Southhampton to Portsmouth(Royal Navy Dockyard)

[JMaclauchlan]

Going to be sailing out of Southampton(flying into London a few days before embarkation) next July and being a history buff, I would love to tour the Royal Navy Dockyard in Portsmouth.  Has anyone done this and can share some tips etc?

 

Thanks in Advance!

[BLine]

There are direct trains from Southampton to Portsmouth and it takes about 50 mins, there are 3 stations in Portsmouth, Fratton is the 1st, Portsmouth & Southsea is the 2nd then the one you want is the last one on the line and is called Portsmouth Harbour so make sure you ask for that station and your ticket may say ‘Any Portsmouth Station’, which is fine.

Historical Dockyards is a short walk (head left) from Portsmouth Harbour station and you can buy a multitude of tickets to see specific attractions or a one ticket does all, I am sure you have visited the website. The submarine ‘Alliance’ was our favourite and you need to use the frequent boat service (included in ticket price) to get to it, it will all become obvious once you are there. The Mary Rose exhibition requires an extra ticket if interested in that one.

Enjoy your trip

[Bob++]

I suggest that you take a train from London (Waterloo) to Portsmouth (Harbour) and stay there the night before you sail. You can catch a train from Portsmouth to Southampton on sailing day, after a return visit to the Royal Dock.

 

You should buy tickets for the dockyard in advance to get a discount  https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/tickets-and-offers

 

You want the "Full Navy" ticket which would allow you to return the following morning. Note that Mary Rose is a different museum and you have to pay for that separately.  https://maryrose.org/your-visit/ Well worth the cost though.

[John Bull]

Same as the answers from Bob & BLine.

 

Train from London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour

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

Portsmouth Harbour is the stop after the main Portsmouth & Southsea stop, and is the terminus - so you can't miss your stop.

You'll see the three-masted HMS Warrior  (included in the ticket) as you leave the station - it's by the Dockyard gate, a 4 to 5 minute walk.

The rail website doesn't go out to your date, so you'll need to double-check times & fares in the New Year.

Currently the regular fare is around £40, but "advance" tickets are from just £9. Those advance tickets aren't available until about 8 weeks out - to see them enter a random date for early December. Those advance tickets are only good for the train time that you book - miss that train & your tickets are trash so you'd have to pay the full walk-up fare for the  next one.

 

You also have the option of travelling by bus from central London's Victoria coach station to Portsmouth by National Express coach.

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en

Journey time is a little longer, but the fare is only £4 and it will be more convenient if your London hotel is in the Victoria area.

Destination is "The Hard, Portsmouth" (nnot Portsmouth International Port). The Hard is right by Portsmouth Harbour rail station, so equally convenient.

National Express buses are far superior to Greyhound - seats are comfy,  wifi at seat, washroom, driver loads luggage.

 

Travel early in the day, there's actually several days-worth at the historic dockyard - and a week's-worth in Portsmouth & Southsea. Or consider coming over a week earlier 

 

Choose a hotel handy to the harbour station & dockyard gate.

Best known is the Holiday Inn Express in Gunwharf Quays, but there are several others. 

We'll be at a dinner on board HMS Victory next saturday for Pickle Night -  great back-story https://www.nmrn-portsmouth.org.uk/sites/default/files/HMS Pickle.pdf   

We'll be staying 100 yards from the dockyard gate, at the Royal Maritime Club (associated with naval personnel, but available to all), I can come back here with a report after that.

There are lots of restaurants  close by in Gunwharf Quays, though they're modern national & international chains.

Old Portsmouth fortifications and Southsea seafront are worthy of an evening, perhaps with a meal at the Spice Island or Still & West pubs, both ovelooking Portsmouth harbour entrance

 

HMS Alliance and the submarine museum is very interesting, but it's the other side of Portsmouth Harbour in Gosport and IMHO it'd take too much time out of your short visit to Portsmouth.

 

Next morning the Historic Dockyard doesn't open until 10.00 am & you'd need to be heading for Southampton by about 1.00 pm so you'd have only limited time to return to the dockyard. Hotels will look after your luggage after you check-out.

 

Portsmouth to Southampton is about an hour. Again you have the choice of train or Nat Express coach. If by train there's no discount for early booking. If by coach, best to pre-book cos it sometimes sells-out.

