John Bull

QM2 will be at Mayflower Terminal (berth 106) on both of your dates. There are several rental agencies equidistant from the cruise terminal, vaguely walkable in 20 - 25 minutes but to save time for any of them take a short taxi hop (under £10). Taxi rank at the cruise terminal, rental agency can call you a taxi when you return the car. Europcar & Hertz in a service road off West Quay Road behind City Cruise Terminal. Enterprise, National & Alamo opposite the train station in Western Esplanade. A few local rental agencies too but unverified. Avis, SixT , and others are at the airport, inconvenient. JB 🙂

A good chance you'll make it in 90 minutes, but N.E. buses to central London are pretty frequent so can I suggest you play safe and allow two hours (or even 2 1/2). By booking a flexible ticket you can switch to an earlier bus (there'll probably be space), but if you book the one for 90 minutes and miss it you could be in trouble if later buses are fully-subscribed. JB 🙂

Hi, Kirsten There are private game reserves adjoining Addo Elephant Park, about an hour from Port Elizabeth. Addo is a South African National Park - altho "Elephant" is in its title, it has a wide variety of game. Just like its big brother, Kruger National Park, it can be driven by anyone in a private car so you can rent & drive or fix up a tour with a safari organisation or just a P.E. car + driver. No need for a jeep or 4WD. But the National Parks usually close at dusk & re-open around dawn. Those who lodge (little bungalows, some parks with small hotels, tents, etc) within the parks have to be at their camps by dusk. No night safaris at Kruger, probably the same at Addo. But private reserves do offer night drives and night walks. altho I suspect they may be part of a package of usually 3 days, 3 nights. And expensive. We've driven Addo, and we've seen a couple of private reserves adjacent - including a large one on its north side across the R342 road - possibly that's https://www.shamwari.com/ Google lists several others under "private reserve near Addo" Check their websites & mebbe e-mail them. The National Park is https://www.sanparks.org/parks/addo/ Sorry, can't help with the port - we were on a road-trip. JB 🙂

Harters has given you the general idea. In most restaurants you'll be greeted at the door or at a service point, sometimes at the bar - you don't just bowl along & sit at an empty table because they may be fully booked or some tables reserved even if there's no sign on the table. In most pubs, unless there's a service point inside the main door or the door to the restaurant part your best plan is to head to the bar and ask "Hello, is the kitchen open?" or "Hi, two of us for dinner?" or somesuch .That's how it is at the Red Lion, as will be obvious when you walk in - dining is upstairs. Yes, the Red Lion is a very historic & attractive building, especially inside - but it's very small and clientele is mainly locals dropping in for a pint. When we've dined there we've been on a narrow balcony overlooking the bar. Food is good value, lots of "pub" meals like curries, hotpots, cottage pie & such as well as steaks etc.. Quality is very acceptable if not exceptional. Service is laid-back & informal. Best to book. BTW there are a couple of other Red Lions in Southampton's suburbs. Ennio's is very much an Italian restaurant. Excellent service, excellent quality, not cheap but allowing for quality & service it's decent value. A place which may have opened since your last visit.............. The city's historic 13th C. stone-built Wool House, on the corner of the waterfront a couple of hundred yards down from the Duke of Wellington was the Maritime Museum before the fancy new "Sea City" museum was built. A few years back it opened as a pub & micro-brewery. Much bigger than the Red Lion but the same drinking downstairs / eating upstairs. My favourite is the beef rag-and-bone. Again, best to book. http://dancingmanbrewery.co.uk/# Ennio's to West Quay is about 10 - 15 minutes. Either up High street to the Bargate or past the Duke of Wellington and Tudor House, some modern housing & thro the city wall. JB 🙂

Fuel has always been cheaper in the US, usually less than half of the UK price. That's because over half the price in the UK is tax and duty. 😟 But the up-side of that is that any increase in the base price is consequently a much smaller percentage of the total price. A couple of months back about £1.35 per litre. Currently about £1.80 a litre - equates to around $8.50 per US gallon. It's only a couple of miles from So'ton coach station to QE 11 cruise terminal. JB 🙂

