Getting from London to Southampton

[cortcase11]

Hi, all! I'll be on cruise #21 (whee!) in late May, this time to England/Scotland/Ireland. This will be my first time to this area. We are flying into Heathrow the day before and staying the night in London at the H10 Waterloo. For those who have done this trip before, how do you suggest getting to Southampton the morning of the cruise? Hire a car? Take the train? (And if train is the answer, I'd love specifics!) Thank you so much in advance!

 

— Cort

[ziggyuk]

23 minutes ago, cortcase11 said:

Hi, all! I'll be on cruise #21 (whee!) in late May, this time to England/Scotland/Ireland. This will be my first time to this area. We are flying into Heathrow the day before and staying the night in London at the H10 Waterloo. For those who have done this trip before, how do you suggest getting to Southampton the morning of the cruise? Hire a car? Take the train? (And if train is the answer, I'd love specifics!) Thank you so much in advance!

 

— Cort

 

If you were traveling from Heathrow I would have recommended the National Express bus as there is no direct train but as you are in Waterloo you can take either the bus or train, they both arrive at almost the same location in Southampton, a 5 minute taxi/uber trip from the port.

The train is about 1 1/4 hours and direct, use trainline to book.
https://www.thetrainline.com/

[Bob++]

Go to https://www.thetrainline.com/ and look for the train that suits you best. You should do it now as prices and availability may change.

 

If you see a note on the side that says "Specified train only. No refunds." that means what it says. If you miss the train, you will have to buy another ticket. If it says " you can travel on any eligible train." then if you miss that one, you can just wait 30 minutes or so for the next one. They do this to guide the likes of you off the more popular services. You should also choose a train with "0" changes.

 

You will also see that the cost varies a lot, depending on the time of day. Anything between £42.30 to £6.00. On the cheaper trains, you may find paying extra for First Class is worthwhile.

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Bob++

[Thejuggler]

I really wouldn't recommend ever using trainline.

 

They may charge a fee and if things go wrong you are dealing with a third party seller, not a train operator.  They have also been known to sell tickets for none eligible routes for the price being charged.

 

Buy tickets from a train operating company website - all charge the same.
 

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/travel-information/find-a-train-company/

 

South Western Railways are the main operator between Waterloo and Southampton and booking direct may get you some extra benefits.

 

https://www.southwesternrailway.com

[cortcase11]

Trying to book through Southwestern but it keeps giving me errors. 😞
 

ETA: It finally worked when I used PayPal instead of credit card ...

Edited April 3, 2023 by cortcase11

[swoopy2110]

It's easy to get from Southampton Central to the port. We have walked it with out suitcases before (although we are in our 30s 😉 )

 

Also agree with Thejuggler who said don't use the trainline! Use any of the the train operator websites instead.

[davecttr]

By train from Waterloo is easiest with fast trains every 30 minutes and plenty of taxis at Southampton Central Station to take you to the terminal

[SandG]

I am having the same issues using the Southwestern Train website.  It forces me to create an account but when I try to create an account, it says my postcode/address country must be the United Kingdom and will not let me create an account, and so I can't get to this past this point to pay for the tickets.  I also tried to buy from the National Rail site and it transferred me to Southwestern.  I even tried travel from wales, but that site T&C stated the website was only for UK residents.  

I am trying to use the option to pick up tickets at the station, not using the app, because I'm not sure I will always have wifi access while there.

Is there another way to purchase advance fares?  Is using trainline that big a risk?  The difference in fares right now between advance and offpeak is huge.

Edited April 14, 2023 by SandG

[cortcase11]

Sandi, I just finally gave up and put in my real address but said I was in the UK and it let me buy tickets, lol. So weird ...

[fruitmachine]

34 minutes ago, cortcase11 said:

Sandi, I just finally gave up and put in my real address but said I was in the UK and it let me buy tickets, lol. So weird ...

 

2 hours ago, SandG said:

I am having the same issues using the Southwestern Train website.  It forces me to create an account but when I try to create an account, it says my postcode/address country must be the United Kingdom and will not let me create an account, and so I can't get to this past this point to pay for the tickets.  I also tried to buy from the National Rail site and it transferred me to Southwestern.  I even tried travel from wales, but that site T&C stated the website was only for UK residents.  

I am trying to use the option to pick up tickets at the station, not using the app, because I'm not sure I will always have wifi access while there.

Is there another way to purchase advance fares?  Is using trainline that big a risk?  The difference in fares right now between advance and offpeak is huge.

Any of the UK train companies will let you book tickets on every UK train route.

I'm in the UK and always use LNER.co.uk

As far as I can see, they don't even ask for your address.  I happen to be in Italy at the moment, and their website even tried to offer me it in Italian, so must be happy to sell you a ticket anywhere!

Note that the cheaper fares (sometimes any fares) are normally only loaded into the fare system a few weeks before travel.

[SandG]

On 4/14/2023 at 3:38 PM, fruitmachine said:

 

Any of the UK train companies will let you book tickets on every UK train route.

I'm in the UK and always use LNER.co.uk

As far as I can see, they don't even ask for your address.  I happen to be in Italy at the moment, and their website even tried to offer me it in Italian, so must be happy to sell you a ticket anywhere!

Note that the cheaper fares (sometimes any fares) are normally only loaded into the fare system a few weeks before travel.

Thank you so much for the suggestion!! 
 
