Rouen and Le Havre

[rlkubi]

Jason Bull, I have a question? Is there a ferry or some form of transportation that could take us from Le Havre to Dover?

[John Bull]

Jason Bull, I have a question? Is there a ferry or some form of transportation that could take us from Le Havre to Dover?

 

Ferries from Le Havre go to Portsmouth.

Ferries to Dover go from Calais.

So two basic choices, neither is particularly convenient:

 

Train Le Havre to Paris, then

either train Paris to Calais and 90 minute P&O ferry crossing Calais to Dover.

or eurostar train Paris to Ashford (uses channel tunnel) and train from Ashford to Dover.

There's probably a bus option, but I don't know the details.

Will take you most of the day.

 

Or 6 to 7 hour LD Lines ferry from Le Havre to Portsmouth, bus or train Portsmouth to London, bus or train London to Dover. Connections are easier by National Express bus rather than train.

Takes much longer, but an overnite ferry option.

 

Alternatively car hire port-to-port on one side of the English Channel or the other means you can drive port-to-port without going via either Paris or London

 

JB :)

Edited February 16, 2012 by John Bull

[rlkubi]

Thank you so much! We are close to booking a cruise from Dover to Dover but thinking about trying to get off in Le Havre. Then we would have to decide to either fly back from Paris or Heathrow. I guess I should have said would there be an easy way to get from LeHavre to Heathrow?

[John Bull]

Thank you so much! We are close to booking a cruise from Dover to Dover but thinking about trying to get off in Le Havre. Then we would have to decide to either fly back from Paris or Heathrow. I guess I should have said would there be an easy way to get from LeHavre to Heathrow?

 

Then to get back to Heathrow, that'd be train from Le Havre to Paris.

From Paris a choice of fly direct to Heathrow, or Eurostar (hi-speed train)to central London (St Pancras station) and a choice of transport to Heathrow.

 

But wouldn't it be better to fly from St Louis to London (Heathrow or Gatwick), & fly back direct from Paris to St Louis ?

By buying as open-jaw returns, that should be about the same cost as return tickets St Louis/London :)

 

JB :)

[CathyCruises]

Ferries from Le Havre go to Portsmouth.

Ferries to Dover go from Calais.

So two basic choices, neither is particularly convenient:

 

Train Le Havre to Paris, then

either train Paris to Calais and 90 minute P&O ferry crossing Calais to Dover.

or eurostar train Paris to Ashford (uses channel tunnel) and train from Ashford to Dover.

There's probably a bus option, but I don't know the details.

Will take you most of the day.

 

Or 6 to 7 hour LD Lines ferry from Le Havre to Portsmouth, bus or train Portsmouth to London, bus or train London to Dover. Connections are easier by National Express bus rather than train.

Takes much longer, but an overnite ferry option.

 

Alternatively car hire port-to-port on one side of the English Channel or the other means you can drive port-to-port without going via either Paris or London

 

JB :)

 

Just out of curiousity, how do the ferry fares (haha) compare to the cost for the Eurostar? (I realize they start and end from different spots.)

[TourDeCruise]

We will be in Le Havre overnight/2 full days on September 7-8th with the Celebrity Immersive Wine cruise. We have been there before, so for next month we have decided to take the train to Rouen for the day (Sept. 7th, Saturday). We know how to get to the train station as we took the bus from there to Honfleur last year.

 

• My questions are what is the best way to buy the train tickets? Online? A machine at the train station? Or standing in line? I read that our credit cards might not work with the machines because ours do not have the chip, so we might have to stand in line.
  
• Are roundtrip tickets open-ended for the day so that we can decide once in Rouen when we want to return? Or do we have to specify a definitive time for our return?
  
• Do we need to validate the tickets at each end? I read on a site about a "yellow box" - is that for validation?
  
• How far in advance should we get to the train station? We plan on taking the 9:11am or 10:03am train from Le Havre to Rouen.
  

 

TIA,

Kathy

[Cshgrand]

We will be in Le Havre at the end of October and have booked a hire car to visit Honfleur in the morning and in the afternoon we are going to Beauregard Aventure in nearby Heroville St Clair.

It's a woodland adventure centre, looks like great fun. Anyone been at all?

[Mura]

It's been more than 10 years, but we spent the entire day in Honfleur and found plenty to do. Didn't have the car, though! Took a taxi there and the bus back.

 

Mura

[luvs2beachit]

We will be in Le Havre at the end of October and have booked a hire car to visit Honfleur in the morning and in the afternoon we are going to Beauregard Aventure in nearby Heroville St Clair.

It's a woodland adventure centre, looks like great fun. Anyone been at all?

 

Hi, Would you be kind enough to tell me who you booked a car with.

We will be in LeHavre next May and I have been trying find private trans from the ship to Honfleur and back. Thanks

[dogs4fun]

We will be in Le Havre overnight/2 full days on September 7-8th with the Celebrity Immersive Wine cruise. We have been there before, so for next month we have decided to take the train to Rouen for the day (Sept. 7th, Saturday). We know how to get to the train station as we took the bus from there to Honfleur last year.

 

• My questions are what is the best way to buy the train tickets? Online? A machine at the train station? Or standing in line? I read that our credit cards might not work with the machines because ours do not have the chip, so we might have to stand in line.
  
• Are roundtrip tickets open-ended for the day so that we can decide once in Rouen when we want to return? Or do we have to specify a definitive time for our return?
  