Destination is Southampton Central station or Southampton coach station.

There are taxi ranks at both, furthest cruise terminal is 10 minutes, £10 taxi.

 

Since your visit is a long way off, best to bookmark or print-off this thread.

 

JB 

 

 

 

[gkkapp]

On 10/24/2019 at 9:33 PM, JMaclauchlan said:

Going to be sailing out of Southampton(flying into London a few days before embarkation) next July and being a history buff, I would love to tour the Royal Navy Dockyard in Portsmouth.  Has anyone done this and can share some tips etc?

 

Thanks in Advance!

We came in a few days early both in 2016 and this year and visited the Dockyard.  Chose to stay in Southampton both times as we had been to London before.  We stayed at the Premier Inn West Quey and the train station is an easy walk from there.  I should mention that we took the National Express bus done from Heathrow and you can just pull your suitcase to the hotel from the bus station.  The next day we walked over to the train station and bought same day return tickets to Portsmouth.  Spent the best part of the day there touring the HMS Victory, the HMS Warrior and this year the Mary Rose exhibit, not to be missed!!!  Make sure to check out "Hatch" .  We also checked out the other exhibits.  When we'd had enough it was back on the train and back to the hotel.  In 2016 we also went to Winchester and this year to Salisbury both easy train trips.  We had no problems both times going to Portsmouth and people are always willing to get you "set right" if you have any problems.

 

Hope this helps.

 

<<<Karen>>>      

[kctwinmommy]

The others gave you good advice already. We came in to Southampton in July 2017, flying into London super early that morning. We had initially planned to walk around Southampton, but our driver suggested Portsmouth instead. We used the Smiths for Airport, and he stopped at our hotel in Southampton and then without an extra charged, took us over to Portsmouth (since he had to go there to go home after his shift anyway!). We spent several hours walking around, but you could spend all day there for sure. We finally took the train back to Southampton in the early afternoon.

 

So if you have a few days in London, you could come down to Southampton the night before your cruise and just take the train to/from Portsmouth. Or like someone else said, go to Portsmouth for the night and then take the train in the morning to catch your cruise.

[Bob++]

5 hours ago, kctwinmommy said:

So if you have a few days in London, you could come down to Southampton the night before your cruise and just take the train to/from Portsmouth. Or like someone else said, go to Portsmouth for the night and then take the train in the morning to catch your cruise.

There seems little point in going to Southampton just to catch a train or taxi to Portsmouth.

[kctwinmommy]

45 minutes ago, Bob++ said:

There seems little point in going to Southampton just to catch a train or taxi to Portsmouth.

 

I suppose. I was just giving options, depending on where they want to stay the night before their cruise.  For me, I like to be in the port city where our cruise is leaving from. That's all...

[TouchstoneFeste]

On 10/25/2019 at 7:24 AM, John Bull said:

Same as the answers from Bob & BLine.

 

Train from London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour

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

Portsmouth Harbour is the stop after the main Portsmouth & Southsea stop, and is the terminus - so you can't miss your stop.

 

 

Forgive me if I'm putting this in the wrong place (this forum is large and daunting!) but this seemed to be the most appropriate thread.

 

My wife and I will be arriving in Southampton on Sunday, May 8, on the Queen Mary II. We ought to be among the earliest passengers to disembark (by 8:30am?). The plan is to travel to Portsmouth for the day, overnighting in Portsmouth as well. It's pretty clear that from there we'll need to take the train to London (although alternative suggestions would be welcome) but we may have a lot of luggage - more formal and "smart" clothes than we usually travel with - so the excellent advice I see here on trains and coaches from Southampton to Portsmouth may not work well for us old-timers.

 

I've been looking at the car services recommended here and elsewhere, but some of them seem to have gone out of business; others offer service from Southampton only to the airports or to London. Do you know of any that would do a morning run from Southampton to Portsmouth?

 

What about plain old taxis? Would it be possible to queue for a taxi and ask it to take us to Portsmouth?

 

A taxi to Southampton Central should cost about £10? and the train appears to cost £11.50 per person - so perhaps £33 total. What do you think a car transfer or taxi might cost?

 

Am I missing any alternatives?

[John Bull]

18 minutes ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

 

Forgive me if I'm putting this in the wrong place (this forum is large and daunting!) but this seemed to be the most appropriate thread.