Difficult to say following the recent huge fuel price increases. £10 would have been the max, but mebbe £12. Most Southampton taxis accept visa & mastercard, - ask before you board. JB 🙂

For my sins I'm a Southampton fan. That's excellent advice from Dave. I was going to "like" it but I can't bring myself to do that for a West Spam fan 😜 JB 🙂

Are you sure you'll be disembarking at 6am? Arrival time & disembarkation time aren't the same thing. Ships sail past me to arrive at Southampton around 4am to 5.30am, but disembarkation is 7am or later. It doesn't help that some cruise lines quote expected disembarkation time as "arrival time". If you can't get conformation of your dis-embarkation time from the cruise line, can I suggest you pre-book a taxi / private transfer from a Haifa operator -they're likely to know the normal dis-embarkation times. JB 🙂

We find It's always best to carry some local shrapnel. An ice-cream van, an unexpected bus fare, toilets, etc. A few years back on a tour of St Petersburg, as is often the case lunch was included but not drinks. The restaurant accepted only roubles - no foreign cash, no cards. We drank beers, others had to make do with water.😉 And left-over currency seems so easy to spend 😀 JB 🙂

Most but not all now accept credit cards. I don't know about AmEx or Diners, but generally fewer UK outlets accept them outside of significant tourist areas like central London. JB 🙂

Some years back we did an excellent shared tour from Haifa where the last stop was Tiberias. Sorry, can't help with names - that was a tour that we picked up outside the port gate, and on a more-recent port-of-call stop at Haifa the cruise port had been re-modelled & no sign of any tours being touted. If you find a shared tour it's important to check whether the van has room for your luggage - most tour vans don't. JB 🙂

Welcome back 🙂 Use the search facility on this page (top right, below your screen name). Type into the search box the name of a port or city. In the drop-down which will appear under the box, click on "this forum" Then click on the little spyglass alongside the search box. Give it a moment for the magic to work and all the threads which include that place will be listed. Here's what I got when I did that for Portland. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?q=Portland &quick=1&type=forums_topic&nodes=148 JB 🙂

As you've seen, Nat Express' website isn't very customer-friendly - not a great introduction. But the bus service itself is good - efficient, friendly, on-board bathroom, wi-fi & power at seats.. 🙂 On the day, occasionally a service may sell-out, and booking the 3.15 pm makes sense. If your flight arrives on-time you'll probably make the 2.00 pm, and assuming it's not fully booked you can switch to it. But if you booked the 2.00 pm you'd be seriously grieved if you missed it and the 3.15 pm had booked-out. NB TO OTHERS - Somewhere Girl sails the following day. The 3.15 pm bus from Heathrow will arrive too late for registering for a cruise sailing same-day, and even the 2.00 pm would be problematic. JB 🙂

The multi-storey at Portsmouth International Port is just a two-minute walk from the terminal. I guess you could drive to the terminal entrance, drop luggage & a keeper, then park. Which, come to think of it, is what we've done at Southampton. Sorry, don't know CPS' arrangements JB 🙂

Yee-haw 🙂 All times now also available on 24th August. And pretty well any date you want. Back to Plan A. JB 🙂

Thanks for the correction, Gwendy. Crocs, not 'gators. We weren't formally introduced. 😉 JB 🙂

Princess have their good points & their bad points - sensible transfer fares to Southampton are one of their good points.🙂 And finding their rep. in the terminal is easy - in all arrivals terminals they'll be at the barrier where passengers exit the formalities. Along with other reps and taxi drivers, most of whom will be wearing nondescript dress and facial expressions, and holding up scruffy bits of paper or cardboard with the name of their intended passenger written fairly illegibly in scrawly handwriting. Princess reps will be in uniform, with Princess' name & logo professionally printed on laminated card. And they usually hunt in pairs, so that one can stay by the gate while the other takes groups to the next coach. You really can't go wrong. By all means make it tolerably early - that gets you on-board in time for lunch. But unless things have changed the first coach doesn't start trawling the terminals until around 8am. The other Plan B is a pre-booked private transfer. JB 🙂

