See Portsmouth terminal open

[Windsurfboy]

Discovery first ship to use new portsmouth terminal what was it like?

[FatBoy20]

Not totally finished but far smoother & quicker exit than the previous "Rent a Tent". Still requires Bus Shuttle to & from Ship.

[LandC]

That’s good. We’ll be sailing from Portsmouth for the Canarian Christmas cruise.

[arlowood]

14 hours ago, FatBoy20 said:

Not totally finished but far smoother & quicker exit than the previous "Rent a Tent". Still requires Bus Shuttle to & from Ship.

Don't think they will ever be able to dispense with the shuttle bus on health and safety grounds. The area between the terminal and the normal cruise ship berth is effectively a massive car/lorry park for traffic awaiting access to several loading ramps for the Brittany Ferries routes to France and Spain.

Unlikely they would be happy with foot passengers wandering around while heavy goods vehicles and containers were moving around.

Suppose it does beg the question what the Brittany Ferries foot passengers do but that's a different story.

[FatBoy20]

The distance to New Terminal from Ship is only about 25 metres less than " The Tent" & with the demographic age of Saga Passengers would make at least a 400 metre walk without Shuttle Bus a no go!.

[Windsurfboy]

I  wonder if they could make a safe designated walk way , and the shuttle bus optional on nice days. 

 

Is bus stop under cover, presume still get wet walking from bus up gangway to ship.

 

Not optimal, a bit third world.

 

 

[Scorpio41]

Reading with interest. We are sailing from Portsmouth next year. 

[FatBoy20]

3 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

I  wonder if they could make a safe designated walk way , and the shuttle bus optional on nice days. 

 

Is bus stop under cover, presume still get wet walking from bus up gangway to ship.

 

Not optimal, a bit third world.

 

 

Gangway from Bus to Ship is covered. But far too long a walk to Terminal even if a safe route could be installed.

[Windsurfboy]

4 hours ago, FatBoy20 said:

Gangway from Bus to Ship is covered. But far too long a walk to Terminal even if a safe route could be installed.

 

I'm sure many Saga passengers are easily capable of walking 400yds if my experience of them pounding round deck and quite a few running/walking 10k is anything to go by.  Many would prefer that to waiting for a bus to fill up , and everyone to slowly get on and off. All depends on weather and a safe route.

[FannyLiz]

I have driven, countless times, the route from the ferry check-in to board the ferries for either Spain or France.  Even driving a very visible motorhome has felt slightly unsafe as the route is criss-crossed by lorries, fork lift trucks, the occasional lost motorist and random officials trying to corral them all back into the correct lanes. Adding foot passengers and their luggage into the mix, especially on a twilight winter afternoon, would be disastrous !  
 

Foot passengers for the ferries are taken by bus from the terminal.

[FatBoy20]

12 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

I'm sure many Saga passengers are easily capable of walking 400yds if my experience of them pounding round deck and quite a few running/walking 10k is anything to go by.  Many would prefer that to waiting for a bus to fill up , and everyone to slowly get on and off. All depends on weather and a safe route.

Saga phase the disembarkation into groups so no waiting for shuttle bus & also no chaos in the Baggage Collection Area. With all due respects a large number of passengers coming off SOD on Sunday last would find it very difficult walking the distance to the Terminal.

[Cynthia Darch]

Why did Saga move from Southampton where embarkation is so smooth

[david05]

42 minutes ago, Cynthia Darch said:

Why did Saga move from Southampton where embarkation is so smooth

Cost? Does anyone know what it is like now getting to the taxi to take you home. When we exited the tent we had a long, difficult trek to our taxi, some of it uphill which was quite difficult for the trolley pushers!

[sleepingcat]

Oh! I m just catching up here. So Saga not using Southampton at all any more? That is a pity as its a half hour longer journey for us, and as pointed out above, embarkation and leaving the ship and the port are very smooth there. 

 

Like FannyLiz above we know that stretch of tarmac in Portsmouth very well from numerous times in queues and sleeping there before embarking a ferry in our motorhome. Not a particularly nice place to spend time or  negotiate on foot, I had no idea that cruise departures were from the same place. 

