John Bull

Thanks, G. Weekday commuters then, mainly from about halfway to LHR. Slow, but the real risk is an out-of-the-ordinary hold-up - lane closures, shunts, etc. And from about Lightwater onwards much of the road is all-lanes-running with no hard shoulder, so even a broken-down car can create a bottleneck. JB 🙂

Like @jsn55 we certainly much prefer smaller ships - Connie is the right size for us, one of Celebrity's older ships but recently re-furbed. Yes, Celebrity is less party-party and more refined Being NCL and being a lot bigger, Joy has all the toys but not our scene. NCL in general is getting poor dining reviews at the moment. As per @edinburgher's post, the Caribbean is the easiest place in the world to DIY in the ports - we Brits tend to do our own thing. I prefer a Southern Caribbean cruise - and sailing from San Juan usually means more ports and fewer sea-days. JB 🙂

What day-of-the-week ? (preferably actual date in case it's a UK holiday weekend) I've known folk to make flights as early as 11.30, but even 12.10 is tight, depending on traffic. Is there a suitable flight later same-day? JB 🙂

When ships quote Southampton at something like 5.30am they mean the time that they start to tie-up, and disembarkation is from about 7am. When they quote Southampton something like 7 - 7.30am they usually mean disembarkation from that time. But whichever, you should be fine for the 09.45 coach 🙂 JB 🙂

Ship to terminal is a short hop, just a minute or so. The independently-operated shuttlebus to Bruges (Brugge/Bruges different names in Flemish & French for the same place) takes about 25 minutes to the drop-off point at Bargeplein, an easy & level 15-20 minute walk to the cobbled centre of Bruges. Same travel time & same drop-off point for ship's equivalent, usually called "Bruges on your own" or similar and listed as a "tour". Difference is that the independent one is a shuttle service, ship's is an out and back on specifically-timed buses. Ships also offer a (usually payable) shuttle for the 3 miles from the ship to the train station at Blankenberge. Train to Bruges costs only a few euros but it's only an hourly service. Alternatively it's a ten-minute walk from Blankenberge station to beach & town, pleasant enough but perhaps a waste of a day. JB 🙂

"Storage" at reception at SeaCity is just for hand-luggage - rucksacks, shopping bags etc., not for suitcases. But bang up-to-date, I confirmed by phone thismorning that it's still current 🙂 ............ Maynards News & Food shop in Civic Centre Road, near the main entrance to the Civic Centre and a three-minute walk to SeaCity Museum, which is attached to the side of the Civic Centre. A single bag £6, or for more than one bag £5 per bag. No need to book, open seven days a week, closes 6pm. From the shop, immediately cross the road to the Civic Centre side using the traffic-light controlled pedestrian crossing, then walk past the front of the Civic Centre. JB 🙂

Ships' tenders for those not on ship-sponsored tours take you to the quay below Fira, known variously as Fira Old Port, Old Port of Thira or similar. It's at the bottom of a cliff and there is no road to it, but Independently-booked boat trips from that quay are very easy & simple for those on cruise ships. But boat trips from Athinios harbour (which is also the harbour used by tenders for ship-sponsored tours and inter-island ferries) or Ammoudi (the harbour for Oia) or elsewhere are very problematic. For Ammoudi there is what I'll call a transfer boat (often called a speedboat or a water-taxi in posts on Cruise Critic) costing about €25 pp from Fira Old Port, but it doesn't have a timetable - it goes when it's full and you can be sat on it at the quayside for an hour or more, which makes it difficult to be sure that you'll be at Ammoudi in time for a booked boat trip. And there's no transfer boat back to Fira Old Port, so you have to take a bus or taxi from Oia to Fira, then join the line for the cablecar, or walk down the zig-zag path, to get back to the tenders at Fira Old Port. For Athinios you'd have to go up to Fira (cablecar or donkey), then bus (I'll guess that there is a bus route) or taxi for five convoluted miles to Athinios harbour. And the same to get back to the ship. Ship-sponsored tours are tendered to Athinios, where they switch to buses - a few folk have booked ship's tours in order to use the tender to Athinios where they're met by their independent tour operator or taxi, but that's an extra-ordinarily convoluted & expensive way to avoid going up in the cablecar - and most ship tours end at Fira, not Athinios So both are pretty unworkable for you. International agencies like Viator probably don't even know which harbour the various boat operators use, you need to check out local operators or local agencies on Santorini - if they can't or won't confirm that a boat trip goes from Fira Old Port, don't book. One option is to start by laboriously going through google street-view photos on https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZACHUSWZBLaVxyKCA or googleimages of Fira Old Port, looking for name-boards offering boat trips JB 🙂

