gumshoe958

It’s easily walkable, even with luggage, in about 10 minutes. Use the back exit from the station, where the ferries leave from, turn right and you’re there. Failing that there’s the tram #26, every few minutes.

If your carry-on fits through a standard airport scanner, you should be absolutely fine.

Easiest would be to jump in a cab outside the cruise terminal, or get an Uber. It’s about a 20 minute journey. Right now Uber is quoting £12, though obviously it may be more at peak cruise arrival time. Unless it’s essential that you’re on the road by 9am I wouldn’t worry about carrying off your luggage. The rental car company isn’t going to mind if you’re a bit late. And most ships want everyone off by not long after 9 anyway.

Go on the app, select the current Oasis sailing and you can see who’s playing when this week. Hopefully won’t change much before the 9th.

That would have been before the new MDR menus and reported cuts in the WJ though.

There is only one hotel actually at Terminal 2, the Hilton Garden Inn. That’s a short walk from the terminal and the tube/rail stations. All the other airport hotels (there are dozens) are off airport and involve a cab or bus ride. Also note that Heathrow does not allow hotels to operate their own shuttles, so you have to either use a city bus or the ‘Hoppa’ shuttle which is not free, often crowded and serves several hotels on each route.

I just can’t see it. Surely they’ll want to see how the first one goes before committing to another. Is there really enough demand for another so soon?

That feels more likely than a world cruise. They haven’t fully sold out Serenade yet, and she has less than half the capacity of Allure. And the ports visited would be restricted by her size.

All aboard time is normally 30 minutes before departure, so I would expect the last tender to leave at 6pm or shortly thereafter. You’ll be told the exact time when you’re on board.

Where does the cruise start? If it’s a closed loop, or it starts elsewhere in the European Union, there should be no passport control and it should be very quick. If you’re embarking outside the EU (eg on a TA) there will be passport control and there may be a line.

Your options are basically bus, train or private car service. How much do you want to spend? Are you happy using public transport? Plenty of information on the various options in this thread:

Glad you made it safely. Given BA’s meltdown over the last 24 hours, you were lucky you even managed to leave the UK! Have a wonderful cruise.

We Londoners love to grumble about our public transport but in truth it’s fairly reliable. Except when there’s a strike. Or a signal failure. Or it’s too foggy/windy/wet/snowy/hot/cold. For a 7.30am-ish flight you’ll want to be checking in by 5.30 or 6. The first Heathrow Express leaves Paddington at 5.10 and arrives at 5.26. It’s then a 5-10 minute walk to T3. There’s also the Elizabeth line, which runs on exactly the same route but takes a bit longer as it stops more. That starts up at 4.36am and runs every few minutes. If you get to Paddington and find the trains are kaput for any reason, you can always jump in a cab or book an Uber.

I think most ships allow you to disembark having already checked in and boarded if you want to get off again and explore the port. Alternatively you could get to the ship and drop off your luggage but not actually check in yet - make sure you don’t miss the deadline for checking in though!

The problem is Dundee is visited so rarely by cruise ships it doesn’t have the variety of tour operators you’d find in most busy ports. There just isn’t enough business to make it viable. Edinburgh is where most tourists visiting places like Glamis Castle, Balmoral and the whisky distilleries will be based, so that’s where the majority of the tours start. Your best hope might be to find a local taxi firm and hire a car and driver for the day, if they’re not already booked up as well.

No TVs that I recall. It’s not a sports bar. Playmakers is your friend.

Weybridge is the location of Royal’s UK offices, in case anyone was wondering.

In the UK, cruise cover is commonly available as an extra cost add-on to travel insurance policies. It also pays out for things like breaking down or losing your passport on the way to the ship and being confined to your cabin or missing excursions if you get sick.

That’s a shame - Geiranger is beautiful. These things happen, and hopefully Royal will throw some free OBC at everyone (albeit they don’t have to - it would purely be a goodwill gesture). Organising that takes a bit of time though, so your parents shouldn’t expect instant compensation. Do they have cruise insurance? If so it should pay out for a missed port.

You will have to go through security. But as long as your luggage is checked through to CPH, which it should be if both flights are on the same ticket, you stay airside by following the purple ‘Flight Connections’ channel and won’t have to clear immigration or customs until you arrive in Copenhagen. If for any reason you go landside at LHR - eg because your luggage isn’t checked through because you have separate tickets for the two legs - you’ll have to clear UK immigration and customs.

I’ve never driven it, sorry. But I do know the A10 Ringweg (ring road) and A4 out to the airport are notorious for delays. In clear traffic it’s about a 20 minute journey but at that time in the morning it may well take longer.

A taxi would probably be quicker but journey time is less predictable if it’s a weekday as it’ll be the start of rush hour. It’s a 15 minute walk to Centraal station, then a 20 minute train ride.

Seems to me, if this post on the other thread is correct, that Royal has done its very best for Explorer passengers in fast-moving, challenging circumstances. Obviously there’ll be those for whom the best is never good enough and who’ll demand compensation even though they haven’t actually lost anything, but it sounds like transfers were laid on to get people to their required airport in good time for their flights.

It’s nothing to do with the size of the ship, and everything to do with what powers the ship.

It’s the former. The station is a very short walk. Regular trains into Dublin city centre.