London hotel & tour

We are on the August 29th Norwegian Fjords Princess cruise and I have a question about a hotel in London. We arrive 2 days early and want to tour some highlights of London. 1) Any London tour suggestions? 2) We want to take the Princess transfer to the port, so is it better to stay near the Heathrow airport (hotel suggestion please), or stay closer to down town (hotel suggestion please) and take a taxi back to the airport to catch the transfer?

We are planning to stay in London a few days before our Princess British Isles Cruise. We've arranged for Princess transfer by coach bus from London's Victoria Coach Station to Southampton port to get to the ship the morning of our cruise....$59 per person. You cannot book the transfer on line, so if you are using a TA, he or she can make those arrangements for you with Princess. If you've booked on your own, you can phone Princess and ask to add the transfer to your booking.

We've booked a hotel in Westminster area because it is in easy walking distance to many of the sites we'd like to visit. I can't really recommend a hotel as this is our first trip to London, but we went with a Marriott as we have membership and the reviews on Trip Advisor and CC were very favorable.

As for tours, most of the places we want to visit are easy DIY, but many CC members use the London Tool Kit website for information on hotels, transfers, tours, etc. Also, we've a friend who tells us he enjoyed his tours with London Walks and highly recommends them.

Enjoy your planning!

Thanks, never thought to see if Princess transferred from somewhere else other than the airport. I'll have my TA check it out. Thanks again.

Can you tell me which Marriott as there are many?

$59 for a Princess transfer to Southampton? You can take the National Express bus from the same Victoria Coach Station for £9 per person. The only difference is you have to take a £10 cab ride from the Southampton Coach station to the cruise terminal.

As far as hotel, check out this place:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g186338-d1539346-Reviews-Premier_Inn_London_Victoria-London_England.html

It's about a 10 minute walk from Victoria Coach station.

St Ermin's Marriott Autograph Collection

2) We want to take the Princess transfer to the port, so is it better to stay near the Heathrow airport (hotel suggestion please), or stay closer to down town (hotel suggestion please) and take a taxi back to the airport to catch the transfer?

If there's a Princess shuttle doing that and you really want to use that for some reason, then you can do that.

Otherwise, organise your own transport to the port, which is very easy to do and which most people would think is better for most in any event.