Cruising 08/25/12, too early to book?

[tpbf]

Just booked a Southampton to NYC cruise. While I am interested in the cruise, I especially want to fly into London a couple of days early to see Stonehenge. I intended to just extend our stay in a Princess hotel (London) and arrange for Princess transfers to the ship.

 

However, when I booked, the Princess folks said they only had one hotel to offer (Grosner House) at over $1,000 a day and it was too early to do transfers.

 

In your experiences, is this correct? I have never had a problem like this with Princess in the past, but I have never booked this early. Anyone with advice? Maybe I should just call again. Maybe the agent didn't know. I found nothing online with Princess.

 

And, advice re: the Stonehenge visit would be helpful if you happen to know, but I will question the Britian site as well.

 

Thanks

[Pam in CA]

It's probably too early to book the Princess hotel as I believe those open up a year in advance.

 

A suggestion is to book your hotel and transfer on your own. We booked the Crown Plaza Kensington pre-cruise for our Crown cruise last September. Loved the location, literally right across the street from the Gloucester Street tube station and both HOHO buses stopped there. Lots of restaurants and a pub within a block. :) We paid about $200/night in August through hotels.com.

 

I've used Woodford Limos for years. They'll pick you up at the airport and drop you off at the hotel and then pick you up at the hotel and stop at Stonehenge on the way to Southampton. You can share with others on your roll call to reduce the cost per-person. They'll even pick up people at different hotels for no additional cost. I'll look up their website and post it. http://www.woodfordchauffeurcars.co.uk/

[bermuda triangle]

I second Pam's woodfordcars recommendation and booking your own hotel. They were excellent!! We docked in southampton pst cruise, drove to stonehedge on the way to london, and stayed at hotel 41. http://www.41hotel.com/ Located across the street from buckingham palace. We stayed in an executive king room. Very large room with huge soaking tub!! Great location!

We then used woodford cars for the ride to the airport. Again excellent service!

Laura

[Loonbeam]

We used hotel 41 in London in 07. What an awesome hotel in a great location. Not the cheapest in town, but definitely worth every penny. For a less expensive option, there is the Hotel Indigo in the tower hill area.

 

 

 

I can also recommend a private tour service (not sure if it will be a rules violation to post it without a specific request...)

[ssbeagle]

Just booked a Southampton to NYC cruise. While I am interested in the cruise, I especially want to fly into London a couple of days early to see Stonehenge. I intended to just extend our stay in a Princess hotel (London) and arrange for Princess transfers to the ship.

 

However, when I booked, the Princess folks said they only had one hotel to offer (Grosner House) at over $1,000 a day and it was too early to do transfers.

 

In your experiences, is this correct? I have never had a problem like this with Princess in the past, but I have never booked this early. Anyone with advice? Maybe I should just call again. Maybe the agent didn't know. I found nothing online with Princess.

 

And, advice re: the Stonehenge visit would be helpful if you happen to know, but I will question the Britian site as well.

 

Thanks

 

You can do so much better booking hotel and transfers on your own. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza St. James last time and it was within easy walking distance of Buckingham Palace and very close to the underground (tube). Lots of places to eat close by as well. There are a lot of good hotels in London that are much less. You want to be in a good area that is easily accessible for getting around. It is a nice drive out to Stonehenge and I would plan on seeing some other sites as well. Once you get there you probably won't spend much time there. I've been there twice and spent all of 15 minutes there and we went on somewhere else. If you really want to visit a beautiful spot, I recommend Bath. We spent a couple of days there. Windsor Castle is also close to London and is very pretty. If you want to go to Maidstone, Leeds Castle is there which was King Henry VIII's favorite home. Maidstone is an hour train ride away from Victoria Station.

 

One way to find out which hotels Princess is using is to go on-line and look at their pre-cruise packages. Then I would book the hotel on my own because I can get it for half the price Princess charges usually. It's good to book early though because the hotel may fill up and you can't get a good rate. Most hotels will only let you book 11-12 months ahead of time.