Depending on your LHR terminal, Westquay's pick-up point may not be exactly the same as @LeeW, but it will certainly be in the terminal Arrivals Hall. Excluding any major delays, drive-time about 80 to 90 minutes. They're Southampton-based - definitely pre-book & get a fixed price, but the same applies to any LHR / Southampton operator. Don't just take a taxi from the airport taxi-rank - taxis are fine for short journeys but for that distance it'd cost your entire cruise budget and the taxi driver could buy a retirement apartment in Spain 😏 JB 🙂

This thread isn't about city centre hotels, you wouldn't like a long train or ferry ride to get to your ship 😏 Answered on your other thread. JB 🙂

https://www.londontoolkit.com/travel/southampton_accommodation.htm Some are better - and more expensive - than others, but there are none listed that I'd caution against. Most popular near H.I. / cruise terminals / train & coach stations / city centre & old-town restaurants, pubs, shops, sights, etc are Premier Inn West Quay, Moxy, and Leonardo Royal Grand Harbour (see the thumbnail map at the bottom of that web-page). None of the other hotels on that page are more than a £10 taxi-ride from any cruise terminal. Fingers-crossed this isn't for around 10th - 24th September, when hotels get booked-out for Southampton International Boat Show. Don't be enticed by either of the Holiday Inn Expresses, which are both out on the city limits. JB 🙂

Flights from Southampton airport are only to domestic and European airports, the nearest airports for inter-continental flights are London Heathrow LHR (60 miles, average 90 minutes) and London Gatwick LGW (90 miles, 1 hr 45 mins). You can fly Southampton to several European hubs including several flights daily to Amsterdam and Paris, but most who fly to North America find direct flights from those London airports much simpler, quicker and more economical JB 🙂

I believe the rise of premium-pay restaurants, and the great god headline cruise fares, are the causes - with NCL leading the way. When premium-pay venues started appearing a couple of decades ago, cynical JB though the standard of food in the fare-inclusive MDRs would fall - not just to cut costs, but to entice cruisers to use premium-pay restaurants (kerr-ching). JB was wrong for quite a while - on cruises he sailed (various cruise lines) he didn't feel that standards in the MDRs had fallen dramatically and premium-pay restaurants were under-booked - a once-in-a-cruise experience for a birthday, anniversary etc. But now there are multiple premium-pay venues on mid-to-large ships, and folk no longer feel the need to use premium-pay just for special occasions, some dine there cruise-long. We've not noticed a huge reduction in the standards of MDRs in recent years, but we've not sailed NCL for many many years and their MDRs do seem to attract more negative comments than other cruise lines. So mebbe JB was right, but the changes are slower than he anticipated. JB 🙂

There's a taxi rank at the coach station but yes, it's frequently empty. And of course taxis are in higher demand in inclement weather. But it's in the city centre and taxis do tend to swing by there JB 🙂

I guess at least a month . JB 🙂

If your ship is sailing from Southampton and your final port-of-call is Le Havre (or Cherbourg), it's easiest and most-economical to disembark the ship there and take the train to Paris. You'll be in Paris waaay before the ship gets to Southampton. Or hours before it even leaves Le H or Cherbourg if you're prepared to forego the sights of Normandy - giving you nigh-on two days in Paris without the need to extend. And you'll avoid avoid the cost of the drag back from Southampton to London for Eurostar to Paris or the more-expensive flight to Paris from Southampton. "Open jaw" (aka multi-city) return tickets for flights from home to London & back home from Paris work out at the mid-price of return tickets to either, but have to be booked with the same airline or its Air Alliance partners. You do need the OK from the cruise line - most of them will give the OK, some charge an admin fee. But NCL is one cruise line that doesn't allow it. JB 🙂

Definitely pre-book Nat. Express, the buses don't have elastic sides. But I don't think there's a great difference - if any - in the price. Because of the potential for delays in flight arrival or airport formalities, you can't be sure of your arrival time at the bus stop (T's 4 & 5) or bus station (other terminals), so definitely take @sddsddean.s advice and pay the little extra for flexibility. Because the flexibility is subject to seat availability, best to book for a later coach (say 2hrs+ after scheduled landing) to be sure of a seat on that coach, and use that flexibility to switch to an earlier one if all goes smoothly. JB 🙂

