Southampton to London after Princess Cruise

Hi,

 

After a Princess British Isles Cruise which arrives in Southampton on a Saturday at 5am we need to get to the Southampton National Express Coach Station and then on to Victoria Coach Station.

 

Can I make the 7:40 National Express Bus or should we book the 8:30 to be safe?

 

I do not want to catch the train because it is more expensive and there are a few changes to make even though we eventually need to get to Kings Cross Station.

Just because the ship is scheduled to dock at 5am does not mean you will be able to disembark

I would book a later coach

 

JMO

I do not want to catch the train because it is more expensive and there are a few changes to make even though we eventually need to get to Kings Cross Station.

This doesn't answer the point about the train being more expensive, but to be honest going via Waterloo on the train is no more complex than going via Victoria on the coach.

 

This is because the sensible thing to do in each case is to get a taxi from Waterloo or Victoria to Kings Cross. Victoria coach station is quite a long walk from Victoria Tube station, and when you get there you also have to negotiate some stairs because there is no step-free access to the platforms.

 

If you have cruise luggage with you, I would not recommend trying to do this; I would just get a taxi from Victoria coach station.

Disembarkation is normally from around 7am (unassisted, schlepp your own luggage from the cabin), then regular disembarkation from 7.30.

Depending where your ship berths (two possible terminals for Princess), a taxi to Southampton coach station - or rail station - will take 5 to 10 minutes & cost under £10.

Unassisted you can probably make the 07.40 coach.

But "probably" isn't really good enough, a ticket for the 7.40 is only valid for that coach, and the 08.35 may well book-out before the day. I'd play safe.

 

Victoria tube station is a ten-minute walk from the coach station, then it's a direct tube train to Kings Cross. Or a 4-mile, 15 minute taxi ride.

 

For two of you, the train will cost about £50 more than Nat Express - there are no bucket-price train tickets to London in the mornings. Two or three direct trains per hour to London Waterloo. No direct tube line from Waterloo to Kings Cross, a choice of routes all involving one change. Or a 2.5 mile, 8 minute taxi ride.

 

The tube isn't luggage friendly. I don't know the taxi fares from Victoria or Waterloo, but the difference won't be £50 ;)

 

JB :)

Disembarkation is normally from around 7am (unassisted, schlepp your own luggage from the cabin), then regular disembarkation from 7.30.

Depending where your ship berths (two possible terminals for Princess), a taxi to Southampton coach station - or rail station - will take 5 to 10 minutes & cost under £10.

Unassisted you can probably make the 07.40 coach.

But "probably" isn't really good enough, a ticket for the 7.40 is only valid for that coach, and the 08.35 may well book-out before the day. I'd play safe.

 

Victoria tube station is a ten-minute walk from the coach station, then it's a direct tube train to Kings Cross. Or a 4-mile, 15 minute taxi ride.

 

For two of you, the train will cost about £50 more than Nat Express - there are no bucket-price train tickets to London in the mornings. Two or three direct trains per hour to London Waterloo. No direct tube line from Waterloo to Kings Cross, a choice of routes all involving one change. Or a 2.5 mile, 8 minute taxi ride.

 

The tube isn't luggage friendly. I don't know the taxi fares from Victoria or Waterloo, but the difference won't be £50 ;)

 

JB :)

 

John,

Thank you. I will play it safe. Thank you for the info on the princess docks and timing. That is just the info I needed : )

 

We only have little bags and it will be on a weekend so I think the tube will be ok but if we are feeling exhausted/frazzled/rich we will catch a taxi from the Victoria coach station to Kings cross Station. Someone else said it was about 15 GBP.

 

Thank you everyone else for your help. First time cruise who knows nothing : )

Edited December 2, 2014 by paddingtonbear

if we are feeling exhausted/frazzled/rich we will catch a taxi from the Victoria coach station to Kings cross Station. Someone else said it was about 15 GBP.

