Cruise Terminal gets go ahead for London

[BobnJac]

Great news for Brits and visitors. A new cruise terminal has been approved at Greenwich London.

Hopefully to be fully functional in 2017.

Medium sized ships to be able to dock at the terminal,

 

Located along the Thames at Greenwich, in SE10, the terminal will soon be able to accommodate any ship that measures up to 230m (750ft) in length, with a maximum passenger capacity of 1,600.

 

Ships of this size include some Thomson Cruises and Holland America Line ships such as Ryndam and Veendam, but the terminal would not be able to fit a mega-ship, such as Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, for example.

 

With the Mayor's support, it's expected to be in operation by 2017.

 

Looks like it would exclude most of Royals vessels, but a great opportunity to get a transatlantic right to my doorstep.

[ChipLondon]

"With the Mayor's Support"...................well that is unlikely to be in operation 2017 then, in fact it will be lucky if the project has started by then. :eek:

 

 

With the Mayor's support, it's expected to be in operation by 2017.

 

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[sitraveler]

Keep us posted. I'm on a Viking cruise 7/1/17 which starts in Greenwich.

[sky0000547]

Looks like it would exclude most of Royals vessels, but a great opportunity to get a transatlantic right to my doorstep.

 

 

Looks like it excludes every single RCI ships as all RCI ships are longer than 230m.

[oldplayer532]

This is slightly off the topic, but related to Greenwich. We are planning to take Thames river boat HOHO cruise. The Question is how long does it take from Tower of London/Tower bridge to Greenwich? Is it doable in one day ? Planning to do Tower in the morning and Greenwich(Royal Observatory and Maritime museum) after. Thanks in advance!

[Bob++]

According to the TRS site "St Katharines to Greenwich single takes 20-30 minutes," St Katherines is where Tower Bridge is.

 

http://www.thamesriverservices.co.uk/faq.cfm

[oldplayer532]

Thank you Bob!

[Keith1010]

Thank you for letting us know.

 

Keith

[Lady Chew]

This is slightly off the topic, but related to Greenwich. We are planning to take Thames river boat HOHO cruise. The Question is how long does it take from Tower of London/Tower bridge to Greenwich? Is it doable in one day ? Planning to do Tower in the morning and Greenwich(Royal Observatory and Maritime museum) after. Thanks in advance!

 

We just did this last Friday ... it was about 30 minutes from the Tower to Greenwich. Our guide explained that the tides can make a difference in the time, I didn't pay a lot of attention, but I guess if you're going against the tide it will take longer. It's not a huge amount of time, any way ...

 

Depending on your group & your particular interests, you could spend hours at the Tower, so I would definitely recommend doing that first, and getting a decent start in the morning. Greenwich is very interesting, but there is not quite as much to do, again, depending on your particular interests.

 

But you can definitely do them both in one day ...

 

When we were there for our first visit a few years ago, we found that the boats did not operate all year. So I would check that, as well.

[Globaliser]

Our guide explained that the tides can make a difference in the time, I didn't pay a lot of attention, but I guess if you're going against the tide it will take longer.

For context, if anyone is interested, the water in the river can move at up to 9 knots (~10.5 mph) when the tide is flowing at its fastest. This is why there are points in the river where there are standing white caps at those times, almost like rapids.

 

So a boat travelling at full speed in the water might be moving more than 20 mph faster against the ground with the tide flowing in the favourable direction, compared to the exact opposite. That can make a big difference to transit time between two fixed points on the ground, although obviously they make allowances to reduce this effect in real life.