Globaliser

In the UK, it's harder to find a place that won't accept a card than a place that won't accept cash. Many of us routinely don't carry cash any more. In London, even vans and market stalls will almost universally accept cards. Even buskers (street musicians) often have contactless card terminals because so many people don't carry cash!

This is rather a Mark Twain story. Even some announced retirement plans have been reversed. For example, see https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2022/06/28/airbus-a380-shocker-lufthansa-brings-back-permanently-decommissioned-jumbo-jets/ (just a couple of months after this apparently-terminal reiteration: https://airwaysmag.com/lufthansa-close-a380-chapter/). They are not necessarily uneconomical. If you fill an A380, costs per passenger are very competitive. The A380's problems are that (a) you need a lot of passengers to fill them, so this works best on thick routes terminating at slot-constrained airports; and (b) it has little belly capacity for cargo, so you basically have to fill them with passengers - unlike some other aircraft (eg the 777-300ER) that can carry a large amount of profitable cargo even if the passenger load is relatively low.

For anyone who sees this and does think about taking the route (which is very efficient but less interesting, as gumshoe958 says), the change from DLR to Elizabeth Line is best done at West India Quay DLR --> Canary Wharf Elizabeth Line. It's a much longer walk if you get off at Canary Wharf DLR.

It was. You were entering the UK, not transferring to a non-UK destination. Big difference. No. On a through ticket on BA from Houston via Heathrow to Edinburgh, there's no need to claim bags at Heathrow. You clear immigration, and then you clear security. But you never go landside and the bags go straight through. Once upon a time, they were put on a special belt at Edinburgh so that they could clear customs there (although the passenger does not need to clear immigration at Edinburgh) - but from what fruitmachine says that may have changed. The only reasons I can think of for why someone might be told they have to claim and re-check their bag are (a) they were flying on two separate tickets so the bag could not be through-checked; or (b) the agent at Houston didn't know what they were doing.

It's half a mile from to Victoria coach station to Victoria Tube. Frankly, I wouldn't walk this with luggage. Neither do I understand why the coach is "just the way to go". Of all the public transport options, it would usually be near the bottom of my list of options except in specific circumstances. If you do take the coach, you'd probably be best to get a taxi to St Pancras. Alternatively, take the train from Southampton to Waterloo and take a taxi from Waterloo to St Pancras. Easiest: taxi (or pre-booked car/"minicab" service). Are you moving hotels in the middle of your London stay?

On a quick search, it looks like the OP will actually be sailing to Dover. Like Southampton, it's not London (and cruise lines should IMO be made to stop misleading customers like this) - but that Southampton thread probably won't help with transport.

Understand but remember you have to add time to get to Heathrow Express from your hotel. The Heathrow Express doesn't really start in central London, so far as most tourists are concerned. Where exactly is the hotel? There are other rail options that could make sense: both the Underground and the Elizabeth Line may potentially work, but again much depends on your personal circumstances and exactly what journey you're going to be making. A road journey from (true) central London to Heathrow in the morning peak is unlikely to be that difficult, as most of it will be in the opposite direction from the heaviest traffic.

The trains to Southampton are basically commuter trains. The proportion of train passengers who are going to/from a cruise is tiny. Luggage racks would be an utter waste of space, particularly on trains which can be absolutely packed with people at peak hours - but this isn't a problem for anyone going to start a cruise, for whom there is plenty of space for luggage, just not in dedicated luggage racks. Is this fixed in stone, or could you still change your plans? The Heathrow Express is expensive, and Paddington is not really in central London, so you would find it frustrating if you're sightseeing over several days. Lots more advice available in the British Isles forum - a link has already been posted above.

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.

The flights that match the description are TP262 YYZ-LIS and TP1036 LIS-BCN. The latter is currently planned to operate with an E190. The former flight's seat map shows the following, including 5F currently taken. This matches this layout - https://www.aerolopa.com/tp-32q-lr - which is an LR. Seat Map Search: Departing YYZ on 10/11/23 for LIS Flying TP flight 262 in Business, Economy A B C D E F 1 X P X P 2 P P 3 P P P - 4 P P 5 P P P - A B C D E F Seats Premium Only P Available + Handicap-Accessible H Paid & Premium # Occupied - Blocked X Lavatory L Paid $ Location Exit Row E Wing W Upper Deck U

https://www.aerolopa.com/tp-airbus-a321-gallery is probably the best single source. She should look at the seat map for her flight, and then work out which of these configurations she's on.

