Tour options from Southampton to London Post Cruise

[Luv Cruising Land or Sea]

Hello - Arriving in Southampton in August on the Queen Mary 2 - will be staying in London at the London Marriott Hotel Canary Wharf - I have no idea if this is a good area for sightseeing but had Marriott points to use so that's our base for two nights  

Need advice on how to get there from Southampton with a tour along the way... any advice for tour operators?

Hotel to Heathrow for flight home - are cabs the best option?

 

Thanks for any advice

 

[John Bull]

Southampton to London tour/transfer

Best bet is one of the offerings of International Friends.

Choose one of the first three

https://www.internationalfriends.co.uk/shore-excursions-and-cruise-transfers.html

Long-established, reputable & reliable tour coach (bus) operator, they added cruise tour-transfers some years ago.

Seamless tour-transfer from cruise terminal to central London hotels - more about that below.

 

Confusingly, identical tour-transfers are offered on the London Toolkit website.🤔

Pre-pandemic, London Toolkit used to promote the International Friends' tour-transfers - I don't know whether they have simply re-vamped their website or switched their allegiance to a new competing operator.  Price differentials are mainly due to the way add-on admission fees are treated, but there are still smallish differences - see for yourself.

https://www.londontoolkit.com/travel/southampton-from-london-via-stonehenge.html#southampton-london

BTW flip thro other pages of that London Toolkit website & save it - it's a mine of logistical information.

Other transfer options offered on both sites (cars & vans) are poor value, you can do a lot better independently.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

London hotel.

Location-wise, not a great choice.

Canary Wharf is the centre of London's commercial district. It was developed on disused docklands, and its high-rise office-blocks have taken over as London's commercial hub from the traditional "Square Mile" which is between St Paul's cathedral & the Tower of London. 

Consequently Canary Wharf's hotels are used mainly by business people & weekend rates are low.

It's east of all the main tourist sites in London, which are very broadly between the "museum district" of Kensington and the Tower of London / Tower Bridge.

So all your exploration will start with a west-bound tube ride on the Jubilee line or the new Elizabeth line of the tube, or the tube- connected  DLR (Docks Light Railway). But probably adds only mebbe ten minutes to journey-time.  The hop-on bus tours don't go out to Canary Wharf, you'd need to take the DLR to the Tower of London or the Jubilee line to London Bridge to pick up a ho-ho. 

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/standard-tube-map.pdf

 

If you take one of the tour-transfers from Southampton the operator might get you to Canary Wharf for a small supplement, or can suggest the nearest hotel served & you can hail a taxi to canary Wharf.

 

Canary Wharf is beyond the eastern tourist sites whereas LHR is west of central London. So a private transfer will be a bit more expensive than one from a more-central location. Don't just hail a cab for that transfer - it will be horrendously expensive. Hailing a cab is convenient for a mile or three, but not for the 20+ miles to LHR. Instead, pre-book a private-hire taxi (Londoners call them mini-cabs). lots of operators compete for London / LHR transfers, sorry I've got no recommendations.

Or, much more cheaply, the new Elizabeth line of the tube runs from Canary Wharf to LHR. It's a new line, not as-yet fully bedded-in and altho the tracks run direct between Canary Wharf and LHR I don't know whether you need to change trains. Needs some research, or mebbe a Londoner can chip in.

Altho the tube isn't luggage-friendly, Canary Wharf is close to the start of the Elizabeth line so you shouldn't have trouble getting seats with your luggage around you. But if you have to change, that may prove very difficult at the wrong time-of-day.

 

So,, all-in-all not a great choice of hotel.

If you can switch to another Marriott (Marriott County Hall is ideally-located, many major sights and lots of restaurants, bars etc easily walkable) then consider doing so.

But if you stick with Canary Wharf it's not the end of the world.

 

JB 🙂

 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by John Bull

[Globaliser]

10 hours ago, Luv Cruising Land or Sea said:

London Marriott Hotel Canary Wharf

 

This is very near one little-known but worthwhile museum: the Museum of London Docklands.

 

The hotel is also very close to Canary Wharf Elizabeth Line station. Farringdon station (especially if you use the Long Lane exit) is reasonably close to St Paul's, and there are interchanges to other lines at all the central London Elizabeth Line stations. The Elizabeth Line is fully integrated into the TfL fare structure, so you can treat these like normal Tube journeys.

 

It's a significantly longer walk to get to Canary Wharf Jubilee Line Tube.