Haven't phoned Nat Express - their only number, starting 0871(for you 4471) is a premium rate line, and in these days of phone queues I don't dial premium rate numbers I've started a chat-line question but I have no idea whether / when I'll get an answer. They were seriously affected by lockdowns & other Covid restrictions, and various reliable websites say they've consequently got financial difficulties. A proposed rescue merger with a city bus consortium has fallen through. As was obvious to me, the service from Heathrow to Southampton is not "sold out". The service has been deleted, altho it shows as available from October.. The 5.10am service that you mentioned and is shown as available every day isn't the direct service which takes 1 hr 50 minutes - its a coach into central London's Victoria coach station where you change to a coach to Southampton - total journey time 3 hours 20 minutes. And the nonsense is that their website is showing frequent services LHR to Victoria and Victoria to Southampton throughout the day, but the 5.10 is the only one showing on a LHR to Southampton search. They're the only national city-to-city bus operator - such a service is needed and I have little doubt that they'll survive, or get financial help, or find a buyer or merger, or another major player will set up a similar service or a shark will wait for them to be placed in receivership and buy up the name & assets like coaches & buildings for a pittance. But there's enough doubt whether the LHR to Southampton service will resume by 24th August, so I suggest you make other plans. Best options are - private transfer airport terminal to cruise terminal. Pre-Covid was south of £100 total, with 2 years inflation and the fuel price hikes now probably north of £100. Try https://www.blackberrycars.com/ and https://westquaycars.com/ - or ship's coach transfer. next morning. For two people that's likely to be about the same cost (eg Princess) or significantly higher (eg RCI or Cunard). But an LHR hotel is likely to cost more than a Southampton hotel, and airportland isn't a great place to spend half a day. - other options are more complex and unlikely to cost less than a private transfer. I've just given up on the chat-line after about an hour, having received no response, not even an acknowledgement. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, please don't shoot the messenger 😉 JB 🙂

Yes, that's what we did years back (correction - that's what the T/A did for us) But are price-drop promises still around in the US ? As in you book for $1,000. Then the price drops a few weeks later and the cruise line drops your price (sometimes only if you mention the lower price & ask them to drop yours). JB 🙂

I'm getting similar results for various dates between now and September. And on a random selection of routes. All very strange, rarely booked-out more than a week ahead. Website is also proving to be unfriendly at the moment, I can't skip back & forth between pages as I usually do. So it may be a website glitch. Or, having furloughed or laid-off drivers during Covid, they may now be struggling to recruit staff, same as airlines worldwide. Or it might be something completely different. I'll try to phone Nat Express tomorrow. In the meantime, no need to worry. There are several options to consider if it's bad news. Including an airport hotel and ship's transfer coach next morning. Cruise line reps (or their shore agents).will be in the arrivals hall of all terminals where passengers emerge from customs, from quite early (8am?) til about noon. At least one coach picks up from various terminals until full, when it heads to the port and another coach is pulled forward. A very well-oiled machine. If bookings are high, they just add more coaches - so no panic to book just yet. But of course more expensive than Nat Express. Lets see what the next few days bring. JB 🙂

Price drops for already-booked cruises don't happen with cruises booked from the UK (or, I think, from Aus). Royal Caribbean did a UK "Price Promise" for a couple of years, about 10 years back. But the terms & conditions were so restrictive that it wasn't really a promise, altho a few benefitted. But refusals to honour the "promise" because of small-print caused a lot of grief & was bad PR for RCI that they dropped it. The only way to get a price-drop is to book thro a US travel agent That's if they're still offered in the US , (Kat????) cos I've not seen any mention of Price-Drop promises here on CC for many a year. BTW booking thro a US agent has its advantages (deposits returned if you cancel before final-payment date, prices usually lower) and its dis-advantages (US agents are not bonded by an equivalent to ABTA, some obligatory costs such as taxes & port fees may not be included in the promoted price, & some terms & conditions for cruisers are far more onerous because US consumer-laws are nowhere near as strict as in the UK or Europe or Aus. You're also at the mercy of £ and $ exchange rates between booking and final payment. We booked thro a US agent just the once decades ago. It worked out well, but the price differentials have since been much smaller, and retirement means we can book late when we see any late offers. JB 🙂

