National Express Coach London-Heathrow

We found National Express Coach service the easiest and cheapest way to reach our cruise port of Southampton. I'm still hesitating to book our tickets, though, because there are two departures only, at 9.30 and 11.30 a.m. Our plane ( international flight) will arrive at 8.40 - enough time to catch the first available coach at 9.30 a.m. or am I too optimistic?? :confused:

The later one will give us more of a waiting time at the airport and less time in the afternoon at Southampton which I'd like to avoid. But just 45 minutes including walking to the Bus Station - it usually is no problem for example in Frankfurt airport, but I don't know enough about Heathrow - help needed! Thank you.

personally I would take the later one ;)

I find the planes might not land on time then you have a long walk to baggage claim maybe a long wait for them to off load the luggage

 

I would go have a bite to eat, relax & take the 11:30 bus but that is me

Our plane ( international flight) will arrive at 8.40 - enough time to catch the first available coach at 9.30 a.m. ... ?

Virtually no chance, sorry. Depending on what immigration is like, you might not even have reached the baggage belt by 9.30 am.

Although many early-morning transatlantic flights arrive early, I too think there's a strong chance you'd miss the bus. There's a 5-10 min walk to the bus station if you land at T1/2/3, but T4 & T5 are on the other side of the airport and Nat Express pick up at the concourses right outside those terminals.

Do you know your Heathrow terminal? If it's T4 the bus departs at 9.45, for T5 it departs 10.00

 

If you want to live in hope, you can buy the earlier ticket, then if necessary trade it for a later bus, subject to an admin fee (about £5?). This concession only at airports, because of late flights or formalities delays.

 

Cruiseline buses are called forward as needed, sweep the terminals & carry on to Southampton. Poor value (though different cruise lines charge vastly different fare) but much more flexible on timing.

Ditto the trains, but from Heathrow that involves a RailAir bus to a mainline station so the usual speed advantage of the train is negated, average total travelling time is around 2 hours, same as Nat Express, and fares around £40 pp.

 

JB :)

Edited April 17, 2014 by John Bull

The OP is from Germany, so hopefully immigration won't be to bad.

The OP is from Germany, so hopefully immigration won't be to bad.

The UK/EU/EEA immigration queues can be very slow on a bad day. I wouldn't want to count on them being fast. In any event, baggage delivery can't be relied on to be fast, either. The OP would only have 50 minutes from scheduled time of arrival (gate arrival time) to bus departure time, and there's potentially a lot of walking between the two in addition to the formalities.

 

It would be different if the OP were arriving at London City Airport ...

Thank you for all your answers - it's what I had expected if I'm honest. It's a Friday , too, so the airport might be congested with lots of traffic and possible delays even at Frankfurt. So we'll book the later coach and IF everything goes in a perfect way we can always try to re-book for the earlier one. But it really was a bad idea and much too stressful for the beginning of what I'm sure will be another lovely cruise.

But your answers helped a lot for dithering ME...