Dock in Greenock: Glasgow or Edinburgh

[KKB]

We have 10 hours in port.

Glasgow is an hour away.

Edinburgh is 2 hours away.

Should I just go to Glasgow & see the sites? Looks like we would have 4 hours there?

Or take an Edinburgh tour--9 hours?

The "Edinburgh on you own" time is screwy for the excursion, would rather take the tour--it says you will have 4 hours there, but the total tour time says 6 hours, so THAT doesn't add up...

[fruitmachine]

There is much more to see in Edinburgh, but that timing issue needs to be resolved to give you an informed opinion.  

[freaky_82]

I would recommend not staying in Greenock. We wanted to that, at the port they presented us with a map for a walking tour. We finished the tour in about an hour and were on our way back to the ship ( we never go back to the ship early)

We saw the taxi stand and inquired about Loch Lomond. We ended up taking an 4-5 hour tour to see some Lochs and even Inveraray castle (outside and inside) It was our favorite excursion on our British Isle cruise. If I remember correctly it was 60£ for an hour of taxi use.

 

Next time we will go to Glasgow, either by taxi or train. Greenock is very small and walkable, and the train station is close to the port. 

[Flycat]

From Greenock both are doable by train but you would obviously have more time to explore Glasgow. I don’t think you can go direct from Greenock to Edinburgh and would have to change trains in Glasgow to get to Edinburgh. We have done this stop twice (in 2021) one being overnight which obviously gives more options. The first time we didn’t have a lot of time but got the train to Glasgow and did the HOHO bus tour which was excellent. The next time we went to Balloch for Loch Lomond via Glasgow on the train and did a boat trip on the loch once there.  The next day we again headed to Glasgow and did a tour of the West End - university area, Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, etc - using the metro system affectionately known as the clockwork orange! If you plan to do something independently there are various options once you get to Glasgow. By the way, there are 2 train stations in Glasgow. The train from Greenock stops at Central but you might need to go to Queen Street if you want to go farther away including Edinburgh but they are only about a 10 minute walk apart.

[Scottishclover]

Just to confirm the above - there is no direct train Greenock to Edinburgh. You would need to get off at Glasgow Central and walk to Queen Street for the train to Edinburgh. Trains between Glasgow and Edinburgh are very frequent. Also busses every 15 mins between Buchanan Bus Station in Glasgow and the main bus station in Edinburgh.