Edinburgh - Royal Tattoo - Need to return to boat to take tour transportation for an excursion?

[riffcold]

Hi all,

 

I'm excited that the itinerary for my family's cruise this summer will benefit from extended time in Edinburgh in order to be able to catch a showing of the Royal Military Tattoo  I had a question--if 1 were already planning to spend time off the ship, is it required to return to the ship in order to take the bus/transportation provided by HAL? The ideal outcome would be to spend the day in Edinburgh, see the Tattoo, and then return on the HAL-provided transportation, but I can understand if that's not possible due to something like distributing tickets only once on-board the bus/coach. It would just mean another logistical piece to plan for.

 

Thanks,

riffcold

Edited May 30, 2023 by riffcold

[sahara1]

I returned so I would know where the pickup point was. Our ship was leaving shortly after and we didn't want to take a chance.

[OlsSalt]

There is a commuter train between the city and the tender port town - does  require a bit of an uphill or down hill hike to get to the tender port town train station. So you do have other options to get back to the ship. It was fairly cheap as I recall - worked perfectly once you find the trail up to the commuter train station. (Online blogs describe this option)

[Surfinsurfin]

So my experience from the Rotterdam was that we had to meet at the pier for the tour. I asked specifically if we could meet up at the tattoo and the shore excursion desk said no.

We met at 6pm shore side and got stickers with bus numbers. We went to Edinburgh city center and got off the bus, walked pretty fast uphill to the tattoo entrance. It was about 7pm by then and surprisingly we had some free time until the tattoo started. You make your own way to the seats at your own timing.  On the way back, you are to spot HAL staff holding laminated signs with a direction arrow and HAL logo telling you which way you are supposed to walk to the coach.  

[Ipeeinthepools]

2 hours ago, Surfinsurfin said:

So my experience from the Rotterdam was that we had to meet at the pier for the tour. I asked specifically if we could meet up at the tattoo and the shore excursion desk said no.

We met at 6pm shore side and got stickers with bus numbers. We went to Edinburgh city center and got off the bus, walked pretty fast uphill to the tattoo entrance. It was about 7pm by then and surprisingly we had some free time until the tattoo started. You make your own way to the seats at your own timing.  On the way back, you are to spot HAL staff holding laminated signs with a direction arrow and HAL logo telling you which way you are supposed to walk to the coach.  

What time did you get back on the ship?

[janmcn]

You really need to be able to find your bus…it’s beyond wild after the Tattoo. If we hadn’t known where the bus was it would have been difficult.

[Heidi13]

On 5/30/2023 at 7:21 AM, riffcold said:

Hi all,

 

I'm excited that the itinerary for my family's cruise this summer will benefit from extended time in Edinburgh in order to be able to catch a showing of the Royal Military Tattoo  I had a question--if 1 were already planning to spend time off the ship, is it required to return to the ship in order to take the bus/transportation provided by HAL? The ideal outcome would be to spend the day in Edinburgh, see the Tattoo, and then return on the HAL-provided transportation, but I can understand if that's not possible due to something like distributing tickets only once on-board the bus/coach. It would just mean another logistical piece to plan for.

 

Thanks,

riffcold

 

Unless your documentation specifies where the ship will dock/tender, you should be aware that Edinburgh has 4 potential options. Since it is unlikely the ship will fit within the entrance gates to Leith, you will be docked at Rosyth (close to Navy base), or anchored off South Queensferry or Newhaven.

 

Both Rosyth and South Queensferry are a fair commute into Edinburgh, by bus or train. Newhaven is adjacent to Leith and has city bus service available.

 

With respect to where to join your tour, I'll suggest the only option will be at the ship or tender dock. The Castle area is highly congested with a number of streets blocked off for the Tattoo. No bus access is permitted up to the Castle on Lawnmarket, with buses normally unloading on Johnston Terrace. You walk up the hill to the Tattoo entrance. Your chance of finding a bus dropping off HAL pax to join the tour is low.

 

At the end of the show the area is a sea of humanity, especially if you are leaving the first show, when they have 2 shows that evening. You would have no idea where and when to find your bus and getting back to Rosyth, South Queensferry or Newhaven would be a challenge.