 

My wife and I will be arriving in Southampton on Sunday, May 8, on the Queen Mary II. We ought to be among the earliest passengers to disembark (by 8:30am?). The plan is to travel to Portsmouth for the day, overnighting in Portsmouth as well. It's pretty clear that from there we'll need to take the train to London (although alternative suggestions would be welcome) but we may have a lot of luggage - more formal and "smart" clothes than we usually travel with - so the excellent advice I see here on trains and coaches from Southampton to Portsmouth may not work well for us old-timers.

 

I've been looking at the car services recommended here and elsewhere, but some of them seem to have gone out of business; others offer service from Southampton only to the airports or to London. Do you know of any that would do a morning run from Southampton to Portsmouth?

 

What about plain old taxis? Would it be possible to queue for a taxi and ask it to take us to Portsmouth?

 

A taxi to Southampton Central should cost about £10? and the train appears to cost £11.50 per person - so perhaps £33 total. What do you think a car transfer or taxi might cost?

 

Am I missing any alternatives?

 

Worst plan would be to take a taxi from the line at the cruise terminal for the drive to Portsmouth. Those taxis are metered by distance, fine for a run to the train station or a Southampton hotel but the fare would be excessive for the 21-mile drive to Portsmouth.

If you're gonna go by car, pre-book. Get quotes from https://aquacars.co.uk/ and https://westquaycars.com/

 

If your choice of accommodation in Portsmouth is walkable or a short taxi ride from the National Express bus stop in The Hard or Portsmouth Harbour train station (two names for the same place) then the direct bus or train servces from Southampton will be better value. You'd need a taxi from the line at Mayflower cruise terminal to the train or bus station, about £7 to £8.

Hauling luggage shouldn't be difficult since both bus & train are direct.

 

Check out Portsmouth's Holiday Inn Express, Gunwharf Quays (a five minute walk) or slightly quirky https://www.royalmaritimeclub.co.uk/ in Queen St (a five minute walk then 100 yards back for the dockyard entrance).

Portsmouth & Southsea are conjoined cities, treat them as one. Portsmouth is the home of the Royal Navy, Southsea is a holiday resort. You'll find a wider range of accommodation along Southsea seafront - there's so much more to see than the historic dockyard, but if you have only one full day it'll be taken up by the dockyard, so book accommodation near there.

 

From Portsmouth take the train if you're going to central London, but the Nat Express bus if you're going direct to Heathrow or Gatwick airports

 

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en

 

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

(reduced train timetable on sundays. Timetables currently only go out to the end of April, use an April sunday to figure times for Southampton to Portsmouth Hard & check again with your date in a couple of weeks' time.)

 

JB 🙂

 

 

[TouchstoneFeste]

4 hours ago, John Bull said:

 

Worst plan would be to take a taxi from the line at the cruise terminal for the drive to Portsmouth. Those taxis are metered by distance, fine for a run to the train station or a Southampton hotel but the fare would be excessive for the 21-mile drive to Portsmouth.

If you're gonna go by car, pre-book. Get quotes from https://aquacars.co.uk/ and https://westquaycars.com/

 

If your choice of accommodation in Portsmouth is walkable or a short taxi ride from the National Express bus stop in The Hard or Portsmouth Harbour train station (two names for the same place) then the direct bus or train servces from Southampton will be better value. You'd need a taxi from the line at Mayflower cruise terminal to the train or bus station, about £7 to £8.

Hauling luggage shouldn't be difficult since both bus & train are direct.

 

Check out Portsmouth's Holiday Inn Express, Gunwharf Quays (a five minute walk) or slightly quirky https://www.royalmaritimeclub.co.uk/ in Queen St (a five minute walk then 100 yards back for the dockyard entrance).

Portsmouth & Southsea are conjoined cities, treat them as one. Portsmouth is the home of the Royal Navy, Southsea is a holiday resort. You'll find a wider range of accommodation along Southsea seafront - there's so much more to see than the historic dockyard, but if you have only one full day it'll be taken up by the dockyard, so book accommodation near there.