Very much the same as my post in your other thread, hence my needing to know where you were coming from. Train travel in S.E.England is London-centric*, so plenty of choice from Heathrow to London but from Heathrow to elsewhere in the country travel by train has its complications. National Express fills the gaps, hence Heathrow to Southampton by National Express is direct, much cheaper and actually far quicker than by train. The only disadvantages are that Nat Express' luggage allowance is only one checked case and one cabin case per person although you can book & pay for additional luggage, and the service from Heathrow isn't as frequent so pre-booking is very strongly advised. The frequency of trains from Heathrow (via a difficult change in central London, or a slow & laborious RailAir bus from Heathrow to a mainline station) and no need to pre-book makes the train a useful Plan B should other arrangements go belly-up. But the train from Heathrow is never a Plan A. JB 🙂 * I only put that in to wind-up my London friend, Globaliser. In jest, G. 😏

Depends where from. Certainly from Heathrow airport. Perhaps central London or Portsmouth or Winchester, depending on the address of your lodging. And perhaps London Gatwick airport, depending which day-of-the-week But from other parts of the country, by train is usually more direct, more frequent, quicker & cheaper. So we need to know where you'll be travelling from. And whether you have difficulty hauling your cases - Nat Express drivers load & unload, there's no paid help at train stations altho carriage doors aren't much higher than platforms. Southampton coach station is only marginally closer to H.I. than Southampton Central station (10 min walk instead of 15 mins), all on sidewalks and on level ground. So that really isn't a factor. JB 🙂

Thanks, @hallasm Dolly mentioned Nordfjord as cruising, and I presumed Innvikfjorden to be a place. I've checked it on Mr Google's map - it shows Innvikfjord as being the innermost part of Nordfjord. I also checked it on Mr Google's translation - it tells me that "innvik" is Norwegian for "concealed", so "Concealed Fjord" If I spoke the Norwegian language I'd probably have realised that. But I don't. So I didn't. And not likely to - words are alljoineduptogether justlikeinGerman 🥴 Not my fault, nothing ever is 😀 JB 🙂

Absolutely, Bruce. Crew on-board (understandably) know far more than head-office staff on matters like this, ship-issued visas, passports, inoculation requirements, etc etc. Problem is, other arrangements - hotels, ferries, flights etc - can't be left until then, at least not without excessive late-booking grief & costs. I've often wondered - is there any way to get the answer from the ship in advance ? JB 🙂

Then mebbe you book higher-end cabins than the miserly JB 😏 The only robes I remember were on MSC and a freebie junior suite upgrade on P&O. But swimwear plus some sort of cover-up like shorts and tee-shirt is the norm., particularly in the buffet. I've rarely seen robes on the pool decks. Depending which cruise line, often swimwear not acceptable in indoor bars and almost always in dining rooms other than the buffet. Bare feet usually unacceptable, even in the buffet JB 🙂

Hi, Dolly, That's a tough choice. Whilst Alesund (P&O) is on the coast, we booked a very worthwhile & sensibly-priced full-day privately-operated coach tour up to the Trollstigen. If they have seats to spare they accept folk who haven't pre-booked, but on our visit it was fully-booked. They give a full refund if the ship fails to port. https://www.norwayexcursions.com/en/tour/alesund-from-fjords-to-trolls/ Innvikfjorden (P&O), which I don't know, is partway up the Nordfjord some 30 miles from Olden (P&O and RCI) at the head of the fjord. Big ships like both Anthem o.t.S and Iona will probably berth in the town, we were tendered at nearby Loen. Options at Olden / Loen include - the very very very high skylift at Loen - or a very pleasant and sensibly-priced excursion mainly by boat up the lake at Lovanet to the glacier at Kjenndalsbreen. We found it being offered on arrival & chose it on-spec. The trip starts with a coach at Olden and one at Loen, they meet at the lake. Sorry, don't remember the name of the operator, this website which gives you an idea of the trip is a booking agency https://www.oldencruise.com/loen-lake-and-kjenndal-glacier/ I don't know Flam (RCI), but folk on Cruise Critic rave about the Flam Railway. I don't quite understand how on a 7-day cruise P&O seems to include one port more than than RCI ????? Probably the krunch is whether you like the look of Alesund or Flam There are of course differences between the ships, altho they're both large. If you've not sailed both you'll find Anthem has more glitz & toys and cosmopolitan passengers, whereas Iona is rather more reserved and very British. On-board costs are lower on Iona - on Anthem a daily charge of about $18 per person per day, and service charge on already-higher drinks prices, so you need to take that into account as well as the base fares. If you're taking teenagers with you Anthem would win hands-down Norway is expensive, but because your bed and keep are included a cruise is an economical way to visit, as well as the views from the ship. Finally it's worth repeating your question on the Northern Europe board https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/116-northern-europe-baltic-sea/ Have a great cruise, whichever one you choose JB 🙂 .