[FannyLiz]

1 hour ago, sleepingcat said:

 

Like FannyLiz above we know that stretch of tarmac in Portsmouth very well from numerous times in queues and sleeping there before embarking a ferry in our motorhome. Not a particularly nice place to spend time or  negotiate on foot, I had no idea that cruise departures were from the same place. 

I hope that the powers-that-be have put a decent cafe / restaurant in the new terminal too. At least in the motorhome we could eat our own meal while waiting but anyone in a car or motorcycle would only have the meagre offerings from the rather pathetic Ceanos place. We used to go and sit in the ferry terminal to keep warm while waiting for the late night Brittany Ferries departure to Spain. I would have killed for fish and chips and sticky buns didn’t hit the spot.

[Windsurfboy]

what I can't understand is why design a cruise terminal that doesn't have direct access to ships. No one would build a new airport without jetties to planes. They should have built terminal where ships berth. Or even if necessary dredged out by terminal to let ships berth alongside. 

 

Even if there are plenty of busses, loading a bus depends on slowest  can take 15 minutes , similiary unloading. All for a 3 minute walk.  Sorry minimum is a covered safe walkway, better with a travelator. Very bad planning and design. 

 

Roll on roll off ferries and cruise ships have very different requirements.  They need seperate berths and port areas..

 

Looks like moving to Portsmouth a retrograde step.

 

 

[FatBoy20]

37 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

what I can't understand is why design a cruise terminal that doesn't have direct access to ships. No one would build a new airport without jetties to planes. They should have built terminal where ships berth. Or even if necessary dredged out by terminal to let ships berth alongside. 

 

Even if there are plenty of busses, loading a bus depends on slowest  can take 15 minutes , similiary unloading. All for a 3 minute walk.  Sorry minimum is a covered safe walkway, better with a travelator. Very bad planning and design. 

 

Roll on roll off ferries and cruise ships have very different requirements.  They need seperate berths and port areas..

 

Looks like moving to Portsmouth a retrograde step.

 

 

The Cruise Berth at Portsmouth is alongside the RoRo Berths used by Condor & Brittany Ferries so no room for a Terminal adjacent to the Berth. On Sunday @ 7am when SOD docked she was followed in by Condor (one freight & one passenger/car ship) & one Brittany Ferry. A Condor passenger/car was also loading & sailed about 7.30 so very busy. The shuttle bus takes approx 5 minutes to load (max 20 passengers & two wheelchairs) in tandem with the phased disembarkation. If there was a walkway to the New Terminal it would take closer to ten minutes to walk in all weathers!. The Cruise Terminal is built on the back of the Ferry one with the exit into the Ferry Terminal. The reason for the move way from Southampton was cost & I guess Portsmouth offered a good long term contract price.

[Cynthia Darch]

For goodness sake Saga, return to Southampton where so many other cruise lines find the port to be totally excellent at handling passengers embarking and disembarking. Portsmouth port is just around the corner from me but it's not a cruise port, it's a ferry and naval port and even though it has a new terminal it is not set up for cruise ships especially the quality of Saga.

[lincslady]

Having to go  by bus for embarking and disembarking is a horror for anyone with even fairly slight disabilities.  Having endured it a couple of times, I would never cruise from Portsmouth again.

[FatBoy20]

15 hours ago, Cynthia Darch said:

For goodness sake Saga, return to Southampton where so many other cruise lines find the port to be totally excellent at handling passengers embarking and disembarking. Portsmouth port is just around the corner from me but it's not a cruise port, it's a ferry and naval port and even though it has a new terminal it is not set up for cruise ships especially the quality of Saga.

I suspect that the major problems with Saga using Southampton was cost & limited space for the Taxi drop off/pick up (300 plus vehicles each time).

[david05]

2 minutes ago, FatBoy20 said:

I suspect that the major problems with Saga using Southampton was cost & limited space for the Taxi drop off/pick up (300 plus vehicles each time).