A prompt in case you're not still following this thread, you'll be pleased to see the recent post by Cruise Junky 🙂 JB 🙂

January 2019,. Theoretically a road-trip Cairns to Brisbane as part of a round-the-world trip. I say "theoretically", because it was during Queensland's worst flooding for decades - after our time in Cairns (half-decent weather) we drove to Townsville for an overnite as planned, in atrocious weather. When we got there we were told that all roads to the south were flooded & impassable Next morning that was confirmed & unlikely to change for a week or more, but worse - the road we'd travelled the previous day was also closed, we were trapped in Townsville. 😮 Part of the town was deliberately flooded by opening the spillway of the dam behind the town in fear that otherwise the whole dam would collapse. Sheets of rain like I've never seen before, flash floods, & alligators in the streets !! (we never actually saw one). After a few days the road back to Cairns re-opened so we headed back north, past a few cars that didn't quite make it. Had a flight Brisbane to Christchurch NZ booked for a few days later so took a flight Cairns to Brisbane - car rental agency kindly switched the last few days rental to a car at Brisbane. Consequently we also missed a light aircraft flight over GBR from Airlie Beach (?) / Mackay (?) All of which is irrelevant to your question, but one of life's stories. We too had three snorkel sites, from a boat with about 15 - 20 others. About 45 - 60 minutes out of Port Douglas. The weather was a bit overcast but dry, sea was pretty smooth. But the GBR was a HUGE disappointment at all sites - grey & lifeless with very few fish. When was your latest trip - and what was GBR like ???? JB 🙂 PS. Been to MSM twice by car, & once driving a tour coach. All a couple of decades ago, when parking was right by it. As you say, makes a good photo, but seriously steep "street", never did get to the top. But fun watching the tide come in & wash cars that muppets had left on the beach despite warning signs. 🤣 Have many times driven past St Michael'e Mount, MSM's cousin in Cornwall, England. Have never been tempted to visit, it's MSM's smaller & less-iconic cousin.

Altho there are more-local options, the best safari territory by far is to the eastern end of South Africa, far from Capetown. So consider booking a safari separately from the cruise-line's options. If your pocket and time will stand it, choose a private reserve in Greater Kruger, or self-drive in Kruger National Park itself. Fly to Johannesburg (about an hour from Capetown, frequent flights), then a little local airplane to somewhere like Hoedspruit, where a local safari lodge will collect you,. Orr rent a car from Jo'burg or Huedspruit and book self-drive in Kruger National Park. We've done both, self-driving in the Nat. Park is by far the cheaper option, including staying in little self-catering rondevals in park rest-camps. Cruises which sail up the eastern side of Africa have far more interesting itineraries than up the Atlantic side - places like Madagascar, Zanzibar, Safaga (for Luxor), Aqaba (for Petra & Wadi Run), Port Sokhna or Alexandria (for Cairo) and the Suez Canal. And on that eastern itinerary, South African ports-of-call at Port Elizabeth (under an hour from Addo Elephant Park which despite the name it has a wide selection of game) and at Richard's Bay, just over an hour from the southern entrance to iSimangaliso wetland park at St Lucia. You can easily fit either Park into a decently-long port-of-call day, by self-drive or car plus driver/guide. You won't get the full experience in a day, but they're very good tasters. https://www.sanparks.org/ Our last safari was in the Serengeti, Tanzania. Waaaaay better than South Africa, and better value. Private safari jeep and driver from Arusha (Lion King) for 7 days, choice of levels of accommodation (we spread our choices from a tented camp in the middle of nowhere to a luxury lodge on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater). https://www.lionkingadventures.com/ That of course is a fairly long flight from Capetown. JB 🙂

Blackberry or www.westquaycars.com But be aware that there’ll be no sensible eateries in Southampton at that time of night. Mebbe at the airport, or a quick stop at Fleet motorway services, or find a kebab takeaway or burger van in central Southampton JB🙂