Southampton debarkation time?

[Married90]

Sailing an Ireland trip this spring in and out of Southampton on the Star and have a 2 pm flight back to the US.  I see there is a national coach at 9am from the Southampton coach terminal that gets into Heathrow at like 10:40 which would be great.  The next bus is 11am and doesn’t get in till 12:55 which cuts it too close.   The bus is like $22 p/p .   The only other option I see is booking NCL transportation for $75 p/p.   Would we be off the ship and through customs in enough time to get to the coach terminal for a 9am bus?   Southampton to Heathrow via train does not seem viable….  Suggestions?

[complawyer]

we were in london last year for a few days prior to sailing from southampton. before leaving the u.s., i went on google to find any type of shuttle service from our london hotel to the port. we were also on the gem a few months ago, that went from trieste to rome. the port city is citiavecchia. we had the concierge get us a shuttle to rome which is about an hour away,

 

while it is certainly more expensive, it does do the job. just google shuttle service from southampton pier to lhr,

[KeithJenner]

4 hours ago, Married90 said:

Sailing an Ireland trip this spring in and out of Southampton on the Star and have a 2 pm flight back to the US.  I see there is a national coach at 9am from the Southampton coach terminal that gets into Heathrow at like 10:40 which would be great.  The next bus is 11am and doesn’t get in till 12:55 which cuts it too close.   The bus is like $22 p/p .   The only other option I see is booking NCL transportation for $75 p/p.   Would we be off the ship and through customs in enough time to get to the coach terminal for a 9am bus?   Southampton to Heathrow via train does not seem viable….  Suggestions?

Unless you are on a transatlantic or similar then disembarkation will be very quick. You mention Ireland, so I’m guessing that this is probably a round trip in which.

 

Getting off the ship in Europe is usually nothing like in the US as you only have to deal with customs in rare circumstances (ie having sailed from the US), and any customs/immigration issues they have are usually done onboard if they can (Irish immigration staff came onboard on our cruise last year and checked our passports the day before).

 

It is extremely likely that you will just be able to walk off the ship very soon after the published arrival time.

You will have plenty of time for a 9am coach. No need even to rush.

 

If I’m wrong about your itinerary then things could be different.

 

[ronheg]

Just beware that the bus is frequently late.  It goes back and forth between lhr and the coach terminal.  We’ve ridden it twice and both times it arrived in Southampton an hour late.  We had booked it this past September and we didn’t use our return ticket because we were told to be at LHR three hours before our flight.  A 9am bus that is an hour late and that takes 90 minutes to drive might not arrive in time for a 2pm flight.  We took the ncl transport.  It was $75 per person.

[The Traveling Man]

On 1/9/2023 at 8:18 PM, Married90 said:

Sailing an Ireland trip this spring in and out of Southampton on the Star and have a 2 pm flight back to the US.  I see there is a national coach at 9am from the Southampton coach terminal that gets into Heathrow at like 10:40 which would be great.  The next bus is 11am and doesn’t get in till 12:55 which cuts it too close.   The bus is like $22 p/p .   The only other option I see is booking NCL transportation for $75 p/p.   Would we be off the ship and through customs in enough time to get to the coach terminal for a 9am bus?   Southampton to Heathrow via train does not seem viable….  Suggestions?

