Globaliser

This really is the key question, and it's impossible to give decent advice without knowing the answer.

I've always asked the staff at the pier to staple the luggage tags. (I'm definitely not going to lug a stapler around for the convenience of the cruise line.) If I've even printed them out, that is - which more and more often I have not even bothered with doing. The staff at the pier can always write out a luggage tag for you. At any rate, don't put them on for your flight(s).

Pure speculation/guesswork here, but did you perhaps see a note that on a particular Monday, only Victory was going to be open? We have recently had a couple of public holidays here (Monday 6 May and Monday 27 May), so that might be a possible explanation for a partial opening on a specific day.

No. Absolutely not. Apart from anything else, these trains don't sell out because there is no capacity cap on tickets. You can always buy a walk-up fare and get on any train, however many people are already travelling on it. I suppose there is one exception: if there are physically so many people on board the train that you literally cannot push yourself onto the train via any door. But this almost never happens. It's really only ever a consequence of short-term disruption. And frankly, if that's how busy that train is, then you really wouldn't want to be travelling on it anyway. As gnome12 says, it's much more likely that you're too early to book, or too early to book the fares that you'd like. Relax.

Are you prepared to use public transport with your luggage? Would you prefer to use public transport? Doesn't the Luggage Hero website show you which are its closest locations to Frameless?

No, the big ceremony is on Remembrance Sunday, the closest Sunday to Armistice Day, so in 2024 that will be on Sunday 10 November. Armistice Day itself sees relatively little ceremonial, although depending on where you are, you may find requests to keep a minute's silence at 11 am.

If you're flying from Heathrow to Rome, this makes no difference at all to security. There is no outbound immigration and no outbound customs.

Being on a cruise, rather than anything to do with the destinations - much like most cruises everywhere. There are relatively few places around the world where "scenic cruising" makes being on a cruise ship worthwhile from a destination point of view, although there are a few destinations which are interesting by-products of being on a ship but to which one probably wouldn't go to otherwise.

Do you know whether these are charter flights or scheduled flights? If they're part of the P&O charter programme, I suspect you're likely to be short of luck. As it happens, I got an email from a cruise travel agent this week saying: "P&O Cruises have just announced all flights for their upcoming 2024/25 Winter Caribbean season will be operated by Tui Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Norse Atlantic." and "What is bonded luggage? Once you’ve dropped your bags at the UK airport, you can relax and travel light. After landing in the Caribbean, you’ll be whisked straight from your plane to your ship (no need to go through immigration) and your luggage will be delivered to your cabin. The night before you fly home, your bags will be collected from outside your cabin, and you’ll find them waiting for you at the UK airport when you land. It couldn’t be simpler." The bonded luggage arrangements have all the hallmarks of charter flights. So that sounds like at least some of the Virgin Atlantic flights used by P&O will be charters.

It's not. Just go to London Heathrow and fly to Rome Fiumicino. There are probably something like 8 flights on disembarkation day and 7 flights the following day, so even though not all of them are viable for you, you still have a lot to choose from. Given that flexibility, don't bother with the risks of flying from Southampton, from which there will probably only be one flight that would comfortably get you to Rome in time for the second cruise.

Yes, both flights ops AA. But commercially, these are Iberia flights that can be bought from iberia.com - and unless the customer happens to read the small print, they might not notice until much later in the day that the aircraft is operated by American. AIUI, the DFW-AMS flight could legally be operated by an Iberia aircraft if the airlines wanted to do this, but for the usual hub reasons this is operated under the conventional arrangement. I think this example and the OP's trip are almost certainly a Joint Business flight, so AA and Iberia (and the other JBA members) pool revenues and share costs too. So there's every reason for Iberia to be (and to appear to be) an option for the OP's itinerary.

Why not? Just completely at random, I've priced an itinerary on Iberia's website for ELP (El Paso) to DFW on IB4361, connecting to IB4861 from DFW to AMS.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2992443-i-heard-ams-airport-is-a-mess-everyday Honestly, where/what do people "read" or "hear" such things, and why do they so readily think there's something in them? Depending on when you're travelling, you may not even be able to do this (at least without changing trains in Brussels) even if you want to.

I've also never heard of such a form. A quick Google threw up this page about importing medication into the Netherlands - https://www.netherlandsworldwide.nl/travel-netherlands/taking-medication-netherlands - which talks about "Medicines that have a narcotic effect require a certificate. These include sleeping pills, strong painkillers, ADHD medication and medicinal cannabis." A similar page about exporting medication from the Netherlands - https://www.government.nl/topics/medicines/question-and-answer/can-i-take-my-medication-abroad - is more specific about "Medicines that fall under the Opium Act", for which it gives examples of "strong painkillers; sleeping pills and drugs to reduce anxiety, such as Valium or Seresta; medication for ADHD, such as Ritalin or Concerta; medicinal cannabis". The OP says "I take a sleeping pill" without further details, so it's impossible to know whether this is a common-or-garden sleeping aid, or something particularly strong that might fall within the types of medication identified in those pages (which I think are both official NL government websites).

Then take the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow to Barons Court, then a cross-platform change (about a 10-foot walk) to the District Line to Westminster, then walk to Great Scotland Yard Hotel from there. It's step-free down to the Piccadilly Line platform at Heathrow, and step-free (by lift + lift) from the District Line to street level at Westminster. Google says the hotel is an 8-minute walk away. You can choose whether to walk along Parliament Street and Whitehall to see the government buildings (including the gates to Downing Street), or along Victoria Embankment to see the river, the London Eye, County Hall and the Millennium Footbridges. That's a shorter walk than from Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square or Covent Garden stations. In addition, getting out of all of those stations requires carrying your luggage up stairs. If you're travelling during the weekday morning peak or in inclement weather, I suggest changing at Hammersmith rather than Barons Court. That's a longer cross-platform walk - about 20 feet.

