Dover Ship Arrival too late for US flights

[jonikal]

Our small ship docks in Dover at 9AM and there don't appear to be any flights, other than multi stop options taking over 24 hours, leaving at a time we could make it. The ship doesn't offer any transportation from port to airport, so would be interested in suggestions for getting from Dover to LHR. Since spending the night is likely best option, any recommendation on an LHR hotel would also be appreciated.

 

[Twickenham]

The easiest thing would be to spend the night in London, which is basically between Dover and LHR anyways. Take the train (or bus or private transport) into London, get yourself to a hotel convenient to Paddington Station (there's a Hilton within the station itself), do a little sightseeing that day, then hop on the Heathrow Express the next morning to get yourself to LHR for your flight.

[CruiserBruce]

As to LHR hotels, there is, IIRC, at least 2, if not 3 Hiltons attached to Terminals there. 

[Zach1213]

I would definitely stay in London or somewhere around London and then head out the next day. If you want to stay in the city, perhaps stay near Paddington Station to take advantage of the Heathrow Express the next morning. At the airport, I'm a regular at the Sofitel which is connected to Terminal 5 (mostly British Airways flights). 

That being said, there's flights from London to the US up until fairly late in the day. You can definitely take an 8pm departure from LHR to New York or Boston on a daily basis (during normal times), so that's an option - you may not get home, but you'd get to the US. 

 

That being said, I still vote to stay in the London area and enjoy one last night of vacation. 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Zach1213

[jonikal]

Many thanks for the helpful advice.

 

With apologies, since my original posting, our flight reservations have been changed and we will be leaving from LGW not LHR.  For this trip, we would prefer to spend the night at an airport hotel rather than downtown London. 

Any recommendations for LGW airport hotels would be appreciated. 

Also any recommendations for transport to and from Dover.  Many thanks.

[PhilbeachTraveller]

Gatwick is closer to Dover but there's no direct trains/coaches there, unless your cruise company is offering one. Best to hire a taxi. Can recommend Air Link Cars http://airlinkcars.com/ or Premier Taxis https://www.premiertaxisfolkestone.co.uk/, both local(ish) to Dover. 

 

There is a Hilton at Gatwick which is right at the South Terminal but easy to transfer to the North Terminal. Have also stayed at the Sofitel at the North Terminal which was really lovely (amazing breakfast!). 

[comcox]

On 12/1/2020 at 4:15 PM, jonikal said:

Many thanks for the helpful advice.

 

With apologies, since my original posting, our flight reservations have been changed and we will be leaving from LGW not LHR.  For this trip, we would prefer to spend the night at an airport hotel rather than downtown London. 

Any recommendations for LGW airport hotels would be appreciated. 

Also any recommendations for transport to and from Dover.  Many thanks.

Be sure to check which terminal you will be flying out of.  With all the changes of late due to Covid,   Heathrow is only operating internationla flights out of T2 and T5.  My usual hotel-the Holiday Inn Express-- was at T4 unfortunately.  There is a Hilton Garden Inn attached to T2 and a very over priced Sofitel attached to T5.  But things may change again before your cruise.  Other hotels involve riding the Hoppa bus to and from the terminals or taking a taxi.

[jonikal]

Many thanks for the heads-up.  Will definitely make sure which terminal at which airport.  Seems that they have changed from LGW to LHR and back over the last few months so it's hard to keep up.  

In any event, there is no way we will be going on this cruise unless we get the vaccine.  Apparently we are due to receive it in the next couple of weeks, but not taking any bets.  Once we have the vaccine we will go ahead with airline, hotel and transportation reservations from airport to Dover and return.  

[ontheweb]

Are you sure there is no airport transfer from Dover to the airports? When we did a British Isles cruise out of Dover, there were transfers from the ship to London and to both airports. We used the ship transfer to Heathrow that stopped in Canterbury. It actually made us feel like we were still on the cruise as we knew some people on the bus from our roll call and it was such a fine excursion.

 

We were looking forward to a similar excursion this past summer from Southampton to Heathrow with a stop at Stonehenge, a place definitely on our bucket list. Alas the cruise never happened. (Both airport transfers we did from Dover and the one we would have done from Southampton were from Princess.)

[jonikal]

8 hours ago, ontheweb said:

Are you sure there is no airport transfer from Dover to the airports? When we did a British Isles cruise out of Dover, there were transfers from the ship to London and to both airports. We used the ship transfer to Heathrow that stopped in Canterbury. It actually made us feel like we were still on the cruise as we knew some people on the bus from our roll call and it was such a fine excursion.

 

We were looking forward to a similar excursion this past summer from Southampton to Heathrow with a stop at Stonehenge, a place definitely on our bucket list. Alas the cruise never happened. (Both airport transfers we did from Dover and the one we would have done from Southampton were from Princess.)

 

Yes, you are quite right....as long as you are sailing with Princess or one of the other larger cruise companies.  We have also used them for Dover to Heathrow transits in the past and stopped at Windsor on the way.  In our case we are sailing with Hurtigruten and they are a small expedition type company with only a couple of hundred passengers and don't have the organization in place to offer their own transport.  

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, jonikal said:

 

Yes, you are quite right....as long as you are sailing with Princess or one of the other larger cruise companies.  We have also used them for Dover to Heathrow transits in the past and stopped at Windsor on the way.  In our case we are sailing with Hurtigruten and they are a small expedition type company with only a couple of hundred passengers and don't have the organization in place to offer their own transport.  

OK, I understand now. I did not see how any cruise line could not offer transportation back to the airport. I guess you have traded the advantage of a very small ship for the disadvantage of what they cannot offer in the way of transportation.

 

We actually had the best of both worlds on Princess sailing out of Dover because we were on the very small former Ocean Princess. They did our excursion back to Heathrow by way of Canterbury despite IIRC there were only 10 or maybe 12 of us on it. And we knew 4 of them, the other couple from our roll call celebrating an anniversary onboard and their college age daughters. As I said previously it felt like we were still on the cruise.