We had a similar situation this past September on the Prima.  The ship docked on time in Southampton and we had reservations on the National Coach bus departing at 9:00 AM.  Our flight was after 3:00, so we might have booked the 11:00 AM bus, but that seemed like we might be cutting it too close, so we opted for 9:00.  We had an early breakfast on the ship, then gathered our luggage and joined the line to disembark a bit before 7:30 AM.  It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get off the ship, which had only about 2700 passengers on board a 3000 pax ship.  The delay seemed to be caused by British Customs agents processing passengers very slowly.  Once we were off the ship, we ran to catch a taxi, which got us to the bus terminal at 9:01 AM, just as the bus was pulling out.  Apparently they have a company rule, or perhaps a traffic law, that prevents them from boarding additional passengers once they have pulled away from the curb.  As it turns out, our flight departure was slightly delayed, so the 11:00 AM bus would have worked for us.  Unfortunately, that bus was fully booked and the next departure was not until 1:00 PM, which would have been too late for us.  We ended up having to take a taxi all the way to Heathrow, about $175 if I remember correctly.  The bus ticket was nonrefundable, so we had to eat that cost, as well.  The moral of the story is to get in line to exit the ship as soon as possible.  Having been to Southampton several times before, we had assumed that an hour and a half would be plenty of time to exit the ship, taxi to the bus station, handle our luggage, and still have time for a rest stop before boarding the bus.  Don't count on it.

[The Traveling Man]

On 1/10/2023 at 1:11 AM, KeithJenner said:

It is extremely likely that you will just be able to walk off the ship very soon after the published arrival time.

You will have plenty of time for a 9am coach. No need even to rush.

 

Having been to Southampton several times prior to our September 2022 cruise on the Prima, we made that same assumption.  Please see my previous post to see how that turned out.

[KeithJenner]

1 hour ago, The Traveling Man said:

Having been to Southampton several times prior to our September 2022 cruise on the Prima, we made that same assumption.  Please see my previous post to see how that turned out.

Interesting. Where did you sail from?

 

We also arrived in Southampton last September, on a UK cruise from Amsterdam. Absolutely no problem at all and no sign of any Customs staff at all, as usual.

[The Traveling Man]

1 hour ago, KeithJenner said:

Interesting. Where did you sail from?

 

We also arrived in Southampton last September, on a UK cruise from Amsterdam. Absolutely no problem at all and no sign of any Customs staff at all, as usual.

We were on the Prima's second revenue cruise, from Copenhagen to Southampton.  It was a royal mess trying to get off the ship.  We likewise had never had a similar problem in Southampton, having sailed there on several previous occasions.  YMMV.

[Married90]

5 hours ago, The Traveling Man said:

We had a similar situation this past September on the Prima.  The ship docked on time in Southampton and we had reservations on the National Coach bus departing at 9:00 AM.  Our flight was after 3:00, so we might have booked the 11:00 AM bus, but that seemed like we might be cutting it too close, so we opted for 9:00.  We had an early breakfast on the ship, then gathered our luggage and joined the line to disembark a bit before 7:30 AM.  It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get off the ship, which had only about 2700 passengers on board a 3000 pax ship.  The delay seemed to be caused by British Customs agents processing passengers very slowly.  Once we were off the ship, we ran to catch a taxi, which got us to the bus terminal at 9:01 AM, just as the bus was pulling out.  Apparently they have a company rule, or perhaps a traffic law, that prevents them from boarding additional passengers once they have pulled away from the curb.  As it turns out, our flight departure was slightly delayed, so the 11:00 AM bus would have worked for us.  Unfortunately, that bus was fully booked and the next departure was not until 1:00 PM, which would have been too late for us.  We ended up having to take a taxi all the way to Heathrow, about $175 if I remember correctly.  The bus ticket was nonrefundable, so we had to eat that cost, as well.  The moral of the story is to get in line to exit the ship as soon as possible.  Having been to Southampton several times before, we had assumed that an hour and a half would be plenty of time to exit the ship, taxi to the bus station, handle our luggage, and still have time for a rest stop before boarding the bus.  Don't count on it.

Wow, talk about bad luck.   That being said a taxi all the was to Heathrow  for $175 is only $25 more then 2 tickets on the overpriced NCL bus….  

[The Traveling Man]

35 minutes ago, Married90 said:

Wow, talk about bad luck.   That being said a taxi all the was to Heathrow  for $175 is only $25 more then 2 tickets on the overpriced NCL bus….  

Yes, but the two bus tickets that we woulda, coulda, shoulda used were only about $20 each.