 

The Tattoo is definitely worth it. If you have any option on seats, the best ones are in the shorter stand facing the Castle.

 

I know Edinburgh very well and have visited the Tattoo a number of times, but unless the ship was staying overnight, I would only use a cruise line shore-ex, even if it meant missing out on our preferred seats. The challenge of getting back to any of the ports are considerable. Even living in St Andrews, we always arranged for a mini-bus to drop us off on Johnston Terrace and pick us up after the show, rather than the train.

[newtocruiseinblue]

Just fyi if you are in south queensferry and decide to do it on your own…there are inexpensive shuttle busses right at the entrance of the dock that are super easy to find and cheap. We went last may

[BSinPNS]

There are busses (X99) just off the tender pier at South Queensferry that will take you to a drop point near the Scott Statue in Edinburgh.  There are two ticket options - transportation only and transportation plus hoho bus tour. On August 10, 2022, we took the combo ticket which ended up being $35 per person.  The busses stop running in the late afternoon.  I think the last bus arrived back at the ship around 1730.  We returned to the ship in mid-afternoon and went back to the tender pier to join the ship's tour to Tattoo.  As others have mentioned, HAL has an excellent process to get you to the Tattoo with lots of time to spare before the performance and get you back to ship expeditiously.  Not sure how we could have made it without using the ship's tour as we left just after the performance, walked almost a mile downhill to the bus and departed as soon as everyone was on board.  We got back to the ship about 0015 and the last tender was at 0030.  (Not concerned as we were on the ship's tour.)  They were using both a large commercial tender along with the ship's tenders.  I did not see any taxis as we were walking back to the bus.  The ship's tour was well done.  Although our tour indicated sideline seating, we were in the corner only one seating block away from the prime seats.   FYI, there are only a few restaurants and souvenir shops near the tender landing. 

[Surfinsurfin]

5 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

What time did you get back on the ship?

The last tender reached the ship 1:10am ish, back in our room at around 1:20am.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Surfinsurfin

[Surfinsurfin]

I forgot to post that they handed out the tattoo tickets in the bus for each person and we all pretty much sat in a block.  If you were with your group in the bus, you could sit together. 

[SueMo]

If the ship overnights for your tattoo performance, I highly recommend getting a hotel room for the night.  The purchase of two tattoo tickets, round trip train, and a hotel for us ended up being less expensive than the ship’s excursion and less stress than trying to find your bus/train late at night and standing in line for a return tender.

[Ipeeinthepools]

23 hours ago, Surfinsurfin said:

The last tender reached the ship 1:10am ish, back in our room at around 1:20am.

 

[Ipeeinthepools]

Thanks, I knew everyone could not make it back to the ship by 12:30 and I would have been a nervous wreck worrying about it.  You had the fastest way back to the ship on a ships tour and you didn’t make it before the published time.

[Nodakboiler]

Our tattoo tickets for this Friday are for the 6:30 show so we should be able to get back to the ship before 10 pm

[Ipeeinthepools]

I didn’t think so.  If you have a ship’s tour don’t worry, you’ll be fine, but it will probably be after 1:00 am before you get back to the ship.  If you don’t have a ship’s tour, good luck, I hope you have a good camera to get a picture of the ship leaving you.  Just kidding, but te challenge wil.be to find a find after the event.

[Ladybentley]

As suggested by SueMo above, think about staying in a hotel overnight. We did that a few years ago as did some others and found it much less stressful as well as costing no more. The ship’s tour is very expensive. We were able to buy better seats at the Tattoo than the ones very high up that those on the ships tour had. And it gave us much more time in Edinburgh. We took a bus into the city from the Queensferry pier on our first morning, taking a small overnight bag with us which we dropped off at the hotel. We’d bought a two-day HoHo bus ticket which we took up the Royal Mile late in the afternoon to get off near the restaurant where we’d booked dinner. After dinner it was a short stroll to the castle. Actually on our cruise HAL had a problem with the tenders which meant their tours were very late and they had to race up the hill to barely get into their seats before the Tattoo started. In fact, they missed the early part when the Scottish clans were welcomed onto the esplanade.