 

From Portsmouth take the train if you're going to central London, but the Nat Express bus if you're going direct to Heathrow or Gatwick airports

 

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en

 

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

(reduced train timetable on sundays. Timetables currently only go out to the end of April, use an April sunday to figure times for Southampton to Portsmouth Hard & check again with your date in a couple of weeks' time.)

 

JB 🙂

 

 

 

(Hoping this isn't a duplicate, but my reply from an hour ago hasn't shown up)

 

Thanks for that speedy reply. Okay, no taxis :)

 

We're already booked at the Royal Maritime, very handy to the Docks.

 

West Quay Cars is quoting just £33. Can't be right ... that's almost the same as two train fares plus the taxi to the station. Waiting for a reply from Aqua Cars - perhaps not before Monday.

 

 

[John Bull]

1 hour ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

 

(Hoping this isn't a duplicate, but my reply from an hour ago hasn't shown up)

 

Thanks for that speedy reply. Okay, no taxis 🙂

 

We're already booked at the Royal Maritime, very handy to the Docks.

 

West Quay Cars is quoting just £33. Can't be right ... that's almost the same as two train fares plus the taxi to the station. Waiting for a reply from Aqua Cars - perhaps not before Monday.

 

 

 

I'm a bit shaky on local taxi fares. Southampton city centre 8 miles to Southampton airport costs about £17 pre-booked,  so I reckoned to Portsmouth at something over £50.

I've now googled it, and one operator is offering £45.

And I would reckon Aquacars to be a shade cheaper than West Quay.

See what Aquacars says. 

 

Can't get much more convenient than the Royal Maritime Club - we stayed there after a Navy dinner aboard HMS Victory to celebrate little HMS Pickle bringing back the news of the victory at Trafalgar & the death of Nelson.

The Club has Royal Navy origins, there are a few reminders of its heritage, and you'll probably find a few serving and retired naval officers there.

 

JB 🙂

 

[TouchstoneFeste]

24 minutes ago, John Bull said:

Can't get much more convenient than the Royal Maritime Club - we stayed there after a Navy dinner aboard HMS Victory to celebrate little HMS Pickle bringing back the news of the victory at Trafalgar & the death of Nelson.

 

JB 🙂

 

 

Wait, what? Nelson died?!!!

[John Bull]

5 minutes ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

 

Wait, what? Nelson died?!!!

 

 

Yep - you need to keep up with the news 😉

[TouchstoneFeste]

20 minutes ago, John Bull said:

 

 

Yep - you need to keep up with the news 😉

I'd read up on the Pickle Dinner after seeing one of your earlier posts. Wish we could do that ... sounds like a lot of fun.

[coloradocruiselover88]

I use Blacklane , Carey or Limolink car service.  It is pricey, but you can make reservations from the terminal to where every you want to go (door to door service) and you get the price upfront.  They are Not limos, but black car service.

 

My upcoming 11/5/22 from London Heathrow to Southampton (hotel by cruise terminal) is $226 pounds.

 

limolink.com

blacklane.com

carey.com

 

 

[John Bull]

1 hour ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

I'd read up on the Pickle Dinner after seeing one of your earlier posts. Wish we could do that ... sounds like a lot of fun.

 

Yep, great night. On HMS Victory as guests of the Royal Navy - piped aboard, welcomed by Nelson's ghost, good dinner on long tables on the main gundeck interrupted by despatches from the battle, wine & port flowing, music by the Royal Marines, then wobbled back to the Royal Maritime Club.

Part of a package won in a charity auction which also included 3 days/nights sailing The Solent in a replica of HMS Pickle.

 

 

JB 🙂

 

[Post Captain]

3 hours ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

 

Wait, what? Nelson died?!!!

 

 

NB:  The artist (Arthur William Devis, who was onboard at the time and evidently witnessed Nelson's death) greatly exaggerated the height of the ceiling. When I stood at this spot down on the orlop deck during my visit, I had to stay hunched over or else I would have conked my noggin on the oak beams overhead. (Well, I conked my head a fair few times anyway.🥴)  So when you descend below decks, Duck!--and stay ducked!

 

Fun fact: During the voyage back to England, Nelson's body was preserved in a barrel of brandy.

 

 

 

[TouchstoneFeste]

50 minutes ago, Post Captain said:

Fun fact: During the voyage back to England, Nelson's body was preserved in a barrel of brandy.

 

 

It's how he would have wanted it.