Transportation from Le Verdon to Bordeaux

[Hlitner]

29 minutes ago, Lovecruise247 said:

On this particular cruise, some of the ports were difficult!  Amsterdam was an easy walk into town; but others were just difficult.  For example, Hamburg.  Le Verdon wasn’t all that easy, unless you were doing an excursion.  Le Havre turned out to be a pleasant surprise, there was a shuttle for $7, which included a day pass for local buses within town.  In Bilbao, there were taxis available right outside the port building, that worked very well.  It was difficult to get any information beforehand; you got into port, then you got to find out how easy or difficult things would be.

Many of those ports primarily have a single docking area (such as Le Havre and Bilbao).  You can get lots of information right here on CC by simply asking about various ports.  For example, in Le Havre you could rent a car and drive yourself to the various D-Day beaches,  take a taxi or local bus over to Honfleur, head over to the train station (about 1 1/2 miles from the port) and take a train to Rouen or even Paris.  For those of us who have spent many years as Do It Yourself (DIY) travelers, these ports are not difficult as much as some might be seen as a "challenge."

 

Some ports have multiple docking locations (such as Lisbon) but one simply adjusts to the exact location.  Other ports such as Bordeaux are problematic when the cruise line does not specify where the ship will actually dock.  Some ships will actually go all the way up the river and dock in downtown Bordeaux while others might be docked in Le Verndon which is actually not even close to the city of Bordeaux.  And yet some cruise lines will mislead passengers by calling Le Verndon- Bordeaux, or Civitavecchia - Rome, or perhaps Livorno will be called Florence.   For those that take cruise line excursions the locations may not be important, but for folks who prefer DIY it can be a shocker if folks do not do their pre-cruise homework.

 

By the way, we have found Hamburg to be a relatively easy port for a DIYer.  One can access public transportation from the port.  It is the same in many ports around Europe and Asia although there might be a long walk from ship to the bus stop or metro stop.

 

Hank

[Sailing12Away]

8 hours ago, Hlitner said:

The best way is to simply ask your cruise line (they may or may not give you the info).  Another method is to look online for the web site of the port (the official site if it exists) where the Port may publish their port schedule including docking locations (if known).  Another method, which is not always reliable, is to look us the port schedule on a 3rd party site such as Cruisemapper.com

 

Even if you try all available methods, you still might not know until the day before (or sometimes the actual day) you arrive at a port.  There are lots of factors which can impact docking locations and the port authorities do have the ability to make last minute changes.

 

Hank

 

Hank

Tried that, but I don't fully trust what they're saying for some of the ports as it doesn't make sense to me (the SJ one being the most prominent). I get that the plan may have to change based on which ship gets there first and such, but wanted a general idea of what the plan was. Figure we'll ask the crew when we get on board where they've been stopping at the last few rounds as they'll know  better than corporate.