Dover to Heathrow

[neil5054]

Is it reasonable timing to be able to dock at 7am in Dover and use ship's transport (assuming Holland Am) to make a 12:30 pm flight from Heathrow?

[tom_uk]

That's pushing it, I would have thought. Let's assume you have to check in by 10:30. It's a good two hours drive from Dover to Heathrow, possibly more - you're on the M25, which can turn into Europe's biggest car park especially on a week-day morning.

 

I wouldn't risk it. Perhaps with a private car service: get off the ship at 7am *with all your luggage*, straight into the car - that might be do-able, though even then you're absolutely relying on the ship not being late. But on a coach? I wouldn't risk it.

 

What do HAL say?

[neil5054]

That's pushing it, I would have thought. Let's assume you have to check in by 10:30. It's a good two hours drive from Dover to Heathrow, possibly more - you're on the M25, which can turn into Europe's biggest car park especially on a week-day morning.

 

I wouldn't risk it. Perhaps with a private car service: get off the ship at 7am *with all your luggage*, straight into the car - that might be do-able, though even then you're absolutely relying on the ship not being late. But on a coach? I wouldn't risk it.

 

What do HAL say?

I will check HAL/travel agent. Might have to stay over another day in London. thanks. Maybe someone else has experience with trying to get out same day

[Globaliser]

Is it reasonable timing to be able to dock at 7am in Dover and use ship's transport (assuming Holland Am) to make a 12:30 pm flight from Heathrow?

To add to what tom_uk says, most cruise lines tell you that disembarkation typically begins two hours after docking. So if you can't get off the ship until 9 am, then you can work out the timing for yourself.

 

Not sure why you'd have to stay an extra day in London, though. There are plenty of afternoon flights across the Atlantic. Where are you going?

[dexddd]

As said above, depends when you actually get off ship. We got off and in private transfer service at 8:00 a.m. and were at LHR at 10:10 a.m. with some traffic slow downs the last 30 minutes.

 

Using the ship's transfer bus is going to slow you down, so I'd look at private transfer and if you can get a few people together for sharing it will actually be cheaper than ship's transfer. We had a group of 8 total.

[handfordr]

Most ships at Dover arrive about 5 a.m. and start disembarking at 7 a.m.

Only a few of the Disney Cruises I think this year were later than this from personal experience, but there may be a minority of others.

 

Most cruise lines will offer their own transfer bus to Heathrow and will state the earlist flights for these. I would get your TA to find out what the earlist flight times the cruise buses will accept which should give you a good idea of whats practical.

The cruise buses have speed limiters set at 62 m.p.h. so a taxi is going to be slightly faster.

 

If you are travelling midweek then traffic congestion delays are routine towards Heathrow with delays of 15 minutes or so before 10 a.m.

Longer delays are quite frequent on this run, I would estimate about a 1 in 25 chance of being delayed 30-60 minutes through congestion/crashes.