Yes, the LNER site did not care where we lived when I made an account on their website.  I did have to supply our home address when using our credit card to pay for the tickets because they needed to confirm that our billing address matched the card info.  But again, there was no issue with supplying my US address.  (If there was a problem, I could have gotten around that by using paypal, but we prefer using our card.)

I do feel much better about being able to buy from a UK rail company in case of operational issues.  Several trains were cancelled only a couple of days ago because of "switching" problems.

We will be doing this again later this year, so it's nice that I'm all set up now and will know what to expect next time. 

Thanks again for your  help!!   

[Bob++]

On 4/14/2023 at 6:03 PM, SandG said:

I am trying to use the option to pick up tickets at the station, not using the app, because I'm not sure I will always have wifi access while there.

Get the E-tickets and save a picture on your phone. That way it doesn't matter if you have a signal.

[SandG]

4 hours ago, Bob++ said:

Get the E-tickets and save a picture on your phone. That way it doesn't matter if you have a signal.

Thanks Bob++ (Curious, are you a programmer? I used to be one, LOL). 

Yes, that's what I ended up doing!!  When I got the tickets from LNER, my tickets came to me as 1 PDF with the 4 tickets and also 4 PDF files with individual tickets.  I put the files into "Drive" (the cloud) for us all to access, and we'll each take a screen shot before we leave the hotel.  I also printed off the tickets as a back-up. 

The way I was interpreting the Southwestern site (I could have been wrong), my choices were to send the tickets to a their app or pick up the tickets.  I didn't want us all have to download an app and so thought that picking them up was the simplest, thinking we could scope out the station while at it, but getting the e-tickets is even easier!

[fruitmachine]

22 hours ago, SandG said:

Thanks Bob++ (Curious, are you a programmer? I used to be one, LOL). 

Yes, that's what I ended up doing!!  When I got the tickets from LNER, my tickets came to me as 1 PDF with the 4 tickets and also 4 PDF files with individual tickets.  I put the files into "Drive" (the cloud) for us all to access, and we'll each take a screen shot before we leave the hotel.  I also printed off the tickets as a back-up. 

The way I was interpreting the Southwestern site (I could have been wrong), my choices were to send the tickets to a their app or pick up the tickets.  I didn't want us all have to download an app and so thought that picking them up was the simplest, thinking we could scope out the station while at it, but getting the e-tickets is even easier!

Picking up tickets on departure has been available for many years, but an important thing to note is that you need the same card to pick-up as you paid for the tickets (though I'm not sure how this works when you pay with Paypal!) and it can't be a virtual card; you have to be able to put it in the machine.

The instructions are that you have to nominate the pickup station, but my experience is that it works at any machine in the country.

Edited April 17, 2023 by fruitmachine

[SandG]

For the record, and future readers:
On the same day I first commented to this topic, I sent an email to Southwestern Rail asking what to do since I was unable to create an account with a US address. I got an automated reply saying they were backed up because of the recent outage and I would hear back within 4 weeks. 🙄  In the meantime I got excellent help here. 🙂  I was able to purchase advance tickets through LNER.

I did finally get a response back from them today, just 11 days later, not as long a wait as they'd warned.  They replied with the following: 
"Thank you for contacting us.

Unfortunately our website has issues with non UK address and cards. If you wish to purchase the tickets in advance then I would recommend using a online retailer like red spotted hanky or trainline.

Kind regards,

xxxxxx  xxxxxx
Executive Contact & Complaints Team"

I was a little surprised that they recommended the third party sellers and not another UK rail line, or maybe they weren't aware that others had a more modern website than they did.  😉
 

[cortcase11]

1 hour ago, SandG said:

For the record, and future readers:
On the same day I first commented to this topic, I sent an email to Southwestern Rail asking what to do since I was unable to create an account with a US address. I got an automated reply saying they were backed up because of the recent outage and I would hear back within 4 weeks. 🙄  In the meantime I got excellent help here. 🙂  I was able to purchase advance tickets through LNER.

I did finally get a response back from them today, just 11 days later, not as long a wait as they'd warned.  They replied with the following: 
"Thank you for contacting us.

Unfortunately our website has issues with non UK address and cards. If you wish to purchase the tickets in advance then I would recommend using a online retailer like red spotted hanky or trainline.

Kind regards,

xxxxxx  xxxxxx
Executive Contact & Complaints Team"

I was a little surprised that they recommended the third party sellers and not another UK rail line, or maybe they weren't aware that others had a more modern website than they did.  😉
 

 

I was too impatient, I just put in my real address but put that I was in the UK lol

And it spit out tix for me. They look OK, so hopefully there won't be any issues!

[SandG]

10 hours ago, cortcase11 said:

 

I was too impatient, I just put in my real address but put that I was in the UK lol

And it spit out tix for me. They look OK, so hopefully there won't be any issues!

I believe they only need your mailing address to cross check the billing address on your credit card.  But since you paid with Paypal, it didn't matter!!  I'm sure your tickets are fine.  Have a great trip!  (We leave this weekend!)

Edited April 26, 2023 by SandG

[ltcpda]

Is anyone knowledgeable with a cab company from Heathrow to Southampton?  I found

minicabride.com for $150 for both of us.  Has anyone heard of them?  Thank you!

[ltcpda]

You may wish to try this car service, excellent reviews:  Blackberry Car Service

(646) 757 - 1965