Globaliser

From what the OP has said, there's no reason to assume that they are not. So they now have some perfectly good options for both situations.

If the OP is on a through ticket, so their bags are checked through, it won't take anything like that amount of time to get out. If they are on an eGates passport, they should normally expect to be able to walk out of customs and into the public area within 30-45 minutes of the aircraft arriving at the gate. Similarly, if they don't have to check in again on their return to the airport, they will have ample time if they enter security 60 minutes before their onward flight.

See a dinosaur! Even if a dinosaur doesn't appeal, the museums in this area (the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum) are all a stone's throw away from South Kensington Tube, which is on the Piccadilly Line and can therefore be reached direct from any of the Heathrow terminals. Assuming you are connecting on a through ticket, so you don't have to deal with bags or checking in again, you've got enough time to make one worthwhile museum visit.

Such a hotel does not exist. Travelodge Woking Central or Premier Inn Woking Town Centre would seem to tick more of the OP's boxes than most. The Railair bus isn't free, but it would easily allow: Tell me, am I being a bit naughty with this one? 😛

One big advantage of having a centrally-located hotel is that you can stop in at the hotel from time to time during the day. You may want to drop off some shopping, or you may just want to put your feet up and have a power nap. And you have the option of doing this on the spur of the moment. It'll feel much more like home for the couple of days that you're there. In contrast, if you're in an airport hotel (or a hotel in any other non-central location), it'll be a big chunk out of your time just to go back to the hotel and then come in to town again.

Of course, anyone who's in Dartmouth and who's interested in good food really ought to try Andria.

I can see a number of one-stop itineraries on the way back. Even if you discard connections at ICN (Korean Air), HKG (Garuda on the first sector) or TPE (very long connection time), that leaves a decent Emirates one-stop itinerary (EK369 --> EK241) with a 2:45 connection at DXB.

If it's specifically Cromer crab that you want, I suspect that you'll have to ask individual restaurants whether they're likely to import any at the time you'll be there. Many of the seafood places that we saw were proud of using local produce, and south Devon has plenty of its own seafood - so I'm doubtful whether there's much demand for something from the other side of the country.

I'm not sure that this was actually announced to the mailing list. If it was, I missed out. But the new cruise appears to be a Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle cruise on Norwegian Pearl. Miami to Nassau and back, 10 April 2024, 3 nights (that's Wednesday to Saturday), one sea day.

I think that this is the OP's cruise: https://www.cruisetimetables.com/cruisesonnorwegiandawn-05oct2023.html - ex-Southampton Thursday 5 October 2023, last port Le Havre on Friday 13 October, end of cruise Saturday 14 October.

You ought to travel over to the UK a day early for safety (ie fly on 3 October and arrive on 4 October for a 5 October cruise). So you have a decent reason for spending a day seeing something in London, and transferring to Southampton on the morning that the cruise sails, as phabric says. You can easily do this by public transport if you don't have any mobility problems; Stonehenge isn't worth a stop unless it's something really special to you. But you need to remember that this isn't seeing London. To do that properly, you really need to be here for three to six months - it is that kind of city. You will have enough time and energy to visit one or two sights, and that will be about it. If you want to see London, come back some other time to see London rather than going on a cruise. Paris is similarly worth her own visit some other time. Don't try to do it from Le Havre - it's a waste of time because it's so far away.

It will be worth checking, but we had to get the bus from the bus station on the other side Great Western Road - see the centre of this satellite image, with the steam railway using the platforms on the eastern edge of the railway station as marked. It's a pity about there being no time for Totnes for the OP, because it's an interesting town. However, with the OP's restricted time, I suspect that it was always unlikely that they could see both Totnes and Dartmouth. We had the benefit of several days in Dartmouth, so we didn't have the timing conflict. However, I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying that the best part of (what we saw of) Paignton was the way out.

Paignton, I would have thought. If you have a choice as to which way around, one thing to bear in mind is where in the sky the sun will be at the time of the cruise portion. But schedules will probably be more important for you, given your restricted time.

Lisbon? Unless you have previously lived in Lisbon for many months, I find it hard to believe that you've exhausted everything there is to see and do there.

Yes, I know. And the point is that the impression of there being more backup options at LHR is largely illusory, so far as the OP's date and timings are concerned. The backup flight from SOU arrives at AMS at 1935. The realistic best-case backup flight from LHR arrives at LHR at 1835, only one hour earlier; the other backup arrives after at 2025. I also made a mistake with the "last" backup flight at 1910. That doesn't exist - it's actually a Gatwick flight.

Presumably they meant Heathrow or Gatwick.

Not really. If you miss your 1250 flight from LHR, the next BA is at 1615, and then 1805 and 1910. And whatever the reason that you're not on the 1250, BA isn't likely to put you onto another airline that day.

Obviously! It's why Delta fought so hard to get into T3 to join its subsidiary. 🙂 Glad that the OP has checked that no other airlines are involved.

It's impossible to answer that question, because I don't know what your personal stress tolerance levels are. The scheduled arrival time at Terminal 5 is 1045. If you're not going to check a bag for your flight, your hardest deadline at T5 is to scan in before 1215 at the entry to security. (That's automated; if you miss that by even one second, you'll be automatically offloaded from the flight.) So you have 90 minutes there, if you can get to Southampton coach station in time to board the National Express coach.

Is this for Saturday 3 June 2023? If so, it's doable. Are you planning to fly to Amsterdam on BA438? If so, the answer to your second question is basically no - there's little difference between destinations in BA's check-in processes at Terminal 5.

The only other thing that occurs to me is the possibility that your ticket has been sold by Delta but the flight is actually operated by a different airline that operates at a different terminal. So it's worth checking whether you have a non-Delta operating airline - your booking documents should tell you this if it's the case.

And to make it easy, go to https://ns.nl/en for information about trains from Rotterdam Centraal to Leiden Centraal, and to https://keukenhof.nl/en/ov for information about the Keukenhof Express bus from Leiden Centraal to Keukenhof. (You will see the second of those links in gnome12's post in that other thread.)

For the first task, Wikipedia is truly excellent, although you then have to go elsewhere for detailed information on schedules. For the second, it is still hard to beat matrix.itasoftware.com (or oldmatrix.itasoftware.com for those who prefer that interface).

But maybe the DL agent can immediately see that the passenger is a card holder and therefore exempt from the fee, if the card has been used to pay for the ticket/ That might be a possible explanation for what the OP was asking about, which was why they are sometimes asked for sight of the card and sometimes not, even though Comfort+ in itself does not include a free checked bag on intra-US itineraries.

On what itineraries? Delta's website says: For travelers in a Main Cabin or Delta Comfort+® seat on a flight within the United States, without a Delta SkyMiles® American Express Card, Medallion Status or Active Military exceptions: $30 USD For your first standard checked bag under 50 lbs. (23 kg), each way +1 Free Carry-On Bag and 1 Personal Item $40 USD For your second standard checked bag under 50 lbs. (23 kg), each way