gumshoe958

T2 & T3 are close by so one car can take you to both. Easiest option would be to use Uber, or call a cab at the hotel on the day.

If it wasn’t, it wasn’t champagne.

Your cabin steward should be able to leave you a copy each day, if you ask.

A 1245 flight from LGW is quite tight. There’s no direct bus so you’ll need to book a taxi/car service and make sure you’re on the road by around 8.30 as it’s a 100-120 minute drive. West Quay Cars are often recommended here, based in Southampton, but there are others.

At this stage the best advice is probably to be patient. Odyssey is/was due to call at Haifa tomorrow and Ashdod on Monday so Royal’s top priority will be to sort out the current cruise. Early next week, once the situation has become clearer, I would expect a decision about what to do with the next sailing. Ordinarily a missed or substituted port would not automatically entitle you to cancel for a full refund/FCC but this may be different so hang tight - I know everyone wants answers right now, particularly those with flights to Rome looming, but these things inevitably take time as there are many logistical issues at play.

45 days before departure.

@dickinson When searching for Premier Inns you will probably come across several that call themselves “Hub by Premier Inn” which may appear to be cheaper. Beware - the rooms in Hub hotels are considerably smaller than in the standard PIs and don’t always have windows. Which may or may not be an issue for you.

Assuming your ship docks at the main cruise terminal in Amsterdam - and not IJmuiden or Rotterdam - it’s only a 5 minute cab or tram ride (or 10-15 minute walk) to Centraal Station. So a noon train will be more than fine. In fact I’d even go for an earlier one, say 9 or 10am, if there is one. But do check your cruise terminal to make sure.

I fear you won’t get to see Hairspray I’m afraid. That’s normally on nights 1, 2 & 3 ex-Barcelona or nights 4, 5 & 6 ex-Rome on the standard 7-night Med circuit. As you’re on the one-off, end-of-season 3-nighter from Rome it probably won’t be scheduled. You’ll get the other production show, Flight, as well as the ice and aqua theatre shows.

Yes, no problem. I’ve had it as a solo before.

I honestly don’t think they care. As the number of D, D+ and Pinns keeps rising they have to give away more and more free drinks and clearly they’d much rather attract new, younger cruisers who’ll happily spend more on board.

IF it happens you can rest assured they will take the opportunity to “enhance” the benefits. And not in a good way.

Apart from a fairly grim Travelodge there’s nothing really close to the terminal. Best to stay in the city centre or Gunwharf Quays area and get a cab to the port. There’s a Holiday Inn Express at Gunwharf Quays (which is an outlet shopping mall with lots of restaurants) which is easily walkable from Portsmouth Harbour station if you’re getting there by train. Also a Premier Inn and a cluster of independent hotels near the station.

Depends on your budget. Most efficient would be a private transfer but that would cost somewhere between £150-200. The train would be cheaper if booked in advance but you’d need to haul your luggage on and off and there’s no dedicated space for it. Or there’s the National Express coach from Victoria which runs hourly and is probably easier with luggage but is slower.

Oasis class ships all have a Broadway musical (except Wonder which has the in-house production Effectors 2), a second production show, an ice show and an Aqua Theater show. The shows are different on each ship.

Really? Every bar had mint leaves on the TA last week. Maybe I had them all!

Be aware that although Eurostar (not eurotrain) international trains do leave from St Pancras, they do NOT go to Dover so ignore all the signs for Eurostar inside the station. What you need is the Southeastern High Speed train which leaves from platforms 11, 12 and 13.

Just the normal ones for embarking but special ones for disembarking. Plus when you first embark, at the drop-off point for Key hand baggage they’ll tag anything you want delivered to your cabin.

Was this on the current Jewel TA?

Yes. Correct.

Traffic should be quiet on a Sunday morning, although the M25 London orbital motorway is notorious for delays even at off-peak times. A private transfer would be safest - I wouldn’t rely on cruise line shuttle buses getting you there in time unless they specifically tell you otherwise. I doubt they’d run buses any earlier than 7, potentially even 8. A bus leaving at 7 would be fine, 8 would make me nervous. All being well it’s about a 2 hour drive so as long as you’re on the road not long after 7.30 you should be fine. You may want to carry your own luggage off the ship to speed things up.

Reservations should open on or shortly after October 1st.

Cruise lines rarely publish information about port shuttle buses in advance. They’d rather you remain blissfully unaware that there are cheap, simple alternatives to their horrendously overpriced shore excursions and seem to go out of their way to conceal their existence until the very last minute. But in ports where the nearest town isn’t easily walkable there will always be alternative, cheaper options. Unfortunately the details will often be buried away in small print in the ship’s daily information sheet, and only provided the night before you arrive making planning a challenge.

Yes, the train would be easiest but as you’ve discovered there’s no direct service from Southampton to Liverpool. The simplest route, which takes 5 hours, involves one change of train at Birmingham New Street or Stafford. It’s an hourly service and pre-booking is advised. Otherwise you have to go via London which involves getting from Waterloo to Euston stations by tube or cab, which is marginally quicker but a bit of a pain. If you’re looking up times and tickets, the stations you want are Southampton Central and Liverpool Lime Street (not Liverpool Central).

You only have yourself to blame. You could have easily avoided being ripped off with 5 minutes of planning before you arrived.