• Do we need to validate the tickets at each end? I read on a site about a "yellow box" - is that for validation?
  
• How far in advance should we get to the train station? We plan on taking the 9:11am or 10:03am train from Le Havre to Rouen.
  

TIA,

Kathy

 

We took the train from Le Havre to Rouen this past May.

We bought our tickets at the desk (stood in line ... only a few people in line). We also received the senior discount.

Yes, r/t tickets are open-ended. You can decide on which time you want to return.

Yes, you must validate your ticket. You will see the boxes on either side as you exit the station onto the platforms.

We arrived at the station approximately 20 minutes prior to our selected train departure time. We had plenty of time to purchase our tickets & find/board our train (we took the 9:11).

 

Enjoy Rouen! :)

[Cshgrand]

Hi, Would you be kind enough to tell me who you booked a car with.

We will be in LeHavre next May and I have been trying find private trans from the ship to Honfleur and back. Thanks

 

We booked with rent a car dot fr.

Got a medium hatchback for 57 euros which I thought was good.

[luvs2beachit]

We booked with rent a car dot fr.

Got a medium hatchback for 57 euros which I thought was good.

 

Thanks for the info.

[Hlitner]

We booked with rent a car dot fr.

Got a medium hatchback for 57 euros which I thought was good.

 

Have a question. We have seen their office in the cruise terminal, but when you go to their online site it only shows the city office. Did you have to telephone them?

 

Hank

[Cshgrand]

Have a question. We have seen their office in the cruise terminal, but when you go to their online site it only shows the city office. Did you have to telephone them?

 

Hank

 

We have to call back two weeks before to arrange. It's def possible to return to that location at the port but may need to collect from town. Depends on bookings I guess.

[Hlitner]

We have to call back two weeks before to arrange. It's def possible to return to that location at the port but may need to collect from town. Depends on bookings I guess.

 

Was afraid of something like that. Not sure why this company went through the expense of putting a counter in the terminal only to not use it.

 

Hank

[Wafa]

We would like to visit Rouen from the Le Havre port , a taxi would be a good idea , are any of you interested in sharing a Taxi?

Wafa and Sami

[2theship]

We would like to visit Rouen from the Le Havre port , a taxi would be a good idea , are any of you interested in sharing a Taxi?

Wafa and Sami

 

 

 

The most recent post prior to yours was from four years ago so I don't think you'll get any response here. Have you checked your roll call to find someone on your cruise? That was how we made our Rouen taxi plans some years ago.

[TourDeCruise]

We would like to visit Rouen from the Le Havre port , a taxi would be a good idea , are any of you interested in sharing a Taxi?

Wafa and Sami

 

We took the train from Le Havre to Rouen. Easy to do unless you do not have a full day there. But one of the days per week, I think maybe Saturday or Sunday, the trains run less frequently and then it is more difficult to do.

 

Check on your roll call about sharing a taxi to Rouen, if you want a faster way to get there and back.

 

Love Rouen; have been there 2x for a total of 3 days.

[Wafa]

Changed our mind about a Taxi to Rouen , we are arranging to rent a car can take another couple , would anyone want to share with the car rental fee ! Sami will drive Sami and wafa

[TourDeCruise]

Changed our mind about a Taxi to Rouen , we are arranging to rent a car can take another couple , would anyone want to share with the car rental fee ! Sami will drive Sami and wafa

 

Wafa, you need to post your request on your roll-call thread. Likely your roll-call members are not looking here for sharing a taxi.

[2theship]

Changed our mind about a Taxi to Rouen , we are arranging to rent a car can take another couple , would anyone want to share with the car rental fee ! Sami will drive Sami and wafa

As we've already said, you will find no one by posting here. You must post the information on your roll call. To help you find that group of people who will be on your same ship on the same dates, look here:

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/rollcalls/

 

If you have a problem with that, share your ship and sailing date here and I'll look it up for you.

 

Having said that, a word of warning about the car rental. We did a rental from Le Havre to go to the Normandy beaches and see the tapestries in Bayeaux, a combination not available from any tour company. It was pretty easy getting around but parking was sometimes a challenge. The real problem came when we returned to Le Havre. The port area is massive, most of it being industrial. We thought we had allotted plenty of time but wound up cutting it very close. Our salvation came when a ship tour bus appeared as we were pulling out of the gas station. We stayed right behind it and got back to the ship without a problem then. Without that bus, I don't know that we would have made it.

[Mura]

I'm chiming in after the fact but maybe subsequent posters will have some help from my comments. Maybe not!

 

We opted out of trying to do Rouen from Le Havre when we were on a cruise with Renaissance in May 2001. We then decided to do a road trip covering Rouen to the Normandy Beaches, with a little extra. That was a great trip. (Yes, a long time ago!) That was in 2002 when the euro was $.90 to the dollar ...

 

 

We then did a Viking river boat cruise in April 2012 which had us doing a bus trip from Rouen to the Beaches. A waste of time in my opinion. Yes, we saw that we wanted to see -- specifically the Bayeux Tapestries plus a couple of other sights -- but all of these places need more time. Which is why we were happy to have done the earlier road trip.

 

Our Viking cruise gave us a whole day in Rouen. But we spent 3 days on that road trip.

 

I know not everyone has time to spend like this, and a cruise has benefits that allow you to see a place that you might want to visit later, spending more time.

 

But my vote for Rouen and the Beaches is to spend at least 3 days in each place ...