Heathrow to Brugge

We are departing on a Baltic Cruise July 2 from Southampton. Due to work commitments we have to take a flight that arrives on the 2nd at 9:30 and we have car arranged to pick us up. I want to be prepared in the event of a major delay thus wondering the best options to get from Heathrow to Bruges considering anything I do will be last minute.

Thank you for any assistance.

I am a bit of a loss to answer this. Bruges doesn't have an airport, the nearest is at Ostend. If this is where your cruise is going, it will probably dock at Zeebrugge.

A 9:30 arrival with a car booked, should be ok with a couple of wriggle room, barring problems. Fingers crossed.

If I'm reading your post right, you are scheduled to land at Heathrow at 9.30am, where you've fixed for a private transfer to drive you to Southampton to catch your ship.

Your ship's first port of call is Brugge (the port is actually Zeebrugge, about 12km from Brugge), and in case of a major flight delay you want a Plan B to get you from Heathrow to Zeebrugge to catch up with your ship ?

Firstly, stax of folk fly in on sailing day.

And folk living in and beyond drive down to Southampton on sailing day.

So the prospects of missing your sailing are pretty slim.

Especially as July 2nd is a sunday, when traffic will be light..

I can't be sure exactly the latest registration time for your ship, but on a sunday you should be OK if you're driving out of Heathrow by about 2pm.

So if your flight was anything up to about 3 hours late you should be OK.

There are a number of flights from Heathrow to Brussels airport (code BRU), which I think is the closest to Zeebrugge with decent flight schedules.

Or Schipol Amsterdam (code AMS) is only a (2.5 hour?) direct train ride from Brussels (station is in the airport).

So you could fly to Brussels or Amsterdam, overnite there, and take the train (Amsterdam to Brussels to Blankenberge, or just Brussels to Blankenberge), then a 3-mile taxi ride from Blankenberge station to your ship.

Or into central London to St Pancras station for the Eurostar train direct to Brussels.

The train from Brussels to Blankenberge is hourly, you'll need it with any of those options. Be sure to get in the correct half of the train, it splits in two at Brugge & only half of it goes to Blankenberge.

Any of these options would get you to Zeebrugge in good time.

The krunch will be the cost - you'd likely be paying top-dollar for a late-late-late-booked flight or Eurostar train.

But any port in a Plan B. ;)

JB :)