You need to be careful about "St James area". The Conrad and the St Ermin's are next to St James's Park Tube. But this is about half a mile way from the area known as "St James's", which is on the other side of St James's Park and broadly speaking comprises the rectangular area bounded by Piccadilly, Haymarket, The Mall and Green Park. The Sofitel is at the eastern end of this area. It takes about 10 minutes to walk from St James's Park Tube to the Clermont Victoria, so that's how much further away you would be than if you were to stay at the Clermont instead of the Conrad or the St Ermin's.

What are you talking about? CCers are routinely buying Advance tickets for long-distance journeys such as these. In any event, IMHO none of this justifies you deliberately giving CCers wrong information.

Yes, one would need to know much more than just "Hyde Park", which is a very big park (especially if, as many people do, you include the area that's technically known as Kensington Gardens). However, the short answer for the main bit is that trains go from London Waterloo to Southampton Central. The unknown part is how they would best get from their hotel in "Hyde Park" to Waterloo.

None of the above, but it's only worth explaining if the Tube is even a potential option for this OP.

The "basic easily-understood terms" do not include "Advance tickets are not amendable". It would be more accurate to say "Advance tickets can be amended to a different date and/or time, but a fee may be charged and you may have to jump through some hoops". It may be that it's not really need-to-know information for a £12 London-Dover ticket. But the wrong advice is routinely given on a number of different CC threads about all sorts of UK rail travel. Some CCers are buying rather more expensive Advance tickets, or (worse) thinking about whether they should buy an Advance ticket or an even more expensive semi-flexible or flexible ticket. These CCers could really do with accurate advice about whether it is possible to amend an Advance ticket, because it may tip the scales in favour of buying a cheaper ticket that still has a degree of flexibility about it. I count myself in that group. Until after Covid, I rarely bought long-distance UK train tickets. That's changed, for family/friends reasons. When I started travelling more on long-distance trains, I too worked on the advice that I'd regularly seen here that Advance tickets are non-amendable and non-changeable, and sometimes paid for a more expensive ticket when my plans were not sufficiently firm. I have Cotswold Eagle to thank for pointing out that "non-amendable" simply isn't true, which has meant that I have been able to buy Advance tickets more often than before.

I think that Cotswold Eagle has often been trying to point out this frequent CC misconception. Advance tickets are amendable. For example, this is the text from Southeastern's website: Can I change the journey on an Advance ticket? Advance tickets are amendable, however an admin fee may apply. Advance tickets can only have their date and journey time changed, not the route or direction of travel. They can be amended right up to the time your journey is due to begin at a station, or up to the day before travel online. If there is a difference between the price of your original paper ticket and the cost of your new Advance ticket, you will need to pay the difference. If you change to a train on which a cheaper fare is available, the difference will not be refunded. You can change your Advance tickets in a few easy ways: If you purchased a paper Advance or eTicket through your Southeastern account, you can log in and amend the date and time. If you purchased a paper Advance ticket online and you don’t have a Southeastern account, or if it's the date of travel, you’ll need to visit a ticket office to ask for the changes to be made. Advance eTickets purchased as a guest cannot be amended at a ticket office*. If you purchased Advance tickets at a Southeastern station, you can return your ticket to any Southeastern ticket office where it can be amended. *We’re unable to amend Advance eTickets at a ticket office if you have purchased your ticket online, but not with an account, as the existing Advance ticket QR code cannot be voided. However you can link your ticket purchase to a Southeastern account using the link at the bottom of your order confirmation email. We're also unable to amend Advance tickets that have been purchased via PayPal. Please contact Customer Services if you wish to amend an Advance ticket purchased via PayPal. The requirement to pay the difference between the original price and the new price is in effect basically the same as "if you present your Advance ticket they will knock the Advance fare off the full fare".

Is this on a Thursday morning, then, during the current northern summer? If so, another option might be to change the flight to Friday afternoon (or even Saturday afternoon), assuming that the timetable is the same in the week that you're flying. If you already have plans for the last evening in London, you could try booking a cheap crash pad at Gatwick, and only head down there at the very end of the evening (ie close to midnight).

Who are you flying, and to where? From where is the cruise departing, and to where? How difficult would it be to catch up to the ship if you were to miss departure day? The car service's response makes sense, as does my own pithy reply to it. The problem is that the car service and I are looking at the problem in different ways; that's why there are different answers. Given your parameters, I'd do the 4 am departure and know all my backup plans well. But to be frank, the only thing that actually makes sense is staying at Gatwick.

This list is missing one important thing: PE seats should be wider than standard economy. Also, the deeper pitch usually means deeper recline. There are a number of products which offer more legroom than a standard economy configuration, but in which the seats are actually just standard economy seats. To my mind, these do not count as PE even though the airlines concerned often use misleading marketing terms to make them sound like PE. If you have a look at the relevant seat maps on aerolopa.com, it should quickly become clear whether you're looking at true PE, or just an extra-legroom standard economy.

No, it isn't. As Zach1213 explained above, that's not a transit. If you're transferring at Frankfurt from a non-Schengen country to a Schengen country, you either need a Schengen entry visa to enter Schengenland there, or else you do not need a visa. And almost all US tourists do not need a visa.