gumshoe958

IF it happens you can rest assured they will take the opportunity to “enhance” the benefits. And not in a good way.

Apart from a fairly grim Travelodge there’s nothing really close to the terminal. Best to stay in the city centre or Gunwharf Quays area and get a cab to the port. There’s a Holiday Inn Express at Gunwharf Quays (which is an outlet shopping mall with lots of restaurants) which is easily walkable from Portsmouth Harbour station if you’re getting there by train. Also a Premier Inn and a cluster of independent hotels near the station.

Depends on your budget. Most efficient would be a private transfer but that would cost somewhere between £150-200. The train would be cheaper if booked in advance but you’d need to haul your luggage on and off and there’s no dedicated space for it. Or there’s the National Express coach from Victoria which runs hourly and is probably easier with luggage but is slower.

Oasis class ships all have a Broadway musical (except Wonder which has the in-house production Effectors 2), a second production show, an ice show and an Aqua Theater show. The shows are different on each ship.

Really? Every bar had mint leaves on the TA last week. Maybe I had them all!

Be aware that although Eurostar (not eurotrain) international trains do leave from St Pancras, they do NOT go to Dover so ignore all the signs for Eurostar inside the station. What you need is the Southeastern High Speed train which leaves from platforms 11, 12 and 13.

Just the normal ones for embarking but special ones for disembarking. Plus when you first embark, at the drop-off point for Key hand baggage they’ll tag anything you want delivered to your cabin.

Was this on the current Jewel TA?

Yes. Correct.

Traffic should be quiet on a Sunday morning, although the M25 London orbital motorway is notorious for delays even at off-peak times. A private transfer would be safest - I wouldn’t rely on cruise line shuttle buses getting you there in time unless they specifically tell you otherwise. I doubt they’d run buses any earlier than 7, potentially even 8. A bus leaving at 7 would be fine, 8 would make me nervous. All being well it’s about a 2 hour drive so as long as you’re on the road not long after 7.30 you should be fine. You may want to carry your own luggage off the ship to speed things up.

Reservations should open on or shortly after October 1st.

Cruise lines rarely publish information about port shuttle buses in advance. They’d rather you remain blissfully unaware that there are cheap, simple alternatives to their horrendously overpriced shore excursions and seem to go out of their way to conceal their existence until the very last minute. But in ports where the nearest town isn’t easily walkable there will always be alternative, cheaper options. Unfortunately the details will often be buried away in small print in the ship’s daily information sheet, and only provided the night before you arrive making planning a challenge.

Yes, the train would be easiest but as you’ve discovered there’s no direct service from Southampton to Liverpool. The simplest route, which takes 5 hours, involves one change of train at Birmingham New Street or Stafford. It’s an hourly service and pre-booking is advised. Otherwise you have to go via London which involves getting from Waterloo to Euston stations by tube or cab, which is marginally quicker but a bit of a pain. If you’re looking up times and tickets, the stations you want are Southampton Central and Liverpool Lime Street (not Liverpool Central).

You only have yourself to blame. You could have easily avoided being ripped off with 5 minutes of planning before you arrived.

I believe shuttle buses to Blankenberge are organised by the cruise lines. There are no direct trains between Zeebrugge and Blankenberge, they are on completely separate lines. The coastal tram should be running though, unless there’s engineering work or something.

This. Anyone who paid €400 for a transfer to FCO only has themselves to blame for not doing any proper research beforehand. There are numerous transportation options - shuttles, trains, cabs - none of which cost anywhere near €400. If only there was an online forum where cruisers could seek advice first …

Cheapest - National Express coach direct from Heathrow to Southampton. Runs every couple of hours from Heathrow central bus station which is a 5-10 minute walk from T3 via underground tunnels with moving walkways. Then a short cab ride at the Southampton end. Simplest - private car transfer, door to door. Not cheap though, it’s at least a 90 minute drive.

One of the highlights of last year’s Wonder TA was a music festival, where every musician on the ship played a short set in the Aqua Theatre. Lasted about 4 hours, great idea. I’m also on the Jewel TA right now and there are two daily lectures on sea days including a very informative one on the next port of call. Otherwise it’s pretty much the normal Royal sea day fare as @ReneeFLLsays - trivia, bingo, game shows, movies, dance classes etc. There’s a guest choir and a flash mob type event. And yes, the bigger the ship obviously the more there is to do. But the overwhelming majority of TA guests are seasoned cruisers and many bring their own activities - games, crafts etc. You quickly settle into a routine and it’s a very relaxing way to spend a fortnight.

Premier Inns are all pretty much identical. If you were ok with one at Heathrow, expect much of a muchness in Southampton. Not many frills but consistently clean and comfortable with reliable food & drink options.

You can’t walk it as pedestrians aren’t allowed in the tunnel that leads out of the central terminal area. So your options are taxi, Uber/Bolt, public bus (routes 105 or 111 run frequently from the central bus station to a stop next to the hotel) or the overpriced and infrequent Hotel Hoppa buses from T2 or T3 arrivals direct to the hotel. Technically a taxi can refuse to take you - drivers don’t like short hops as it means they miss out on a potentially lucrative fare into central London. In practice you’d be unlucky if that happened and should be ok.

Heathrow, annoyingly, is on a separate spur off the main Reading to London line with no direct access from the Reading direction. So from Reading you’d need to get off the Elizabeth line train at Hayes & Harlington and transfer there to a Heathrow train. Alternatively, there’s a direct bus service branded Railair which leaves from just outside Reading station every 30 minutes and takes between 40 minutes and an hour, depending on your terminal at LHR - so about the same as the train.

Further - just over a mile so a 20-25 minute walk.

Yes and yes. It takes between two and three hours to get to the locks at IJmuiden, depending on whether the ship has to turn around after leaving the terminal (some turn around in the morning as they arrive, others in the evening as they leave).

The Ibis Budget, together with the Ibis and Novotel on the same site, are the closest hotels to the Horizon terminal that NCL uses. Easily walkable in less than 10 minutes.

How are you getting to the airport? If by taxi or private transfer, as long as you’re on the road by 8 you’ll be fine. But if by National Express coach or cruise line shuttle bus, that’s too early for comfort and I’d call NCL and ask for a later flight.