gumshoe958

Agreed. Stay in London, have a nice meal, maybe catch a show, see some sights the next morning and head out to Heathrow after lunch.

Most UK car hire places will rent you an automatic so if it’s only that that’s dissuading your husband from driving, it’s worth asking. Otherwise, London is the obvious place to visit as all roads and railways between Dover and Southampton lead there. Or there’s Cambridge, Oxford, Windsor and Salisbury/Stonehenge which are all easy day trips from London by train.

Trust me, a night in Southampton is more than enough! To be fair it’s got a decent maritime museum but it’s certainly not on anyone’s list of must see places in the UK. However Salisbury and Winchester are both easily accessible from Southampton by train and are worth seeing, or you could hop on a ferry across the Solent and visit Queen Victoria’s family home on the Isle of Wight, Osborne House. Southampton has plenty of unremarkable but perfectly adequate chain hotels near the port (Holiday Inn, Novotel, Premier Inn, Ibis) but I’ve got a soft spot for the Pig in the Wall which is a very small boutique hotel in the city centre. https://www.thepighotel.com/in-the-wall/ I’m sure others will have other good hotel suggestions. Further afield yes, Stratford is certainly worth seeing. Or as you have a week you’d have enough time to see Edinburgh, or maybe Liverpool. There are very few towns in Britain that aren’t easily accessible by train.

No, I meant $300 (or £250) as that seems to be the going rate for an Uber. Interesting to see if a local cab firm will beat that - West Quay were quoting £300 ($365) online.

They haven’t announced road closures yet but that hotel is very close to Buckingham Palace and the area will be extremely busy. I would have a Plan B ready. Such as using the Piccadilly line tube from Heathrow to Barons Court, changing on to the District line to Victoria (easy cross platform interchange, no steps involved) then a 10 minute walk.

No, all the major museums should be open. They only tend to close over Christmas.

West Quay Cars are quoting just over £300 ($365) online. Maybe worth calling to try and negotiate that down a bit! Alternatively, right now Uber’s showing just under £250 ($300). I’d also point out that July 21st is the day most English schools finish for the summer so I would expect a lot more traffic than normal towards Dover, as thousands of British families head to the ferries and Channel Tunnel for their holidays in France. @ETinCA the earlier you’re on the road the better.

Definitely not National Express. That involves changing coaches in London and takes about 7 hours - impossible on @ETinCA’s itinerary. The train is doable but not easy with lots of heavy luggage, and there’s a change of trains involved in London. Cab or private transfer is quickest and easiest - but as I said above, it won’t be cheap. @ETinCA it’s worth posting on your RCCL cruise’s roll call to see if, on the off chance, anyone else is transferring to your Carnival cruise who you could share a ride with.

Sorry yes, my bad, 150 miles. You still need to allow 3 hours though, and you wouldn’t get much change from $300 in an Uber. Potentially more. If you go by train you’d need to get a cab to Southampton Central station, a train to London Waterloo (1 hour 20), short walk to Waterloo East station, get a train to Dover Priory (1 hour 45) and a cab to the cruise terminal. Price approx $100 each. Doable, but not ideal with heavy bags as they are commuter trains with limited luggage space.

Others will be able to help with specific recommendations but I just wanted to make sure you’re aware that it’s a 250 mile journey - similar to LA-Vegas, Miami-Orlando or NYC-Boston. It’s not a very well-travelled route for cruise passengers and there’s no scheduled shuttle service. So it won’t be cheap - eg for an Uber it’ll be at least $300 and take around 3 hours. Other cab and private transfer companies will be able to beat that, but that’s the kind of ballpark you’re looking at. (For the sake of completeness it’s actually a reasonably simple journey by train - just one easy transfer by foot in London - but you’d need to allow 4 hours and if there are more than two of you a taxi would probably be just as cheap.)

It really isn’t. Only a year or two ago you could get it for $99 and some thought that was overpriced!

I always walk between the terminal and Centraal station (15 minutes) and take the train between Centraal and Schiphol (also 15 minutes). The train fare is only about €5-6 and the trains are very frequent. There are no stairs involved so it’s easily doable, even with luggage. But if you’d rather not walk there’s also a frequent tram (#26) from close to the cruise terminal to Centraal which costs €3-4.

