Southampton or Somewhere Else?

[DCParky]

Greetings-

 

I have just booked on the Caribbean Princess sailing for the British Isles leaving on July 7, 2016. I plan on arriving in Britain on July 4th and have 3 nights there before the cruise departs.

 

I don't plan on spending any time in London, as I have been there several times. Do you have any suggestions of where I should stay for those three nights? Is Southampton the best choice, or would you recommend someplace else and just travel to Southampton the morning of the sailing?

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

[John Bull]

Southampton is a port city. It has a few little gems that can keep you occupied for a busy half-day (the morning of your sailing?) or a lazy day, but it's not a tourist city.

 

It does however have the big advantage of being a railway junction with trains in four or five directions and some super places to visit each day cheaply & quickly by train.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

in most cases the cost of a same-day return is about the same as a one-way fare.

For instance:

Winchester in 15 minutes (historic city & ancient cathedral),

Portsmouth in 40 minutes (historic dockyard & ships, Solent waterfront, D-Day museum, Spinnaker Tower),

Salisbury in 30 mins (magnificent cathedral, laid-back historic city centre, ho-ho buses to Stonehenge),

Bath in 60 minutes (very popular tourist destination with fine Georgian buildings, Roman baths, etc),

Dorchester (market town) or Weymouth (Victorian sea-side resort) in an hour.

All those places & more by frequent & direct trains.

Or with one simple change of train, Lymington (yachting town) or Chichester (up-market cathedral town) or Arundel (castle & cathedral), or the bohemian kiss-me-quick seaside resort of Brighton, and a stack of other places

 

Or ferries to the Isle of Wight 30 to 60 minutes (Queen Victoria's Osborne House, Carisbrooke Castle, ho-ho tours including Godhill, Shanklin, Tennyson Down,The Needles, etc.)

Or the little Hythe Ferry 10 minutes across Southampton Water and onward by beach bus or taxi to Beaulieu

Or bus to Lyndhurst, self-styled capital of the New Forest, to pick up a New Forest Tour ho-ho.

 

Renting a car opens your horizons to places which are difficult or impossible by public transport. Mainly west, places like Corfe Castle, Lulworth Cove & Durdle Door & other parts of the Jurassic coast, combined with the downs & villages of Dorset, or north-west to places like spooky Glastonbury, Wells & the Cheddar Gorge. And the New Forest is better-explored by car than by ho-hos which can't take to the little lanes.

 

Any of these places are doable in a day from Southampton, some can be combined in a single day - especially with the flexibility of a car.

 

A great variety of days out, but the convenience of staying at just the one hotel, and the range of hotels, pubs, restaurants, shops etc of a major city with a conveniently compact city centre. And handy to your ship.

You could do a lot worse than base yourselves in Southampton.

 

With three nights you could choose an entirely different part of the country. But you need either a city worthy of 2/3 days, or a city with the same excellent public transport links as Southampton or to rent a car to see some of the countryside.

For example a base in Bath or Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon or Oxford with a rental car or a van tour of the Cotswolds, which broadly lie between those three places. Bath or Oxford are easy by direct train to Southampton, from Stratford-upon-Avon it's a little more complicated.

 

Here's a few threads which give more info & suggestions (ignore the red highlighting, which I used to narrow the search).

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/search.php?searchid=80878323

More by pumping another of those place-names into the "search this forum" facility on the Britain forum.

 

Google those places, narrow-down your choice, and we can provide extra info and hotel / car rental suggestions

 

JB :)

[4774Papa]

We can't give you more than John Bull's fantastic post, but we spent three days post cruise doing Salisbury, Stonehenge, Avebury and Windsor Castle (actually did in two days).

 

One of the copies of the Magna Carta is located in Salisbury Cathedral. That is the Cathedral featured in Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth."

[John Bull]

Ooops, I have no idea what happened to that threads link.

Try this one

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/search.php?searchid=80880686

 

JB :)

Edited January 14, 2016 by John Bull

[Cotswold Eagle]

Even allowing for Mr Bull's natural bias, he makes a compelling case for basing yourself in Southampton :)

 

Naturally, I would suggest if you are thinking of touring instead, do an arc with Oxford, the Cotswolds, Bath/Salisbury etc before Southampton, as JB alluded too. That is much, much easier driving yourself or being driven, though. So that's probably a fundamental decision to make.

[DCParky]

Thank you all for the great suggestions! This really does help focus my thinking

[John Bull]

Even allowing for Mr Bull's natural bias, he makes a compelling case for basing yourself in Southampton :)

 

Naturally, I would suggest if you are thinking of touring instead, do an arc with Oxford, the Cotswolds, Bath/Salisbury etc before Southampton, as JB alluded too. That is much, much easier driving yourself or being driven, though. So that's probably a fundamental decision to make.

 

I was aware of an Eagle lurking on this forum :p

But that's not the only reason I suggested the Cotswolds - it's lovely countryside :)

However yes, the Cotswolds - like the West Country - do need a car or at the very least a well-planned van tour or two. And perhaps two or even three different overnite hotels such as Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath.

 

Driving those parts is nothing like driving in the big bad capital city :eek:.

 

JB :)

Edited January 14, 2016 by John Bull