A lot depends on your levels of fitness and enthusiasm - but however fit and enthusiastic you are, I doubt that the Bakerloo Line will work well. On the basis that luggage means that you'd want a step-free route if you take the Tube, the nearest stations are Westminster (~500-metre walk) or Waterloo Jubilee Line (~700-metre walk). If that works for you, the obvious options are: Piccadilly Line to Barons Court (or Hammersmith in the morning peak or inclement weather), cross-platform change, District Line to Westminster; Piccadilly Line to Green Park, change to the Jubilee Line to either Westminster or Waterloo; Elizabeth Line to Bond Street, change to the Jubilee Line. There is a step-free route at Green Park by taking a lift (elevator) up, a long walk, and then a lift down. You can also do this change by using the escalator up to ticket hall level and then immediately going down the escalators to the Jubilee Line (without going through the ticket gates) - this involves less walking. But managing big luggage on an escalator requires some care. Bond Street will have a lift route too. Using the Elizabeth Line to leave Heathrow will cost more than using the Piccadilly Line.

There's no way you're getting from Paddington station to the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in 15 minutes, even at 3.00 am!

Except for international arrivals at most airports around the world, and domestic arrivals at many non-US airports! Fortunately, this won't adversely affect the OP - although I too can't understand the logic behind their plan.

For Torbay, the towns of Dartmouth, Kingswear and Totnes, which can even be done together via triangular trips sold by the Dartmouth Steam Railway. Also, you're close enough to get up onto Dartmoor; if you do, one of the quirkiest places to call at must be a Californian bakery (the Beachwood Bakery) in Chagford, which was listed by the Financial Times as one of "The 50 greatest food stores in the world". But there's plenty of countryside to see up there.

The 8-digit number is almost certainly nothing to do with any airline. If you can't get NCL to give you your Sabre locator, then with your name, flight details and 13-digit ticket number, AA should be able to pull up your reservation anyway.

Of the ports you list, I think that the only one that really requires getting away from the port town is Le Verdon, but you'd want to have a good think about what you want to do and see. It's most obviously a good starting point for seeing the wineries of the Medoc, but not everyone will want to do that. The city of Bordeaux is reachable, but a long way away. From memory, Le Verdon is also one of the harder ports from which to DIY, so you may be more likely to be constrained to take a ship's tour, with all its disadvantages. I think that I eventually gave up trying to work something out, and made it my day to stay on the ship. Similarly, although A Coruna has a bit more to offer, it's a good place from which to get to Santiago de Compostela, which is probably rather more interesting. This is pretty easy to DIY. For the others, as ISLABONITA says, everything depends on what you're interested in doing and seeing.

That's not actually quite right. A possible alternative explanation is that the airline has made confirmed reservations for the flights, but hasn't yet given the OP the reservation code/number/locator that would be recognised by AA. A confirmed reservation is confirmed, and the airline is holding space on that flight for the passenger (subject to all the usual caveats about what "holding space" means in a modern dynamic (over)booking environment), even if no ticket has yet been issued. Issuing a ticket is conceptually a different step from making a reservation, but the difference is often lost on people who have never used red carbon tickets and don't work in the industry. NCL is likely to be making the booking in whatever booking system/GDS that it uses, which will generate a locator for itself. But if that's not booked directly into AA's system, so that the prime record is hosted by AA, then AA may only have its own copy of the booking record with AA's own locator, and it's possible that NCL has simply not provided that to the OP. A passenger is of course in a better position once a ticket has been issued, because there is then a contract of carriage between the passenger and the airline for specific flights. Perhaps more importantly, it also means that the airline has been paid by the agent (NCL). But it looks like the OP's cruise isn't until January, so as we all think, there's a good chance that this step has not yet happened. in theory, the OP could call AA and ask the agent to try to find the booking using name, date and flight number(s). The agent may or may not be able to do so, and may or may not be prepared to give the OP the AA locator, and may or may not be prepared to do any of the other customer service things that passengers often want, eg pre-allocating seats. Given that NCL could yet change the flights before ticketing (judging by what other CCers sometimes report), this could be more effort than it's worth.

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

Which port are you calling at? If you're going to be at one of the Edinburgh locations, there should be no difficulty in getting to and from central Edinburgh on your own, especially as you'd have heaps of time to get back to the ship after the early show. If you're trying to do this from Glasgow, it should still be possible but would require planning in finer detail.

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.

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

One obvious option for this now is Jubilee Line to Bond Street, Elizabeth Line to Heathrow. All should be step-free.

You can sometimes get lucky like that. Assuming that it didn't lock you in to undesirable fare conditions, and that it wasn't actually better value to go down to economy on that sector, then $200 pp extra to go from premium economy to business was a good price, even if it was only one-way.

Two ideas that immediately come to mind: You could leave your bag at Waterloo while you explore central London on your own: https://www.excess-baggage.com/rail-station-stores.php. When you're ready to go out to Heathrow, just collect your bag and head out there. Pay a company like Airportr to take your bag off you and check it in for you with your airline, so you don't have to see it again until after your flight.