Can you travel to Germany from England?

[flasaltwater63]

So we are doing the British Isle cruise in October of next year. We are staying an extra 3 days in London when we disembark in Southampton. Is it possible to take a train or get a flight to Berlin, then fly back to Florida from Berlin? Has anyone ever went to other countries post cruise? Any advice appreciated.

[Bob++]

I find this an odd question. Why would anyone not be able to travel from London to Berlin?

 

Train is a possibility, but involves a couple of changes and would take all day. There are a dozen direct flights a day. Any of the usual search engines will give you the details, but you need to be careful of baggage allowances, especially on the cut-price airlines. 

 

There is also a wide choice of flights from Berlin to Florida although you may have to look hard for a direct flight.

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Bob++

[Globaliser]

51 minutes ago, flasaltwater63 said:

Has anyone ever went to other countries post cruise?

 

Yes: I once did a Caribbean cruise, and then flew to Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Thailand on the way back to London.

[flasaltwater63]

45 minutes ago, Bob++ said:

I find this an odd question. Why would anyone not be able to travel from London to Berlin?

 

Train is a possibility, but involves a couple of changes and would take all day. There are a dozen direct flights a day. Any of the usual search engines will give you the details, but you need to be careful of baggage allowances, especially on the cut-price airlines. 

 

There is also a wide choice of flights from Berlin to Florida although you may have to look hard for a direct flight.

 

This is the answer I was looking for.  This will be our first European trip. I'm not experienced with border crossings for European travels. I think we'll fly we only have 3 days. Although,  I'm sure my husband would enjoy the train ride unfortunately, were on limited time. Thank you for the information. 

[Globaliser]

8 hours ago, flasaltwater63 said:

I think we'll fly we only have 3 days.

 

Your original post made it sound like you were going to do three days in London, and then go to Berlin before flying home.

 

If you only have three days in total, then my advice would be either to do London, or to skip London and go straight to Berlin for your three days. Even if you fly, the end-to-end journey from London to Berlin will soak up a good part of one of those three days. If you try to see both cities, you'll end up seeing neither.

 

Three days in Berlin would give you a reasonable taster of the city, which is why I would personally be relaxed about skipping London in this situation. You really need three months to see London properly.

[flasaltwater63]

2 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Your original post made it sound like you were going to do three days in London, and then go to Berlin before flying home.

 

If you only have three days in total, then my advice would be either to do London, or to skip London and go straight to Berlin for your three days. Even if you fly, the end-to-end journey from London to Berlin will soak up a good part of one of those three days. If you try to see both cities, you'll end up seeing neither.

 

Three days in Berlin would give you a reasonable taster of the city, which is why I would personally be relaxed about skipping London in this situation. You really need three months to see London properly.

My apologies for the confusion. Thanks for the information.

I'm planning to transfer to Heathrow from the cruiseship from there we will take a flight to Berlin stay for 3 days then fly home.

[gnome12]

3 hours ago, flasaltwater63 said:

My apologies for the confusion. Thanks for the information.

I'm planning to transfer to Heathrow from the cruiseship from there we will take a flight to Berlin stay for 3 days then fly home.

Why not see whether you can fly from Southampton to Berlin without going to Heathrow. 

[Globaliser]

28 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

Why not see whether you can fly from Southampton to Berlin without going to Heathrow. 

 

That's a pretty slim chance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southampton_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations

[Turtles06]

7 hours ago, Globaliser said:

Your original post made it sound like you were going to do three days in London, and then go to Berlin before flying home.

 

That's what it said. 

 

7 hours ago, Globaliser said:

If you only have three days in total, then my advice would be either to do London, or to skip London and go straight to Berlin for your three days.

 

Since the OP has never been to Europe before, I'd skip Berlin and spend the post-cruise time in London.

[Cotswold Eagle]

On 11/21/2022 at 12:46 AM, flasaltwater63 said:

 This will be our first European trip. I'm not experienced with border crossings for European travels. 

Regarding formalities, if you are US citizens you will not require a visa to visit Germany and your trip in October 2023 will be before the introduction of the ETIAS travel authorisation scheme, so it will be very easy. You will of course pass through an immigration and customs control on entry from the U.K. 
 

You could book your travel as an open-jaw ticket (US- London Berlin-US) and add a separate London-Berlin flight, which as mentioned are plentiful and usually quite cheap, or a multi-city trip taking in all the flights.  
 

