British Isles

[meow!]

Has anyone been on the 12 day British Isles itinerary? Is it good? Are taxis readily available at the ports of call and do they charge a lot? Thank you.

[meow!]

One more question, if the disembarkation port is Amsterdam, the ship is supposed to arrive at 5 a.m. (I don't know when we can get out), is a flight leaving at 11 a.m. from Amsterdam airport back to U.S. too tight, or quite alright? Thanks again.

[katie26]

I have never done this cruise but live in edinburgh so any questions you think i can help with let me know

 

K

[Abby Ruth]

One more question, if the disembarkation port is Amsterdam, the ship is supposed to arrive at 5 a.m. (I don't know when we can get out), is a flight leaving at 11 a.m. from Amsterdam airport back to U.S. too tight, or quite alright? Thanks again.

 

We are on the Century cruise to Scotland and Ireland leaving Amsterdam May 29. Our flight home is at 11:00 a.m. and we decided to stay an extra day in Amsterdam and fly home the next day without worrying about getting off the ship and to the airport in time.

 

I think it's doable because if you tell them you have an early flight they'd probably give you an early disembarkation time. Also, the airport is only about a half hour from the cruise terminal. We didn't want to take the chance. Maybe it's because we had the experience of being on the QE2 over 9/11 and, not only did we end up at a different port than planned, but when we got there, the ship was denied permission to dock for several hours and we didn't disembark until about 6:00 p.m.

 

Now, that's extreme and we all pray nothing like that will ever happen again. But it's a crazy world and there can be delays for a lot of reasons and we felt we don't want the pressure of trying to make an 11:00 a.m. flight.

[meow!]

Thank you kindly for your reply. Finally, we took the cruise line's air and transfer. Presumably they will have to look after our catching the flight! Any idea about taxi availability and price at the ports of call?

[Abby Ruth]

Thank you kindly for your reply. Finally, we took the cruise line's air and transfer. Presumably they will have to look after our catching the flight! Any idea about taxi availability and price at the ports of call?

 

That sounds like the way to go. If the cruise line is willing to book that flight for you and provide transfer they must think they can get you there in time.

 

Here's a link to our roll call and a message my husband posted about all of our ports. There's some information about taxi availability in Edinburgh and a few of the other ports. You didn't say which ports you're interested in. It's on page 11, message 211.

[kitty9]

Personally, I think it's a big mistake to book flights at 11am for International passengers. You must be at the airport for international flights 3 hours before departure. The airport in Amsterdam is insanely busy, with very long lines for check in, security and your final Customs line. I would say if you're flying business or first, 11 might be OK, as they give priority to those first, but I really think you're going to push it with an international flight that early. I've been to Europe many times, and I usually make sure to have an afternoon flight or leave the next day. As a matter of fact, I'm doing two cruises in Europe this year, and for both, the only flight I can get back to Chicago is at 11:15, so I'm staying overnight for both trips because I know there's no way to make a flight at that time after disembarking from a cruise.

[kitty9]

Thank you kindly for your reply. Finally, we took the cruise line's air and transfer. Presumably they will have to look after our catching the flight! Any idea about taxi availability and price at the ports of call?

 

Are you looking for taxis for tours or just transportation? In my research for booking private tours in the UK for our cruise leaving next week, I've found that booking their taxis are the cheapest way to go. We have one in Invergordon that will run us 30GBP per hour. In Belfast, they wanted $1300USD for a 6 hour private car and driver---of course we said no to that one. We will also do a taxi tour in Belfast at the same per hour price. For Edinburgh, we're taking a ship's tour. We found the cost of private cars to be way to expensive and the 45 + minute drive from the port to the center of town would cost a lot via taxi.

[Abby Ruth]

Personally, I think it's a big mistake to book flights at 11am for International passengers. You must be at the airport for international flights 3 hours before departure. The airport in Amsterdam is insanely busy, with very long lines for check in, security and your final Customs line. I would say if you're flying business or first, 11 might be OK, as they give priority to those first, but I really think you're going to push it with an international flight that early. I've been to Europe many times, and I usually make sure to have an afternoon flight or leave the next day. As a matter of fact, I'm doing two cruises in Europe this year, and for both, the only flight I can get back to Chicago is at 11:15, so I'm staying overnight for both trips because I know there's no way to make a flight at that time after disembarking from a cruise.

 

Darcie,

 

In our case, the only flight on US Airways (which we wanted because we're still hoping to use FF points to upgrade to Envoy class) from Amsterdam to Philadelphia is about 11:00. It was 11:10, but we got a notice a few days ago that it's change to 10:55. So we made the same decision you did and are flying the next day. Now, if Celebrity says they'll get someone to the airport in time, I suppose it's their responsibility to come through for them. It's chancy, in my opinion.

[kitty9]

Abby, I'm in agreement with you. Just because the cruise line books the flights doesn't mean they can guarantee that you're going to make that flight. I disembarked a cruise in Southampton two summers ago when BA was doing one of their frequent job actions. No one made their flights. Another time there was an accident on the M1 and again, people with the early flights didn't make them. There's just too many things that can go wrong, especially when you're dealing with European airports.

[genmasjoy]

I called Celebrity with that question and they said if the flight is after 10:30 a.m., we should be able to make it. We are taking the US Air flight on the 29th at 10:55, so keep your fingers crossed for us. I did not want to take a chance of missing the cruise so we are flying in two days early, but in my experience when a cruise is over, I just want to get home.

[lucky white heather]

Remember over here in Scotland ( we know the REAL score as we live here!) petrol prices are (converted to US $) $9.62 for 1 (British) gallon which is a little more in litres than a US gallon would be.. a hefty price and if you want to tour in traffic THEN YOU ARE BURNING A LOT OF MONEY!

Diesel is even more expensive so keep in mind the taxi may not be ripping you off...just covering this expense and trying to make a living!

My husband was in the far north of Scotland this week...as far north as you can go...they have to tanker the stuff in....$10 a gallon is the going price.

 

We don't get it cheap...we still have to pay these prices over here every day.