggage from the tube up the stairs. If we just had carry-ons or backpacks, no problem. Now that DH is disabled and avoids stairs even without luggage, we'd use a private car service.

 

[kiford]

You definitely do NOT want to drive in London, even if you were comfortable driving on the other side. We stayed at the Grosvenor House across from Hyde Park. The Grosvenor House is not the most economical hotel in the world, but there are a lot in that general area or within a couple of miles and you can then walk to a lot of places or take the Tube. Even if we'd wanted to take the Tube, there was a strike on the day after we got there so we just walked everywhere: British Museum, Westminster, Buckingham, Imperial War Rooms, through Hyde Park, etc. it generally took 30-45 minutes to go to places that we wanted to, but that was fine, it's relatively normal for us. We put an app on our phones (Anchor Pointer) so that we were able to reorient ourselves and figure out how to get back to our hotel; it worked really well especially since we took shortcuts through some of the parks around the area.

 

[MrMagoo]

We like staying at The Trafalgar St James that is at Trafalgar Square.
It is an easy walk to Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey as well as many other places.
It seems to be rather centrally located in London making it easy to walk to places.
We also walked to St Paul"s Cathedral and London Bridge. They were quite a walk but we enjoyed it.
As far as transportation we used a private company, Eddie Manning, (www.limo.co.uk) and they were excellent.
I am sure they would take you to South Hampton from the hotel. We used them to go to Dover and back.

 

[Marthasor]

We found the Tube to be easy to navigate in London and while pricey, we took a lot of cabs as well.

We just disembarked in Southampton after a DCL cruise in August. We hired International Friends to drive us from the Southampton port to Stonehenge (where we spent about two hours) and then directly to Heathrow airport. They offer many transportation options from London to Southampton and vice versa that include tour sights or just direct trips between the two areas. They were easy to book and our driver was fantastic. https://www.internationalfriends.co.uk

 

[MrMagoo]

My previous post went through before I was ready.
As Bad Pink said, the airline you choose will determine the airport you fly into. However, Heathrow will have
many more flights than Gatwick to choose from. And yes you will fly into and out of London.
I would NOT rent a car in London especially if you have never been there. And I have driven a semi truck in downtown
Chicago! It is SO much different than driving in the US. We used Eddie Manning for airport-hotel-Port of Dover-hotel-airport.
We cruised out of Dover so I can't say anything about going to Southampton the night before or not. We went from London to Dover the day of embarkation and had no problems but I believe Southampton is farther. That is something I would ask a private car service but I believe you can do it with no problems.
Also just be prepared to stay in London the day you get off the cruise. You probably will not be able to make it to the airport directly from the cruise terminal in time for a return flight to the US.

Also, our hotel we liked, The Trafalgar St James is a Hilton hotel. You can search for it on Google maps and find it
to see how close it is to many sights.

 

[pjacobi]

Another reason not to drive in London is the Congestion Charge:

https://www.visitlondon.com/traveller-information/getting-around-london/congestion-charge


-Paul

 

[PixieLily]

Has anyone used the Disney transportation from airport to the Southampton port?

 

[tidefan]

We did a BI cruise (granted on Princess - fabulous cruise, BTW) last May. We stayed at the Hampton Inn near Waterloo the night prior to the cruise and just took the train down the morning of embarkation. Took about an hour and 15 minutes and couldn't have been easier. There are tons of taxis at Southampton station to take you to the cruise terminal.

As far as getting into London proper, we took the Elizabeth line in and out of Heathrow and it was pretty easy. Once in London, we used a cab/Uber if we had luggage, and just used the Tube if we were without luggage and sightseeing.

Stayed at the Great Northern Hotel next to Kings Cross station. It was a great hotel!

You will love your British Isle cruise. It was one of our favorites!

 

[Mommb]

Has anyone used the Disney transportation from airport to the Southampton port?

My daughter used Disney transportation from Heathrow to Southampton in September, and my husband and I used it to go from Southampton to Heathrow. Both trips were seamless.

My daughter met the DCL rep in baggage claim, found out what time the bus was expected to leave, took a little while to freshen up in a lounge, and boarded the bus shortly before that time. She arrived at the terminal shortly before our 11:30 Port Arrival Time. My husband and I had arrived the day before, so we took a taxi from our hotel in Southampton. I second the recommendation to use International Friends with a stop at Stonehenge if you have time -- that's what we did from Heathrow to Southampton the day before the cruise.

On debarkation day, we gathered our luggage, stepped outside the terminal, followed signs to the DCL busses, and boarded the bus based on our departure terminal.

 

[Mathmagicland]

On debarkation day, we gathered our luggage, stepped outside the terminal, followed signs to the DCL busses, and boarded the bus based on our departure terminal.

Was this direct to the airport or did you choose the debarkation day port adventure that makes the stop in Winchester?

 

[Mommb]

Was this direct to the airport or did you choose the debarkation day port adventure that makes the stop in Winchester?

We went directly to the airport. Our return flight was scheduled for 3 pm, and we arrived at the airport before noon.