 

I believe that if you have this new fangled 'Uber' taxi app, you could get that fare down to less than a tenner.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Bob++

 

We only have little bags and it will be on a weekend so I think the tube will be ok but if we are feeling exhausted/frazzled/rich we will catch a taxi from the Victoria coach station to Kings cross Station. Someone else said it was about 15 GBP. QUOTE]

 

We travel regularly to Southampton from Scotland via Kings Cross and the easiest and cheapest way is to book a through ticket. We book on the East Coast website 12 weeks in advance and although we've got a railcard, without one it is still very reasonable. We pay £30 we get the ticket but the regular price is around £45 I think and includes the fast train to Southampton, the tube ticket across London and the train North. The last time we crossed from Victoria Coach station to Kings Cross by taxi we said never again because of the horrendous traffic and it cost £25, almost the same price as our train ticket to Scotland. The tube from Waterloo to Kings X / St Pancras is very easy with no steps - Waterloo to Oxford Circus on Bakerloo then to KX on the Victoria line.

Edited December 2, 2014 by tartanexile81

We are planning a Baltic cruise and one week visit to England in June 2016. I have several questions for those that live around London.

 

1. Is it better to take the cruise before or after our visit to London?

2. How and when should we purchase a rail pass for the week?

3. Should we also purchase a week pass for the Tube?

4. We will most likely be staying at a time share in Reading. How long does it take to get from Reading to London by rail?

5. How long does it take to get to/from Reading to Shouthampton?

 

Thanks for any information.

 

Norine

Hi Norine,

 

1. Because of your long-haul flight, a lot of folk would suggest that you fly across the Pond a day or two before your cruise, to significantly reduce the risk that you might miss your sailing due to a missed or cancelled flight.

If you took that advice but chose to use the time-share for post-cruise vacation time, you'd have to spend that pre-cruise night or two at a London or Southampton hotel. But if you took that vacation time pre-cruise of course it would tie in.

When their cruise is over, a lot of folk simply want to get home. For them, pre-cruise vacation time is an appetiser, post-cruise vacation time is simply dragging out the time before they get home.

I think that probably you'd do better to spend time in Reading / London before your cruise. But that's just my opinion, and it's your vacation.

 

2. Rail ticketing is waaaaay too complicated :mad: and I'm no expert, but I'll do my best.

 

I think that the only "passes" that you can use are RailCards.

They cost £30, they're valid for a year, they save about one-third of each fare, but with limitations.

If you have kids, you'll want a "Family & Friends" RailCard.

If you're just two, you'll want a "Two-Together" card.

If you're seniors, then you still want a Two-Together card, not Senior's cards. That's because I'm presuming that wherever you travel you'll go together thus a Two-Together" card will be valid, but if instead you bought Senior's cards you would both have to buy Seniors cards - ie an initial outlay of £60 instead of £30.

You've not mentioned how long you'll be in Reading, but short-term visitors need to use the trains a lot to get value out of a RailCard during their short stay - so do the maths before you buy a RailCard.

One major disadvantage of all RailCards is that they're not valid for trains which depart before 9.30am. So your sight-seeing in London won't stat before about 10am. :(

http://www.railcard.co.uk/

(click on the "Using Your RailCard" header for each type of card for that & other limitations).

http://www.railcard.co.uk/

 

You will need a UK address to buy your RailCard in advance, so simplest to buy at the station when you buy your first day's tickets.

 

If you choose not to buy a RailCard, ask for a day-return ticket. They're good value, they cost about the same as a one-way ticket. You don't have to specify a return time, just jump on any same-day train back to Reading. But they are subject to that same earliest departure time in the morning. :(

 

Very vaguely, & I won't guarantee my figures, for travel Reading to London (Paddington):

a cheap day-return ticket (depart after 9.30) costs £17.70 each

a cheap day-return (depart after 9.30) costs £11.70 each if you have a RailCard

 

An anytime day-return ticket costs £43.30 each, RailCards not valid.

