gumshoe958

Your options are basically bus, train or private car service. How much do you want to spend? Are you happy using public transport? Plenty of information on the various options in this thread:

Glad you made it safely. Given BA’s meltdown over the last 24 hours, you were lucky you even managed to leave the UK! Have a wonderful cruise.

We Londoners love to grumble about our public transport but in truth it’s fairly reliable. Except when there’s a strike. Or a signal failure. Or it’s too foggy/windy/wet/snowy/hot/cold. For a 7.30am-ish flight you’ll want to be checking in by 5.30 or 6. The first Heathrow Express leaves Paddington at 5.10 and arrives at 5.26. It’s then a 5-10 minute walk to T3. There’s also the Elizabeth line, which runs on exactly the same route but takes a bit longer as it stops more. That starts up at 4.36am and runs every few minutes. If you get to Paddington and find the trains are kaput for any reason, you can always jump in a cab or book an Uber.

I think most ships allow you to disembark having already checked in and boarded if you want to get off again and explore the port. Alternatively you could get to the ship and drop off your luggage but not actually check in yet - make sure you don’t miss the deadline for checking in though!

The problem is Dundee is visited so rarely by cruise ships it doesn’t have the variety of tour operators you’d find in most busy ports. There just isn’t enough business to make it viable. Edinburgh is where most tourists visiting places like Glamis Castle, Balmoral and the whisky distilleries will be based, so that’s where the majority of the tours start. Your best hope might be to find a local taxi firm and hire a car and driver for the day, if they’re not already booked up as well.

No TVs that I recall. It’s not a sports bar. Playmakers is your friend.

Weybridge is the location of Royal’s UK offices, in case anyone was wondering.

In the UK, cruise cover is commonly available as an extra cost add-on to travel insurance policies. It also pays out for things like breaking down or losing your passport on the way to the ship and being confined to your cabin or missing excursions if you get sick.

That’s a shame - Geiranger is beautiful. These things happen, and hopefully Royal will throw some free OBC at everyone (albeit they don’t have to - it would purely be a goodwill gesture). Organising that takes a bit of time though, so your parents shouldn’t expect instant compensation. Do they have cruise insurance? If so it should pay out for a missed port.

You will have to go through security. But as long as your luggage is checked through to CPH, which it should be if both flights are on the same ticket, you stay airside by following the purple ‘Flight Connections’ channel and won’t have to clear immigration or customs until you arrive in Copenhagen. If for any reason you go landside at LHR - eg because your luggage isn’t checked through because you have separate tickets for the two legs - you’ll have to clear UK immigration and customs.

I’ve never driven it, sorry. But I do know the A10 Ringweg (ring road) and A4 out to the airport are notorious for delays. In clear traffic it’s about a 20 minute journey but at that time in the morning it may well take longer.

A taxi would probably be quicker but journey time is less predictable if it’s a weekday as it’ll be the start of rush hour. It’s a 15 minute walk to Centraal station, then a 20 minute train ride.

Seems to me, if this post on the other thread is correct, that Royal has done its very best for Explorer passengers in fast-moving, challenging circumstances. Obviously there’ll be those for whom the best is never good enough and who’ll demand compensation even though they haven’t actually lost anything, but it sounds like transfers were laid on to get people to their required airport in good time for their flights.

It’s nothing to do with the size of the ship, and everything to do with what powers the ship.

It’s the former. The station is a very short walk. Regular trains into Dublin city centre.

Dundee is not a particularly common cruise destination (I can only see 11 ships calling there for the rest of this year) and as such the availability of shore excursions is very limited - there’s just not a regular market for them. What few excursions there are seem to be to more local attractions eg Glamis Castle (Balmoral is more or less a 4 hour round trip). So if you’ve set your heart on Balmoral you may have to consider a private tour. There’ll be local taxi firms who’ll happily provide a car and driver for the day - but it won’t be cheap. (I see this company does run a tour from Dundee, but it’s part of a much longer 12 hour tour that probably wouldn’t work on your schedule. They might be able to tailor something to your needs though: https://www.strachantours.co.uk/tours-local.htm )

I’m afraid I would work on the assumption that you won’t hear anything by Monday. It’s a rapidly changing situation that inevitably requires some fairly last minute planning. As for cancelling, I’d agree that embarking in Trieste instead of Ravenna would constitute a material change and warrant a refund. Royal, of course, may disagree. Unfortunately you’re in a bit of a catch 22: until Royal says otherwise, nothing has changed and you’d be expected to board in Ravenna as normal. But by the time they do advise you of any change it may be too late to cancel your hotel and flights with no penalty. Hopefully your travel insurance would cover most of that. And yes, with Avios bookings you can cancel up until 24 hours before departure for a full refund less a £35 fee (or whatever the cash element was if it was less).

Quantum class is perfect for Southampton. Sure, the regulars may be bored with it but Royal’s far more interested in attracting new cruisers and I predict Odyssey will be a huge hit.

Wow. They’re about 180 miles apart by road. Both around the same distance from Venice but anyone with flights to/from Bologna now faces a 3-4 hour drive to/from the airport.

Certainly not in the UK.

$290? And they wouldn’t even drop you at your hotel? Sorry, but you were robbed.

It looks to be an easy 10-15 minute bus ride from stop BS outside the West Quay shopping centre near the Premier Inn. Routes 6, 8, 9, 11 or 12 all go to Millbrook station, then it’s a short walk from there. Buses run at least every 10 minutes Mon-Sat, less often on Sundays.

Indeed. And you thought Royal packed ‘em in! The phrase ‘pile it high, sell it cheap’ could have been written for MSC. Maybe at the expense of P&O. I’m not convinced there’s that much demand for the Canaries in February. But we’ll see.

Oasis is quite a bit bigger than Euribia. Euribia - 43m wide, 331m long Oasis - 47m wide, 360m long (Anthem - 41m wide, 338m long)

Yes, there’s a branch of Albert Heijn next door.