HMS Victory

[FiredogCruiser]

What is the proximity of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to the Cunard Terminal? Could one tour the HMS Victory on a turn around?

[John Bull]

Cunard port in Southampton, Victory is in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, about 20 miles away.

 

About 45 minutes by car,. If you choose this, book separate out-and-back journeys rather than an all-day car. Best bet is  http://www.smithsairportcars.co.uk/who are based in Portsmouth and frequently recommended here on Cruise Critic

Just taking a taxi from the line at the cruise terminal and again at the Dockyard will be metered and a lot more expensive.  

 

Alternaytively much cheaper by train or bus.

Just over an hour by train, just under an hour by National Express bus.

For train or bus add 10 mins taxi from cruise terminal to the station & allow for waiting time.

Except on sundays, two trains per hour, alternate hourly services - one direct and one with a simple same-platform change of train. £12 return fare.

Buses much more infrequent, direct to The Hard, Portsmouth (not the International port stop)

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

Southampton Central to Portsmouth Harbour (which is after the main Portsmouth & Southsea station)

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en

Southampton coach station to The Hard, Portsmouth

 

The train's "Portsmouth Harbour" and the coach's "The Hard" are immediately adjacent to each-other and just a hundred yards from the Historic Dockyard gate.

 

You'll need to know your disembarkation time (perhaps as early as 7am,, but the Dockyard doesn't open til 10am).

More importantly you need to know when you have to be back on the ship - because it's a b2b you'll likely have to be back before the usual 30 minutes for port-of-call visits.  Only Cunard can reliably tell you.

 

Yes, even with an early back-on-board tome you'll have two to three hours at the Dockyard. I'll have to leave it to you to decide whether it's worthwhile - but when you get there you'll wish you had the whole day, mebbe two, because there's far more than just HMS Victory.

 

JB 

[FiredogCruiser]

Thank you so much for the information. We had been looking for a T/A that would get us in to Southampton mid-week before a weekend Queen west bound departure to NYC. That would give us several days from which to base out of Southampton allowing a visit to Portsmouth and Stonehenge, and have had little success in finding an itinerary to match our schedule. So we started looking at a Cunard B2B as a possible plan B. Complicating the issue is that we are Carnival Corp. shareholders so were looking to stay within the Carnival Corp. family of lines for the on board credits offered, a thought which probably ought to be discarded.

I realize there is much more to see at the Dockyard besides the Victory, so based upon your information, I guess we are back to trying to work out the original plan, but perhaps going outside the Carnival family. Will keep working on it, because at my age I have no desire to fly to England again in today's cramped plane environments. (The trip was distressing enough when getting paid for it.)

For years I have had a bucket list of famous ships I have wanted to visit. Over the years we have visited:

USS Yorktown aircraft carrier, Laffey destroyer and Clamagore sub at Patriot's Point SC

The Olympia Cruser, Becuna sub and Dilegence schooner in Philadelphia

USS Constitution, Old Iron Sides, in Boston

The North Carolina battleship in Wilmington NC

USS Midway in San Diego

USS Intrepid aircraft carrier in NYC

USS Missouri at Perl Harbor Hawaii

I have two remaining on my current list:

USS Nautilus nuclear sub at Groton, CT which we plan to visit next summer, and

HMS Victory in Portsmouth

I always need something to plan for in the future.

Thanks again.

[Morgans]

I hope your plans work out - HMS Victory is superb. 

[Bob++]

With limited time at Portsmouth, you should visit The Mary Rose as well as HMS Victory. Built in Portsmouth in 1511 and sunk not far away in 1545. She was found buried in silt and is now displayed an a brilliant dedicated museum at the Historic Dockyard. 

 

https://maryrose.org/