 

So a Two-Together card will pay for itself with 3 journeys to London after 9.30

 

Brew a strong coffee & open a large bottle of headache pills, then double-check those figures at

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/plan-your-journey.aspx

 

3. Sorry, don't know my stuff on the Tube, but yes for a week its well worth buying an Oyster Card. Hopefully a Londoner can explain to you (and me :rolleyes:)

Or when you buy your train tickets, ask for them to be cheap-day "travel cards", which include unlimited tube & bus travel in your cheap-day return tickets for an extra £4.50 or thereabouts.

 

4 & 5. You'll see from that South-West Trains website that there are extremely frequent direct trains to London, average journey time about 30 minutes. From Reading to Southampton central roughly two direct trains per hour, journey time about an hour.

 

All this info is current, expect fares to rise with (or beyond) inflation by June 2016.

 

If you're not committed to Reading & you plan to spend most of your time in central London, you might like to check out time-share availability in places within the Tube network.

 

To reach more folk, it's probably worth repeating your question as a fresh thread.

 

 

JB :)

Edited December 4, 2014 by John Bull

 

Very vaguely, & I won't guarantee my figures, for travel Reading to London (Paddington):

a cheap day-return ticket (depart after 9.30) costs £17.70 each

a cheap day-return (depart after 9.30) costs £11.70 each if you have a RailCard

 

An anytime day-return ticket costs £43.30 each, RailCards not valid.

 

So a Two-Together card will pay for itself with 3 journeys to London after 9.30

 

Brew a strong coffee & open a large bottle of headache pills, then double-check those figures at

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/plan-your-journey.aspx

 

 

JB :)

 

Dammit, knew I'd screw-up.

 

A cheap day-return (depart after 9.30) will cost £17.70 each. RailCards not valid.

An anytime day-return ticket costs £43.30 each.

An anytime day-return costs about £28.60 each with a RailCard.

A RailCard will just about pay for itself with just one journey to London before 9.30, though that's still more expensive than departing after 9.30.

 

Clear as mud.

Now I've got to go & have a lie-down :rolleyes:

 

JB :)

Thank you so much JB.

 

I am just starting the research. The only timeshare that shows available for June 2015 is in Reading. Since we are travelling in June 2016 our time share does not go out that far. I can't make any reservations until we get our cruise booked. Princess has not posted their schedule for 2016 after April 2016.

 

I am a little cautious about opening a separate thread yet. I will lread what others have posted and then open an England/London thread.

 

Thanks again for all your information.

 

Norine

Hi,

 

After a Princess British Isles Cruise which arrives in Southampton on a Saturday at 5am we need to get to the Southampton National Express Coach Station and then on to Victoria Coach Station.

 

Can I make the 7:40 National Express Bus or should we book the 8:30 to be safe?

 

I do not want to catch the train because it is more expensive and there are a few changes to make even though we eventually need to get to Kings Cross Station.

 

Where are you headed onwards from King's Cross? There may be other rail options on the hourly train from Southampton that heads north and around London (Reading/Oxford/Birmingham/Manchester). Alternately as King's Cross serves the north east, you may find that flying on a discount carrier such as FlyBE from the SOU/Southampton airport to NCL/Newcastle, LBA/Leeds or EDI/Edinbourgh makes more sense

Thank you so much JB.

 

I am just starting the research. The only timeshare that shows available for June 2015 is in Reading. Since we are travelling in June 2016 our time share does not go out that far. I can't make any reservations until we get our cruise booked. Princess has not posted their schedule for 2016 after April 2016.

 

I am a little cautious about opening a separate thread yet. I will lread what others have posted and then open an England/London thread.

 

Thanks again for all your information.

 

Norine

 

Trouble is, we may get a confusing mix of answers on this thread!

 

Reading is a major commuter town for London along with other towns along the same railway line. So although there are frequent trains, they will be very busy during morning and afternoon peaks. If you do stay there make sure you only get fast trains to London Paddington (either non-stop, or just one stop at Slough). There are stopping trains to Paddington and a service to Waterloo that takes for ever! You will already be losing valuable time each day commuting to London (how much depends on what exactly you mean by "in Reading", of course).