But is Portsmouth any better for the taxi pick up? On the one occasion we used Portsmouth before the new terminal the taxi pick up was a lot worse than at Southampton which is why I am wondering what it is like with the new terminal in operation.

[FatBoy20]

1 hour ago, david05 said:

But is Portsmouth any better for the taxi pick up? On the one occasion we used Portsmouth before the new terminal the taxi pick up was a lot worse than at Southampton which is why I am wondering what it is like with the new terminal in operation.

On Sunday leaving SOD at 0930, Shuttle Bus, Collect Luggage & to Taxi took approx 25mins. Very slick.

[Windsurfboy]

17 hours ago, FatBoy20 said:

The Cruise Berth at Portsmouth is alongside the RoRo Berths used by Condor & Brittany Ferries so no room for a Terminal adjacent to the Berth. On Sunday @ 7am when SOD docked she was followed in by Condor (one freight & one passenger/car ship) & one Brittany Ferry. A Condor passenger/car was also loading & sailed about 7.30 so very busy. The shuttle bus takes approx 5 minutes to load (max 20 passengers & two wheelchairs) in tandem with the phased disembarkation. If there was a walkway to the New Terminal it would take closer to ten minutes to walk in all weathers!. The Cruise Terminal is built on the back of the Ferry one with the exit into the Ferry Terminal. The reason for the move way from Southampton was cost & I guess Portsmouth offered a good long term contract price.

 

A first class modern cruise terminal should offer direct access to ships , lifts and escalators to take you up to ship level and jetties to the ship that are level and dry. Cleary Prtsmouth fails these criteria. I fully accept your analysis why this was not possible using the current berths at Portsmouth without vastly more expense.  However it is still therefore a major compromise.

 

To be fair to Saga, one of the major advantage of Portsmouth as well as cost is availability which may be more important. I understand that Carnival and MSC contributed to cost of terminals at Southampton,  they therefore get first dibs on slots. Given that Saga is one of the last to announce its schedule,  it would get the leftover slots after all the other cruise lines which makes scheduling very difficult . I presume a long term contract with Portsmouth gives it priority availability. 

 

If the walk to ship was literally 400 yards , it should not take 10 minutes. The normal walking speed for a normally fit person is 3 miles an hour, up well until your 80s so 400 yards takes 4.5 minutes . 10 minutes is 1.35 miles an hour,  extremely slow nearly half the speed of a 90 year old at 2.1mph., the average Saga passenger is not that slow. Although there will be a significant proportion who will need the bus , undoubtedly.  As you say it may not be possible to make it safe and ideally covered, but don't dismiss it as to far. Less than most airports.

 

On the other hand you have people sprinting onto a bus, with hand luggage in 5 minutes. At Portsmouth you will have to wait 10 minutes for the other people to check in and be ready, board the bus,  speed will be controlled by the slowest. Gives every will have hand luggage for medicine,  valuables,  passports.  Drive to ship, wait while everyone gets off. My estimate is it will add half an hour to process compared to direct access from terminal. 

 

Availability may be a pressing reason to move , but it's not as convenient as Southampton. 

[Cynthia Darch]

1 hour ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

 

To be fair to Saga, one of the major advantage of Portsmouth as well as cost is availability which may be more important. I understand that Carnival and MSC contributed to cost of terminals at Southampton,  they therefore get first dibs on slots. Given that Saga is one of the last to announce its schedule,  it would get the leftover slots after all the other cruise lines which makes scheduling very difficult . I presume a long term contract with Portsmouth gives it priority availability. 

 

Interesting, but Southampton has 5 cruise terminals and very rarely as they all occupied. The vast majority of the time when that would be is on a Saturday with the rest of the week a maximum of 3 cruise ships and many times like a Thursday or Monday, none at all 

 

[Windsurfboy]

6 minutes ago, Cynthia Darch said:

 

 

If Saga stuck to mid week sailing, you are right no problem with slots. But not all Saga passengers are retired. Weekend slots hard to get at Southampton