I always walk between the terminal and Centraal station (very easy, no steps, 15 minutes) and take the train between Centraal and Schiphol (also 15 minutes). Otherwise you can get a cab or book a private shuttle. The drive between cruise terminal and airport takes 20-30 minutes.

Ireland is the only European country that has U.S. Preclearance. Flying from Amsterdam you’ll clear immigration and customs at your port of entry into the U.S.

Yes, same here. Out of curiosity I went to the app only for it to automatically log me off and not let me sign back in. Royal IT at its best.

They can be interesting, if the right questions are asked. But there’s always someone who has to ask “who’s driving the boat?”

The most fun way to get into central London is to hop straight on to a Thames Clipper riverboat, westbound to Embankment Pier. They run every 15-30 mins and take about 40 mins. From there, you can transfer on to the Northern line tube to Tottenham Court Road from where it’s about a 10 minute walk to the British Museum. The boat will take you past many of London’s iconic sites including Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral and is well worth the ride. Alternatively, from Greenwich Pier it’s a short walk to Cutty Sark station where you can catch the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) six stops to Canary Wharf, then transfer on to the new Elizabeth line to Tottenham Court Road. That’s quicker and cheaper but not as interesting. All of these train and boat options operate under the Transport for London (TfL) ticketing system, and you can pay simply by “touching in” and “touching out” on the yellow card readers with a credit or debit card - you don’t need to buy a paper ticket. https://www.thamesclippers.com/plan-your-journey/route-map

The easiest tube/train options to Heathrow from the Park Plaza would be: - walk across Westminster Bridge to Westminster station. Westbound District line tube to Barons Court, then easy cross-platform transfer to Piccadilly line to the airport. - or, also from Westminster station, westbound Circle line tube to Paddington, then Elizabeth line or Heathrow Express train to the airport.

I always enjoy Howies. https://www.howies.uk.com (You want the one in Victoria Street) Or, for high end Italian, Divino Enoteca. https://divinoedinburgh.com Both 5-10 minutes walk from the castle.

See my answers in red above.

Spot on. There is an hourly train from St Pancras to Dover which takes just over an hour. No need to book in advance, just buy tickets at the station. It’s £37 per person one way but if the four of you travel together ask for a ticket called Groupsave which gives you about a third off. From Heathrow to central London your daughters can either: - use the tube (cheapest but slowest, and runs direct to St Pancras) - use the Heathrow Express (fast but expensive, need to change on to the tube at Paddington) - use the new Elizabeth line (somewhere in the middle, need to change on to the tube at Farringdon) - take a cab/Uber For any of the rail options from Heathrow into London, your daughters don’t need to buy an actual ticket. It’s cheaper to use a credit or debit card to “touch in” and “touch out” at the ticket gates. The system will automatically charge them the correct fare. Buying a paper ticket is much more expensive.

It’s around 100 miles from Heathrow to Dover and takes just under 2 hours to drive if the traffic’s good, more if it’s not (and any journey that involves the M25 London orbital motorway is unpredictable!). An Uber will set you back between US$200-250. A local Dover cab company may do it a bit cheaper if you research online and pre-book. There are regular trains, but not direct so you’d have to change trains in London and use the tube to get to St Pancras, where the trains to Dover leave from. Journey time would be roughly the same. So for four of you I’d get a cab, it would be much simpler and probably roughly the same price. By the way Dover Castle (a must see) is in Dover, not Canterbury! So you can walk there from your hotel - it’s just under a mile although it’s a steepish climb up to the castle. Otherwise the hotel will find you a cab. If you want to visit Canterbury there’s an hourly train from Dover which takes just under half an hour.

Yes.

Yes. You’ll be absolutely fine. No need to check in any more than 2 hours before departure for a flight to Venice.

I guess they figure they can still fill a ship without a jazz club. And if it’s being replaced with a casino extension I have little doubt they’re right, if the number of people on here who use the casino is anything to go by. I hope they don’t go down the Carnival route and use a prerecorded track for production shows. Those orchestras can’t be cheap.