 

West India Quay DLR is right next door to the hotel. Trains go from here direct to Bank; you'd have to do a same-platform change at Westferry (or Limehouse or Shadwell) for a Tower Gateway train.

 

NB: DLR trains from Bank towards Lewisham do not stop at West India Quay. Either get off at Canary Wharf DLR and walk back to the hotel (it's a very short distance between the two stations), or get a Beckton or Woolwich Arsenal train, get off at Poplar and walk back to the hotel (also a pretty short walk).

 

In August, to get from Canary Wharf Elizabeth Line to Heathrow you will still need to change at Paddington. You will come up from the deep platform to the street-level mainline station, where you have a choice of using the Heathrow Express (for a separate fare) or continuing on the Elizabeth Line from mainline platforms. Through trains to Heathrow on the Elizabeth Line are not expected to start running until this autumn.

 

But if you have lots of luggage, then you might want to think about one of the usual suspects for car transfers.

[Luv Cruising Land or Sea]

Thank you both - great information.   I was not sure of the "lay of the land" or where to stay.  This is a last minute cruise offered at a price we couldn't refuse!

 

Any other recommendations for a Budget friendly hotel?   Budget and London don't seem to be two words that work well together but we don't plan on spending a lot of time in the hotel so I am looking for a clean place to lay our heads at night.

[tony s]

8 minutes ago, Luv Cruising Land or Sea said:

Thank you both - great information.   I was not sure of the "lay of the land" or where to stay.  This is a last minute cruise offered at a price we couldn't refuse!

 

Any other recommendations for a Budget friendly hotel?   Budget and London don't seem to be two words that work well together but we don't plan on spending a lot of time in the hotel so I am looking for a clean place to lay our heads at night.

Premier Inn Earls Court. I t is in Kensington and near many attractions including Harrods.

[John Bull]

Budget locations include Victoria, Kensington, Paddington, & Kings Cross - Victoria is the most convenient of these & walkable to a number of sights, Kensington is just a couple of tube stops further & handy to the "Museums District", Earl's Court is further west from Kensington, and a little further from "tourist" London than Canary Wharf. Victoria is on the ho-ho routes,  Kensington & Paddington are on ho-ho feeder routes and of course Paddington has a fast direct train to Heathrow (if you choose Paddington area, buy the train tickets to Heathrow well in advance - prices start off very reasonable, go up as the date approaches & are highest at walk-up.

All of the areas mentioned are "respectable" and not considered unsafe.

 

The tube system does make central London a great deal easier, so do pick a hotel close to a tube station. Tube trains are super-frequent and fast.

The main problem with areas outside "tourist" London  is the time taken to go back to a hotel to freshen-up between day-time touring and night-life, so there's a tendency to soldier on through or to dine locally in the evening

 

Going back to Canary Wharf > LHR, changing trains at Paddington isn't as troublesome as regular changes of tube trains - the Heathrow Express from Paddington to LHR is luggage-friendly.

 

JB 🙂

 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by John Bull

[Luv Cruising Land or Sea]

1 hour ago, John Bull said:

Going back to Canary Wharf > LHR, changing trains at Paddington isn't as troublesome as regular changes of tube trains - the Heathrow Express from Paddington to LHR is luggage-friendly.

 

JB 🙂

 

 

Thanks John - It sound like we will be fine at Canary Wharf - with points the price is too good to pass on (less than half of most hotels I looked at!)  We are not big HoHo fans - we have found in the past that too much time is wasted just "looking and passing by" and we like to experience things up close - we did very well using trains and busses in Copenhagen so feel we can get around just fine - at long as we can get tranfer easily in Paddington with two large suitcases sound like that's the plan!

[Globaliser]

15 hours ago, Luv Cruising Land or Sea said:

... at long as we can get tranfer easily in Paddington with two large suitcases ...

 

17 hours ago, John Bull said:

... the Heathrow Express from Paddington to LHR is luggage-friendly.

 

I haven't yet come out of the Elizabeth Line deep platforms at Paddington myself, but there will be step-free access to mainline station level. You should be able to get between street level and the deep platforms by lift (elevator) at both Canary Wharf and Paddington.

 

When you get to mainline station level at Paddington, you will be near platform 1. As things stand, the Heathrow Express normally uses platforms 6 and 7; if you want to continue on the Elizabeth Line, departures to Heathrow normally use platform 11.

 

I think that Elizabeth Line rolling stock is actually just as luggage-friendly as the Heathrow Express. The whole system has been designed for accessibility.