gumshoe958

You may want to look into hiring a 16 seater minibus and driver as that may well be cheaper than three or four separate cars. @John Bull may have some suggestions for businesses that might fit the bill. The other option would be to take the National Express coach direct from Heathrow to Southampton (roughly every 2 hours, takes just over 2 hours). You’d need to book in advance online to guarantee your seats. But tbh once you factor in the cost and hassle of cabs at each end (from your hotel and to the ship), you may decide it’s easier just to hire your own transport. At Heathrow there are very few hotels actually on airport that don’t require a cab or a (not free) bus to get to, so choose carefully.

Very few people would fly from the UK all the way to Florida just for a 3/4 night cruise. But Disney’s already proved there are plenty who’d combine a 3/4 night cruise with a week or 10 days at the theme parks. I think it’ll be extremely successful. We need to remember that Royal’s target market is very different from the typical CC poster whose ideal cruise is a repo lasting at least two weeks on a smaller ship visiting previously unserved ports on a cheap group rate, using their D/D+/Pinn free drink vouchers and spending virtually nothing on board!

There’s no legal reason why they couldn’t - indeed on the last Med circuit of the season they’ve traditionally sold a 3-nighter from Civitavecchia to Barcelona, presumably mainly for the benefit of passengers who wish to stay on for the TA. That’s the only one though.

Far fewer passengers board in Civitavecchia than in Barcelona, so it doesn’t feel like a total zoo on embarkation day. But, as others have said, it’s a bit of a pain to get to. And as biker says, Royal hasn’t figured out how to make the app work properly for passengers boarding in Civitavecchia - or at least it hadn’t on Wonder last year, though I did see someone claiming it now works. So there are pros and cons to both - I’d just go with whichever best fits your travel plans.

The Elizabeth line costs about £13 each, so for five people you may as well take a cab.

Have Royal not given you a PNR (six character booking reference) for the BA flights? That would allow you to access Manage My Booking on the BA app or website and add extra bags, choose seats etc.

I too would go for the second of the options suggested by @Island2Dweller - but you should know that, although many people take luggage on the tube it isn’t really designed for it: there are no racks or anything, it can get very busy and two cases each might not be terribly easy. Not trying to put you off - I always use the tube or Elizabeth line to get to Heathrow - but don’t underestimate the amount of dragging of cases on and off trains, elevators and moving walkways you’ll have to do (Terminal 3 to the tube station is about a 10 minute walk on its own). Only you know how up for that you are!

They are not overly plentiful so it would be wise to pre-book. At Zeebrugge you have to take a (free) shuttle bus from the ship to the terminal as it’s predominantly a cargo port and no pedestrians are allowed in the dock area. The buses run frequently but to be safe you should probably allow 15-20 minutes from walking off the ship to arriving at the terminal in case you just miss one and have to wait for the next one to fill up. Cabs will pick you up from the terminal. I’ve never seen very many waiting there though.

Just buy them at the station on the day. Or - even better - use a contactless Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card, or Apple/Google Pay. Then you don’t need a ticket at all - you just tap in and tap out at the gates.

East Cowes is the right choice for Osborne House. It’s about a half hour walk from the ferry, or a bus will take you just over half way. Or a taxi all the way if you’d prefer to avoid walking.

That perk is reserved for people who book restaurants individually at full price. As long as you’re prepared to be a bit flexible with times you shouldn’t have a problem getting decent reservations.

It is true that you can only book once on board. Royal will make a courtesy reservation on night 1 or 2 but you’re free to change it to wherever and whenever you want. Do this asap after boarding at any restaurant. You can make your other reservations at the same time.

They certainly can sell out, yes. Looking at tomorrow the 8:00 is completely full and the 11:45 has only one seat left. Mind you there are five ships in port tomorrow, which is a lot. On your arrival day there are only three. The 9:45 might be a bit too early as it gets into Heathrow at 12:00 and you may find you can’t check in to your hotel that early. Then again the 11:45 would leave you with time to kill in Southampton assuming you’re thrown off the ship by 9:30. YMMV I guess.

I had to search around for an answer to this as it’s certainly not publicised by Eurostar, but I found a Twitter thread last month where they said they do still sell carnets (10 tickets) on board at the moment, and they still expect to be selling them through the summer. However paper metro tickets are gradually being phased out so there’s no guarantee how long that’ll last. And Eurostar say they no longer sell the replacement Navigo cards.

If you fly into Gatwick, there is an hourly direct train to Southampton Central. It takes about 2 hours and there’s no need to book in advance (although you can, and it’ll be cheaper, but you must stick to your specified train). If you fly into Heathrow, there’s a direct National Express roughly every 2 hours. It takes just over 2 hours and advance booking is strongly recommended as coaches can sell out. So time-wise Gatwick probably just has the edge in terms of convenience of onward transport. But there’s not much in it so go with Heathrow if the flight times are better.

The Intercity Direct trains between Rotterdam Centraal and Amsterdam Centraal run up to four times an hour and take about 40 minutes. There are frequent metro trains to take you from near the cruise terminal to Rotterdam Centraal. If you allow 3 hours’ travel time in total you can work out whether you’ll have enough time to see what you want to see in Amsterdam.

Or just walk from the station. 10 minutes max.

See this thread. Lots of suggestions there.

Intercity trains are still running every 30 minutes between Schiphol Airport and Schiedam Centrum, which is very close to Rotterdam. From there you can either transfer to the Rotterdam Metro or take a cab to your accommodation.

Quite a few cruises start in Edinburgh over the summer, mainly on the high end small ship lines like Windstar, Seabourn, Azamara, Regent and Oceania. Even a TA to Boston! Newcastle only seems to have one, on August 29th on the Costa Favolosa, either 8 nights ending in Dover or 12 nights ending in Amsterdam.

Any option other than the direct flight from Southampton takes at least five hours once you factor in the journey to London, Heathrow or Gatwick, time to check in for the Eurostar or flight and the journey into central Paris if you fly. The Southampton flight is a no-brainer in terms of time and convenience, although fares can be quite high at weekends.

Easiest - fly. There’s one direct flight a day from Southampton to Paris Orly, on Eastern Airways, perfectly timed for cruisers at around 10:30am. Flight time 1 hour 20 minutes. Otherwise you’re looking at a train, coach, cab or private transfer into London from where the Eurostar train to Paris runs frequently - but total journey time is a minimum of 5-6 hours.

The 8.15 bus should be fine, but you can add the Change & Go supplement during the booking process if you wish. After deplaning you will first clear passport control. Assuming you have a biometric US passport (most now are) you can use the automatic E-gates rather than queue for an immigration officer. You just put your passport in the machine, look at the camera and hopefully it matches your face and lets you through. After that you reclaim your bags and walk through customs, then you’re landside. If you arrive at Terminal 2 or 3 (all US airlines and Virgin) you’ll need to make your way via the underground walkways to the Central Bus Station. It’s a 5-10 minute walk and clearly signed.

Off-peak and super off-peak tickets never sell out. You can buy them on the day if you want, or you can buy them in advance online and add a seat reservation (free).

I agree. But given that a Civitavecchia stop is non-negotiable because Rome is the big draw on that circuit for most Americans, I suspect Royal would consider those ports would add too much mileage for too little gain.