 

After the performance we joined the enormous crowds walking back down to our hotel. It meant we had lots of time to continue exploring the city the next day as we were up and about by 9am. That gave us time to go out to see the Britannia at Leith and do more of the HoHo tour before taking the bus back to the pier late afternoon. We felt we had a much better experience than spending so much time shuttling back and forth to the ship four times in two days.

[ontheweb]

We were not on HAL, but on Princess and docked in Rosyth. We bought our tickets online much cheaper than the shore excursion tickets. We also bought roundtrip tickets as was suggested for the train. Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the train station, the last train had already departed. We ended up taking a taxi back to the ship. No worry about getting there on time as we had an overnight.

[SueMo]

We booked two tattoo tickets and a hotel room independently for yesterday’s (Aug 18th) 9:30 pm performance, and had a great time.  We got the first tender off the ship at 1:45 (thank you, Club Orange) and walked 10 minutes to the Dalmeny train station.  The walk entails 135 steps, so this option isn’t for everyone.  The train trip is 12-13 minutes to Haymarket station, which was a 5 minute walk to our hotel.  We were checked into our hotel by 2:30 pm.  We have been to Edinburgh twice before, so instead of going to the Royal Mile we walked to Dean Village and the Royal Botanic Garden (beautiful, and free!). We ate a leisurely dinner at 7 pm, then headed to the Tattoo—great show.  It was an easy downhill walk to our hotel afterwards.  Today we boarded a returning train after breakfast and leisurely touring as we didn’t have to be back to South Queensferry until 6:30 pm.

The ship’s excursions all left yesterday at 3 pm and they saw the 6 pm show.  I can’t help but think it would have been a lesser experience as the lighting and fireworks displays on and over the castle would not be as effective in daylight.  They left immediately afterwards to go back to the ship to board tenders in the dark.  They paid about $350 pp for the seats and bus transportation (and this was the cheapest option!).  We paid 65 GBP per tattoo ticket by booking early, train tickets were about 7 GBP pp each way, and 305 GBP for a hotel that included breakfast.  For a couple, the cost is $700 vs 463 GBP (about $590.)

I know going on your own isn’t for everybody, but we thought we had the better deal and experience.

[I like vacation]

27 minutes ago, SueMo said:

We booked two tattoo tickets and a hotel room independently for yesterday’s (Aug 18th) 9:30 pm performance, and had a great time.  We got the first tender off the ship at 1:45 (thank you, Club Orange) and walked 10 minutes to the Dalmeny train station.  The walk entails 135 steps, so this option isn’t for everyone.  The train trip is 12-13 minutes to Haymarket station, which was a 5 minute walk to our hotel.  We were checked into our hotel by 2:30 pm.  We have been to Edinburgh twice before, so instead of going to the Royal Mile we walked to Dean Village and the Royal Botanic Garden (beautiful, and free!). We ate a leisurely dinner at 7 pm, then headed to the Tattoo—great show.  It was an easy downhill walk to our hotel afterwards.  Today we boarded a returning train after breakfast and leisurely touring as we didn’t have to be back to South Queensferry until 6:30 pm.

The ship’s excursions all left yesterday at 3 pm and they saw the 6 pm show.  I can’t help but think it would have been a lesser experience as the lighting and fireworks displays on and over the castle would not be as effective in daylight.  They left immediately afterwards to go back to the ship to board tenders in the dark.  They paid about $350 pp for the seats and bus transportation (and this was the cheapest option!).  We paid 65 GBP per tattoo ticket by booking early, train tickets were about 7 GBP pp each way, and 305 GBP for a hotel that included breakfast.  For a couple, the cost is $700 vs 463 GBP (about $590.)

I know going on your own isn’t for everybody, but we thought we had the better deal and experience.

We did the Tattoo last night and the HAL excursion for side stand seating was $269.95 pp.  Had a great time.

 

PS.  The winds picked up on our return tender ride giving us an added thrilling experience without additional cost.

Edited August 19, 2023 by I like vacation
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