QM2 TA Travel Arrangements

[capegirl]

As we are leaving on our TA from Southampton and flying back to Heathrow, we are pondering on travel arrangements.  Our thoughts are leaving Surrey, parking our car at a Heathrow parking site, Cruise Connect coach to Southampton and return on our flight and pick the car up.  Anyone experienced problems doing it this way,  or a better idea?

[Pennbank]

Your other options, depending on the amount of luggage, is Heathrow to Southampton Central by Train using the Railink coach to Woking then Train to Southampton Central Journey time around 1hour 40mins or a Taxi Service from Heathrow, Although the Cruise Connect Coach would save a cab fare at Southampton Central.

Edited August 4, 2019 by Pennbank

[Host Hattie]

One way car hire ?

[Neuhoftraveler]

Assuming the Cruise Connect coach is the coach service offered by Cunard, I would deem that the most sensible choice for traveling to the port on embarkation day.  Presumably the ship will wait for the Cunard coach to arrive even if there are road delays (which I understand can occur even in the UK as well as being endemic in the US).

[Underwatr]

5 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

One way car hire ?

 

Worked for us. I was expecting a significant one-way rental drop fee but two rentals ended up on the order of half what the parking would have cost (different cities, different parking rates, probably, but worth checking into).

[Host Hattie]

We used Enterprise from our local airport to their location near the railway station, it was very easy and the one way fee wasn't too much.

[capegirl]

8 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

We used Enterprise from our local airport to their location near the railway station, it was very easy and the one way fee wasn't too much.

 

[capegirl]

An idea car hire however on our return we still have to get home from Heathrow.

[cruiseluvva]

So car hire then too.

[Pennbank]

or just Hire on segment Heathrow to Southampton after dropping own car at Heathrow Car Park.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Pennbank

[ToadOfToadHall]

21 hours ago, capegirl said:

As we are leaving on our TA from Southampton and flying back to Heathrow, we are pondering on travel arrangements.  Our thoughts are leaving Surrey, parking our car at a Heathrow parking site, Cruise Connect coach to Southampton and return on our flight and pick the car up.  Anyone experienced problems doing it this way,  or a better idea?

 

We did something very similar two years ago:

 

Drove from Oop North to Heathrow T5 and parked at the Meet & Greet (£174 for 18 nights) the day before our cruise.

 

Taxi (£67 Smiths for Airports) from T5 to the Holiday Inn Herbert Walker Way (not sure of the cost as it was free as I had a load of loyalty points).

 

Taxi in the morning from the Holiday Inn to the ship (around £5 or so).

 

Then when we landed back at T5, once we had cleared the shambles of passport control it was 5 minutes to collect the car and we where away.

 

It all worked very well indeed.

 

 

[wenlyn]

Yours seems like a good way. We live in Suffolk so do one way car hire to the port and National express back from the airport and have family take us the last 8 miles (or we could get a taxi). Theres a coach that leaves just about as we clear customs that we usually make  though we always book the later one and change to the earlier one just in case of delays en route. 

 

[capegirl]

Thank you all for your ideas.