Globaliser

I was reading the paper this morning and saw something that made me think of this thread: a review of a Bilbao restaurant in the Old Town, less than a mile from the Guggenheim. (It may also be accessible via this link or this link.)

I think that the Beautiful South did a song about the present situation.

If this is for a disembarkation in Southampton on Saturday 2 September 2023, you are too early to get prices for the train anyway. You can generally only book up to about three months ahead, and I think that as of today you can only book up to about 12 or 13 July 2023.

Note spelling - Southampton - as that's useful for searches. This is Sunday 3 September 2023? Arriving on Norwegian Dawn, departing on Anthem of the Seas? The cruise ship schedule currently says berth 102 and berth 101 respectively. These are at the City Cruise Terminal - map here.

The airline is responsible for rebooking you if your flight is cancelled. A piece of European legislation called Regulation 261/2004 may have a part to play in this, but that is all that I am going to say about it because there are some people on this board who neither live nor work in Europe who seem to think that 261/2004 is only about compensation after the fact (which it isn't). In any case, there's nothing that you can do about this unless and until the airline cancels your flight. As this is not a case of the airline cancelling 200 flights a day (or even 200 flights a week), it's difficult to see what backup plans you can make now unless you just want to shell out in advance for additional tickets knowing that there's one set that you will just throw away. The main thing you can do now is to work out what alternative flights there are, just in case your flight is cancelled - although the chances are that the airline will simply put you on another of its Rome to Lisbon flights that day.

Is this for Friday 1 September, with scheduled time in port from 1100 to 2100? And are you prepared to rent a car and drive yourself?

How long have you had them ? New notes were introduced in February 2020. I think that the easiest check for Bank of England notes is to see whether they're plastic. If they're plastic, they're current. If they're paper, they're obsolete. The designs of current notes are shown here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/current-banknotes. Obsolete notes are shown here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknotes. Instructions for exchanging old notes for new are here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/exchanging-old-banknotes and https://www.postoffice.co.uk/banknote-exchange. A bank may also be prepared to do this.

Then that makes things a little bit easier if you do want to do Windsor, as Terminal 5 is on that side of Heathrow. Also, when you get back to T5, your hard deadline is that you need to scan in at the entrance to security no later than 35 minutes before your scheduled departure time - so you're probably a little less pressured for time than if you were flying from one of the other terminals.

Is this on a through ticket, or are you on two separate tickets? And is this British Airways --> British Airways, or Virgin Atlantic --> Virgin Atlantic, or some other combination of operating airlines?

From what the OP has said, there's no reason to assume that they are not. So they now have some perfectly good options for both situations.

If the OP is on a through ticket, so their bags are checked through, it won't take anything like that amount of time to get out. If they are on an eGates passport, they should normally expect to be able to walk out of customs and into the public area within 30-45 minutes of the aircraft arriving at the gate. Similarly, if they don't have to check in again on their return to the airport, they will have ample time if they enter security 60 minutes before their onward flight.

See a dinosaur! Even if a dinosaur doesn't appeal, the museums in this area (the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum) are all a stone's throw away from South Kensington Tube, which is on the Piccadilly Line and can therefore be reached direct from any of the Heathrow terminals. Assuming you are connecting on a through ticket, so you don't have to deal with bags or checking in again, you've got enough time to make one worthwhile museum visit.

Such a hotel does not exist. Travelodge Woking Central or Premier Inn Woking Town Centre would seem to tick more of the OP's boxes than most. The Railair bus isn't free, but it would easily allow: Tell me, am I being a bit naughty with this one? 😛

One big advantage of having a centrally-located hotel is that you can stop in at the hotel from time to time during the day. You may want to drop off some shopping, or you may just want to put your feet up and have a power nap. And you have the option of doing this on the spur of the moment. It'll feel much more like home for the couple of days that you're there. In contrast, if you're in an airport hotel (or a hotel in any other non-central location), it'll be a big chunk out of your time just to go back to the hotel and then come in to town again.

Of course, anyone who's in Dartmouth and who's interested in good food really ought to try Andria.

I can see a number of one-stop itineraries on the way back. Even if you discard connections at ICN (Korean Air), HKG (Garuda on the first sector) or TPE (very long connection time), that leaves a decent Emirates one-stop itinerary (EK369 --> EK241) with a 2:45 connection at DXB.

If it's specifically Cromer crab that you want, I suspect that you'll have to ask individual restaurants whether they're likely to import any at the time you'll be there. Many of the seafood places that we saw were proud of using local produce, and south Devon has plenty of its own seafood - so I'm doubtful whether there's much demand for something from the other side of the country.

I'm not sure that this was actually announced to the mailing list. If it was, I missed out. But the new cruise appears to be a Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle cruise on Norwegian Pearl. Miami to Nassau and back, 10 April 2024, 3 nights (that's Wednesday to Saturday), one sea day.

I think that this is the OP's cruise: https://www.cruisetimetables.com/cruisesonnorwegiandawn-05oct2023.html - ex-Southampton Thursday 5 October 2023, last port Le Havre on Friday 13 October, end of cruise Saturday 14 October.

You ought to travel over to the UK a day early for safety (ie fly on 3 October and arrive on 4 October for a 5 October cruise). So you have a decent reason for spending a day seeing something in London, and transferring to Southampton on the morning that the cruise sails, as phabric says. You can easily do this by public transport if you don't have any mobility problems; Stonehenge isn't worth a stop unless it's something really special to you. But you need to remember that this isn't seeing London. To do that properly, you really need to be here for three to six months - it is that kind of city. You will have enough time and energy to visit one or two sights, and that will be about it. If you want to see London, come back some other time to see London rather than going on a cruise. Paris is similarly worth her own visit some other time. Don't try to do it from Le Havre - it's a waste of time because it's so far away.

It will be worth checking, but we had to get the bus from the bus station on the other side Great Western Road - see the centre of this satellite image, with the steam railway using the platforms on the eastern edge of the railway station as marked. It's a pity about there being no time for Totnes for the OP, because it's an interesting town. However, with the OP's restricted time, I suspect that it was always unlikely that they could see both Totnes and Dartmouth. We had the benefit of several days in Dartmouth, so we didn't have the timing conflict. However, I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying that the best part of (what we saw of) Paignton was the way out.

Paignton, I would have thought. If you have a choice as to which way around, one thing to bear in mind is where in the sky the sun will be at the time of the cruise portion. But schedules will probably be more important for you, given your restricted time.

Lisbon? Unless you have previously lived in Lisbon for many months, I find it hard to believe that you've exhausted everything there is to see and do there.

Yes, I know. And the point is that the impression of there being more backup options at LHR is largely illusory, so far as the OP's date and timings are concerned. The backup flight from SOU arrives at AMS at 1935. The realistic best-case backup flight from LHR arrives at LHR at 1835, only one hour earlier; the other backup arrives after at 2025. I also made a mistake with the "last" backup flight at 1910. That doesn't exist - it's actually a Gatwick flight.

Presumably they meant Heathrow or Gatwick.