 

I can think of very little to commend Reading itself to a tourist, other than reasonable proximity to London & Heathrow, and train lines to the South West of England, but hopefully some of our Berkshire experts can help :)

As far as I know now it will just be my husband and me traveling. We are over 65 and I have a disabled plackard for my car which I wil take.

 

We will be using a time share and what will be available could be anwhere. Richt now I am saying Reading without knowing how far it is from London but it looks convenient. The others that might be available are in Carisbroke, Newport, Fishbourne and Osborne. I don't think I want to be that far from London for the week. The ship sails from Southampton but don't relly want to stay in that area.

 

These are just thoughts in the planning process for me. We plan to fly but don't know which arrival airport. We will probably just fly home directly after the cruise and get home exhausted. I want to do as much of the walking in London before the cruise. I may need to rent a scooter for all the walking in London.

 

I will be doing a lot of reading until we travel.

 

Thanks for all the information.

 

Norine

"Carisbroke, Newport, Fishbourne and Osborne are all on the Isle of Wight. It's very nice there but no good at all for visiting London as you have to get a ferry to the mainland first.

 

As said above, Reading has a good rail connection and in my opinion, 10:00 is quite early enough to start sightseeing. Of course there is no restriction on the return journey and the trains run to midnight, so dinner and a show would be easily possible.

 

As you have a week, you might like to consider some other, more relaxing, places to visit. There are frequent, direct trains to Bath or Portsmouth for example.

Thank you for the suggestions. I will have to see where Bath and Portsmouth are on my MapEasy London map. I need to find a good guide book without having to buy 2 or 3 to get the right one. A lot of our sight seeing depends on local transportatin and my energy level.

 

Norine

As Bob's post, those places on the Isle of Wight are delightful places to chill for a week, but no good for travel to London.

 

No direct trains from Reading to Portsmouth, but requires only one change.

This network map may help

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/css/OfficialNationalRailmaplarge.pdf

 

Reading is to the left (west) of London.

 

Yes, Reading is popular with London commuters due to the rail link, ditto other towns on direct rail links to London, and Reading or one of those towns at a similar distance from London could work for you.

I was thinking of the cost - say 5 unrestricted day-returns to London costing over £300 total, or 5 days arriving in London after 10am & costing about £177 - and how that might compare to the extra cost of accommodation in central London.

 

JB :)

Thanks for the transit map. My map that I have had the rail and tube routes for London only.

 

I still need to research air flights so will see if I can get info for June 2015 and hope they don't change much. We may have to fly to LA instead of going out of Phoenix. I don't know which airline is best for on time and luggage.

 

I also need to take into consideration the exchange rate for the dollar. With the time share it is only about $200 to $300 USD for the week. I am sure hotels in London will be expensive compared to our timeshare availability.

 

Norine

Thanks for the transit map. My map that I have had the rail and tube routes for London only.

 

I still need to research air flights so will see if I can get info for June 2015 and hope they don't change much. We may have to fly to LA instead of going out of Phoenix. I don't know which airline is best for on time and luggage.

 

I also need to take into consideration the exchange rate for the dollar. With the time share it is only about $200 to $300 USD for the week. I am sure hotels in London will be expensive compared to our timeshare availability.

 

Norine

 

Norine, you can fly into London Heathrow LHR or London Gatwick LGW. Both have good transport links with central London, and with Southampton for your flight home. And there's little else to choose between them either, though LHR would be easier for Reading - so choose flights which are best value / most convenient & don't worry too much whether they fly into LHR or LGW.

 

Errrr, yes. those timeshare prices are good value, even if you add those rail fares :)

 

JB :)

I always use Google Maps for this kind of thing. It is easy to zoom in and out, and you can get routes, either by car, bus or train.

 

BTW - if you are Downton Abbey fans, Highclere Castle (where it was filmed) is a short taxi ride from Newbury. It is open during the summer but you would need to check times dates closer to the visit.

Not a Downtown Abby fan so I don't know what your are talking about.

 

I will check out Google Maps when I have time.

 

Thanks for all the help from everyone. I have a regular life to get back to so probably will put my research on hole until after Christmas.

 

Thanks again.

 

Norine