Getting off one ship and onto another

Hi everybody, I have a question I hope someone can answer. I will be arriving at Southampton on the Celebrity Edge on May 13, 2019 and will be boarding the P&O Aurora on the same day. How close are the docks for each ship? Will we need to catch a cab from Celebrity to P&O? This will be my first time on both ships and first time crossing the pond. Any info will be greatly appreciated. I am really out of my comfort zone. Thanks.

Hi everybody, I have a question I hope someone can answer. I will be arriving at Southampton on the Celebrity Edge on May 13, 2019 and will be boarding the P&O Aurora on the same day. How close are the docks for each ship? Will we need to catch a cab from Celebrity to P&O? This will be my first time on both ships and first time crossing the pond. Any info will be greatly appreciated. I am really out of my comfort zone. Thanks.

Short answer will be you will need a taxi to get from one ship to another. Its a working port ,you would not be able to wander through it. They are fairly close together. Bigger problem is Celebrity will kick you off very early and you will not be able to board Aurora until hours later. The case drop off for Aurora will not open until 11.30 am..your boarding time unless you are in a suite of high tier loyalty with Pando will be after 12 midday.

So what can you do in the meantime. I think your best bet by far is to book yourself into the Grand Harbour hotel cruise lounge. You can go there, and they will take you to your next terminal nearer your boarding time. There is a cost , but you will not be kicking your heels with all your luggage.

Short answer will be you will need a taxi to get from one ship to another. Its a working port ,you would not be able to wander through it. They are fairly close together. Bigger problem is Celebrity will kick you off very early and you will not be able to board Aurora until hours later. The case drop off for Aurora will not open until 11.30 am..your boarding time unless you are in a suite of high tier loyalty with Pando will be after 12 midday.

So what can you do in the meantime. I think your best bet by far is to book yourself into the Grand Harbour hotel cruise lounge. You can go there, and they will take you to your next terminal nearer your boarding time. There is a cost , but you will not be kicking your heels with all your luggage.

Thank you english lady for the reply. You have helped me a lot by walking me through some of my questions. Your answers are really appreciated. Just to clarify, do I book the Grand Harbour for a night or does the hotel have a lounge I can book for a few hrs. to hang out till I can board the Aurora?

Thank you english lady for the reply. You have helped me a lot by walking me through some of my questions. Your answers are really appreciated. Just to clarify, do I book the Grand Harbour for a night or does the hotel have a lounge I can book for a few hrs. to hang out till I can board the Aurora?

We where there a year or so ago and they offer a package where they store your bags for you and give you breakfast, a beer if you want one , a lounge to spend time in and a transfer to your cruise ship for about 25 pounds. A taxi from your ship to grand harbour was about 8 pounds. Hope this helps .

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Thank you english lady for the reply. You have helped me a lot by walking me through some of my questions. Your answers are really appreciated. Just to clarify, do I book the Grand Harbour for a night or does the hotel have a lounge I can book for a few hrs. to hang out till I can board the Aurora?

If you want to stay in Cruise Lounge at Grand Harbour it is available from 7am until 7pm and includes light refreshments (not full breakfast) use of hotel facilities and then arrange your transfer at a pre arranged time to the cruise terminal and costs from £30pp.

Celebrity don’t kick you off that early- you can stay on P&O a bit later but I am sure you can stay on Celebrity until about 9.30

We came off at 9am on our September Eclipse cruise but there were later slots

Celebrity don’t kick you off that early- you can stay on P&O a bit later but I am sure you can stay on Celebrity until about 9.30

We came off at 9am on our September Eclipse cruise but there were later slots

That is correct, you can probably stay on board until 10:00 -10:30, by which time you should be able to leave your luggage at Aurora's terminal which will leave you hands free to spend some time in Southampton without the need to use a hotel.

There are lots if stores in the West Quay area if you fancy some retail therapy, or check out the Southampton tourist info page to see if there us anything that you fancy.

Personally, if it were me I should pre-book the relevant number of non-alcoholic (cheaper) cruise lounge places for your party and check the tariff includes transfers to the new ship. Phoning them and following this with emails is prudent. The other part is getting a taxi from the first ship to the Grand Harbour Hotel. This could be done by pre-booking a taxi or getting one from the rank just off the ship.

Grand Hotel concierge personally do the transfer, and do not use taxis. You pick a 15 minute slot from their diary. This plan should give you an opportunity to walk into the shopping centre for a day there you could spend as little or long as you want in town then sit in the cruise lounge (the hotel's business conference room) with nibbles and drinks.

I have personally used the "Cruise Lounge" and you can be a complete non-resident, a hotel guest or a guest from another hotel it makes no difference to the Grand.

Regards John

Thanks everybody for sharing your knowledge with me on some of the options available to me. I will explore all options. So now for another question. If I find that I can stay on Celebrity Edge till 10:30, by the time I get off it will probably be 11:00 or so. Would there be cabs or shuttles available when I get off the ship that could take me to the Aurora? Thanks again.

Thanks everybody for sharing your knowledge with me on some of the options available to me. I will explore all options. So now for another question. If I find that I can stay on Celebrity Edge till 10:30, by the time I get off it will probably be 11:00 or so. Would there be cabs or shuttles available when I get off the ship that could take me to the Aurora? Thanks again.

There is a taxi rank at the terminal and plenty of taxis turn up knowing ships are disembarking. Obviously the supply of customers diminishes as time goes by.

West Quay Cars - Southampton is a good local reliable service I have used today. If you phone 02380 999 999 you can get a mini-cab which are generally cheaper than Hackneys. You could do this around the time you are in the luggage hall or wait until you have exited and see the rank situation. I recommend collaring a porter before or in the luggage hall so you can focus on taxi arrangements using your mobile phone while your porter lugs stuff around. When I phoned West Quay Cars they confirmed to me to go to lane 3. so I knew where to tell the porter to head for, and the taxi driver texted me to confirm his arrival when that had happened and a description of his car and registration number. Mini-cabs or Private Hire only take pre-booked passengers and cannot do rank pick-ups but are cheaper generally.

Regards John

Yes if you're able to stay on Celebrity till 10:30 you will be able to go straight over to drop your luggage off for Aurora. However P&O has a set boarding time. You will find out which time you've been allocated on your-e-ticket 5 weeks before the cruise via your Cruise Personaliser. Check-in for priority passengers starts after 11 so you might be able to get on from maybe 12 - luck of the draw because some people turn up early and get on straight away while others have a very long wait. Grand Harbour is a very good idea though as it is more convivial than the terminal if you have to leave your cabin early. We cruised with passengers from the US and Oz recently and they found P&O very different but enjoyable