Red Fox

SW Trains are the operators of most of your potential routes, but some are operated by Southern Trains.

First Great Western are the best ones to use for Southampton to Portsmouth. FGW services go to Portsmouth Harbour and only stop at Fareham, Cosham, Fratton and Portsmouth & Southsea on the way. Very few South West Trains services from Southampton Central go beyond Portsmouth & Southsea station and they stop everywhere taking around 20mins more.

Partial apology for the above.

 

I have just visited the South West trains site and they have also offered me the £25.00 deal. So they have offered the same deal, but clearly no commission on the Trainline deal.

 

Only partial apology as, with Trainline, I did NOT need to know the name of the operating company and the price was the same

I would never use the Trainline. Any train operating company would have been able to give you that price and East Coast would have given you a small discount as it uses one of there services.

National Rail Enquiries would have given you a choice of operating companies and booking agents like Trainline to book with.

PS Your ticket should have included a transfer by London Underground between Waterloo and Kings Cross, should be a † in the route information part of the ticket to indicate it is valid for an Underground transfer.

Found out from another passenger onboard that documentation being given in English from MSC said the ship would depart from Cruise Centre HafenCity whereas documentation for German passengers said Altona.

The morning of departure I checked on an AIS ships position website which showed her berthed at Altona, good job I checked otherwise that would have been a wasted taxi ride to HafenCity!

Also staff onboard did not know which terminal the ship would use in Southampton, one claiming it was because it was the ships first visit?!?

Organisation doesn't seem to be a strength of MSC!

There is only one train operator between London Waterloo and Southampton Central and that is South West Trains. Tickets on their service can be booked on their own website, any other mainland UK train operating company, National Rail Enquiries and a variety of other booking companies.

You alternative is to travel from London Victoria with Southern but that will take longer.

My personal preference is to book direct with the train operator itself or one of the other Train Operating Companies as they don't normally charge booking fees and may have special offers (e.g. South West Trains were offering return tickets anywhere on there network for £15 return last month and this month they are offering 25% off of off-peak travel on Friday, Saturday and Sunday until the 28th).

John Bull on early post several months ago suggested to me the cheapest way to the Cruise Terminal is the UNI Bus. Checked that out and that looks very good. Like going through the different neighborhoods of Southampton.

Personally I'd spend the extra £1.50 and get the train which can take only 7mins verses almost 45mins on the Uni-Link bus and get a taxi from the station direct to the terminal or City-Link bus to the same place Uni-Link go and walk from there.

If we get up early on that Sunday, ride down near the Cruise Terminal, drop my wife off with the bags, are any McDonalds, Starbucks or any of those types of establishments within walking distance of the Cruise Terminal for her to wait with the bags when I travel back to the airport and return the car?

West Quay Shopping Centre opens at 1100 on Sundays, lots of places to sit in there. There is a McDonalds in West Quay Retail Park, it is open 24hrs.

Final question, since we will be getting into Southampton early the next day before the cruise, in case the Holiday Inn Exp I am staying at near the airport does not have a coin operated washer and dryer, any laundry-mats near the Southampton Airport?.

Which Holiday Inn Express is it? Is it the one they describe as M27 Jct 7?

The word you are looking for in the UK is laundrette (or launderette). I'm pretty sure there is one in Swaythling on the junction of Stoneham Way and Stoneham Lane which is a 5min drive from the airport but I'm not 100% certain if it is still there. It's not that close to the Holiday Inn though (15min drive?)

Thanks. Did you have a particular reason to draw my attention to the Baker Street station? I'm not being critical. I'm just trying to figure out how I might use this information since it doesn't appear to be the answer to either question I asked.

You first question wasn't at all clear as you didn't give station names so I covered both the zone 1 options for changing on to the Jubilee line from Circle and District.

Westminster station has interchange between District, Circle and Jubilee Lines.

Baker Street has interchange between Circle and Jubilee.

The route planner on the tram website for a random date in November seems to show the trams running every 20mins from Zeebrugge to De Haan.

The Coastal Tram runs year round.

The confusion may be coming from the SNCB railway stations as there are two. Zeebrugge-Strand which is right by the beach and Zeebrugge-Dorp nearer the village centre. When you go trains will probably be running from Zeebrugge-Dorp. During the summer trains go to Zeebrugge-Strand. Timetable from SNCB is here (in French and opens a PDF file), Brugge-Zeebrugge times are down the bottom of each page.

No, it's what I would do even if London weren't home. Wherever I was, I would find a train like that a slow and frustrating experience, given that there's a more efficient alternative.

I fully agree. South West Trains services take between 1hr 20mins and 1hr 40mins from London Waterloo. Southern take 2hrs 30mins.

Southern come with the added irritation of the train splitting en-route so you have to be in the right portion or you'll end up in Bognor Regis and the trains are even less suited for people with luggage then the white South West Trains units.

There is an hourly train service from Southampton Central to Portsmouth Harbour, right next to The Historic Dockyard. Takes about 50mins. Day return is £10.80 per adult.

National Express run from Southampton Coach Station to The Hard, journey time 50mins and prices variable

First Hampshire & Dorset run a bus service from Southampton City Centre to The Hard and take about 1.5hrs, fare ??? First bus fares work in mysterious ways.

Chunnel isn't a very commonly used word.

I take it you actually want to know about the Eurostar which is the train from London to Paris via The Channel Tunnel?

If you don't have a great deal of luggage I would get a South West Trains service from Southampton Central to London Waterloo then get on a Bakerloo Line Underground train to Oxford Circus, change to the Victoria Line to Kings Cross St Pancras. St Pancras is the London terminal of the Eurostar.

If you have a car and are planning on the using the Shuttle then take the M3, M25 then M20 and your there.

The direct train is called Heathrow Express and the stopping service is called Heathrow Connect. I've seen HEX used as an abbreviation for Heathrow Express but most people probably wouldn't know what you are on about.

Paddington is the London terminal for Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect and is only just in Zone 1. It is a Tube/Bus/Taxi ride from Waterloo. You can get the Bakerloo Underground line from Paddington to Waterloo but it is one of the older lines so there will be some stairs.

But, let's say we're running early - could we just jump on the 11:39 and be OK? Would they throw us off the train? Maybe plead "dumb tourist" that doesn't know any better?

Don't think so, South West Trains are very hot on 'revenue protection' at the moment and being quite strict about tickets. I doubt you would get passed the ticket barrier at Waterloo with a ticket for a later train. If you do get on the train then the guard will either turn a blind eye or charge you for a full price single. Revenue Protection Officers will probably charge you a full single.