I have no idea what a fine would be - and don't try to leave the ship without their OK, you can't plan to "accidentally" miss the sailing because it doesn't need Sherlock Holmes to know what you're up to when you schlepp your luggage off the ship 😏 But the responses you got from MSC demonstrate why you need to prove permission in writing, hence my suggestion of e-mail. Sorry, can't help with an e-mail address, I guess you need to phone Customer Services again. JB 🙂

Hi, and welcome to Cruise Critic, You'll have to forgive Darren - he's from "up north" 😏 Many of us southern softies tend to take the same attitude - there's London and there's the rest of the country. But of course London is well worth a visit, so straight to the bones of your question.......... My choice for central London would be a hotel in the Westminster Bridge / County Hall / Waterloo area. Close to the London Eye & River Thames boat trips eg to the Tower of London, and easy walking across Westminster Bridge to explore Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square, then up Whitehall (Churchill's War Rooms, Prime Minister's residence in Downing Street, Cenotaph, Horseguards Parade & other sights) to Trafalgar Square (Nelson's Column, National Gallery etc). then return via Northumberland Avenue and the Golden Jubilee Footbridge. About 2 miles in total. Or if you're still feeling fresh at Trafalgar Square, leave the Square under Admiralty Arch & down The Mall to Buckingham Palace. You've now replicated the Coronation route from Westminster Abbey to Buck' Palace. Then back along Birdcage Walk or thro St James' Park, about 3 miles in total. Evening river walks along the South Bank, perhaps as far as Shakespeare's (replica) Globe Theatre and Tate Modern - watering holes & restaurants along the way. Direct trains from nearby Waterloo station to Southampton, or direct trains to Dover from the adjoining Waterloo East station and a number of other central London stations. Hotels in that area are mainly big international hotels like Marriott County Hall, Park Plaza Westminster Bridge and Hampton Inn Waterloo, or national chain Premier Inn County Hall or Waterloo. Like around the Tower of London / London Bridge area, it's not one of the most expensive areas in central London, but London is expensive and if those prices are too rich........... try around Victoria or Paddington. Broad range of hotels & prices, both with convenient to Heathrow airport but a little less convenient for the sights. Even cheaper further out but some districts are fine, others not-so-fine. And less convenient for the sights, which neatly brings me to transportation. Quickest & easiest way to get around London is its extensive underground system - The Tube. So make sure your lodgings are a short walk from a tube station. https://content.tfl.gov.uk/standard-tube-map.pdf There's always a tube map on tourist maps of London, on flyers, and in stations & on trains. Attractions always quote the name of the nearest tube station/s on their literature & websites. Use that map only to plan your route underground - it's schematic, not geographically accurate. New Yorkers will know about that. Set up an Oyster Card for cheapest & most convenient way to pay. @K32682 mentioned the ho-ho buses. Well-worthwhile for an overview, but useless as transportation because they follow a set route, they stop at bus-stops, and they mix it with heavy traffic. So get a 24-hour ticket with either https://www.tootbus.com/en/london/home or https://www.bigbustours.com/en/london/london-bus-tours but don't waste your money on a 48-hour ticket. Mebbe hop off to walk Whitehall (as above) and hop back on at the other end. Choose carefully if your lodgings aren't near the shared main route, they have different feeder routes. Other freebie add-ons vary, but both include a short river cruise from Westminster to the Tower of London or vice-versa. Alternatively Golden Tours offer a simple round trip from the London Eye. Not a hop-on service, but covers much the same primary route as the hop-ons route. https://www.goldentours.com/london-hop-on-hop-off-bus-tours/open-top-london-bus-tour-with-live-guide IMHO the best website for visiting London is https://www.londontoolkit.com/ JB 🙂

As per Hank's post, MSC is one of the most obliging lines in this respect. And Mallorca (aka Majorca) & Barcelona are both in Spain. But you need the cruise line's OK. In writing is best, so ask by e-mail JB 🙂