I am tempted to ask “Why Berlin?”, but I recognise that people may have deeply personal reasons to visit. I find it an endlessly fascinating city, with some world class museums (and, I am told, amazing nightlife), but also in part gritty and challenging, particularly a lot of the 20th century history,  of course. But I doubt it would be near my top ten destinations for a first European trip, to be honest. 

[princeton123211]

18 hours ago, Cotswold Eagle said:

But I doubt it would be near my top ten destinations for a first European trip, to be honest. 

I had the same thought in my head-- if it's your first time to Europe and you're already near London that would be a vastly better spot to start than flying to Berlin (as much as I do enjoy Berlin). But for someone from the US, comparing London to Berlin is sort of like comparing New York City to Baltimore. 

 

Not to mention that flying from Berlin internationally is problematic and they'll have to stop through Frankfurt or Munich with Lufthansa or any number of other hubs with other carriers. 

[markeb]

I'm also curious as to why Berlin, but mostly because it's a big city to visit. Our only visit, years ago, was essentially three days, but we were exhausted! Is there something specific you want to see or do once you're there? 

 

You say it's your first trip to Europe. Do keep in mind that if you're flying from London to Berlin your luggage allowances will likely be very different than flying to or from the US. That includes the size and weight of your checked bag(s), and the size and weight of your carryon and/or personal item. If you book one ticket as Cotswold Eagle mentioned, you may "inherit" your allowances, but the overhead bin space won't get any bigger...

 

This is definitely possible, but at the end of a cruise with bags, it may not be simple!

[flasaltwater63]

On 11/21/2022 at 9:42 PM, Cotswold Eagle said:

Regarding formalities, if you are US citizens you will not require a visa to visit Germany and your trip in October 2023 will be before the introduction of the ETIAS travel authorisation scheme, so it will be very easy. You will of course pass through an immigration and customs control on entry from the U.K. 
 

You could book your travel as an open-jaw ticket (US- London Berlin-US) and add a separate London-Berlin flight, which as mentioned are plentiful and usually quite cheap, or a multi-city trip taking in all the flights.  
 

I am tempted to ask “Why Berlin?”, but I recognise that people may have deeply personal reasons to visit. I find it an endlessly fascinating city, with some world class museums (and, I am told, amazing nightlife), but also in part gritty and challenging, particularly a lot of the 20th century history,  of course. But I doubt it would be near my top ten destinations for a first European trip, to be honest. 

The trip to Berlin is for my husband. It's personal for him as his family had roots there.  I've been looking at tickets to fly from Heathrow once we disembark and they are quit cheap. However, the flight back home to Florida from Berlin is more expensive than if we would have done a round-trip from Heathrow. Were thinking about just flying over and from there fly home but we haven't made that decision as of yet. 

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, flasaltwater63 said:

I've been looking at tickets to fly from Heathrow once we disembark and they are quit cheap. However, the flight back home to Florida from Berlin is more expensive than if we would have done a round-trip from Heathrow.

 

Buying one-way long-haul tickets is usually very expensive, so the first thing is to check whether this is what you've been trying to price. There should be no need for this.

 

A Florida-London // Berlin-Florida open-jaw ticket should basically be priced as half of a Florida-London-Florida round-trip ticket plus half of a Florida-Berlin-Florida round-trip ticket. If an open-jaw ticket is what you've been looking for, then that suggests that Florida-Berlin-Florida tickets are significantly more expensive than Florida-London-Florida tickets.

 

In that case, you may want to think about a USA-London-USA round-trip ticket, plus a London-Berlin-London round-trip ticket. They'll be two separate tickets, so if you fly Berlin-London-USA you'll need to be aware of the pitfalls and risks of transferring between two separate tickets, but overall it should be reasonably straightforward.

[rsverdier]

As far as I can see there are no direct flights from SOU to BER but you could do it in 3h15 with a transfer in Amsterdam, for appr € 150 p.p.

 

https://www.chaser.nl/zoekresultaten?uq=PmeaK2l07g7AR6i0oYoS&tt=Enkel&na=2&nc=0&ni=0&dd=2023-10-20&ori=Southampton (SOU)&des=Berlijn Brandenburg (BER)

[fruitmachine]

If you're still thinking of Berlin on the train, this was in yesterday's papers: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/sleeper-train-london-berlin-b2256709.html