Southampton or Le Havre?

[skynight]

Paris is 3 hours from leHarve. If your main goal is to spend some time in Paris pre or post cruise then arrange to embark/disembark in leHarve. If you just want to tour around Paris as a port stop realize that it's a very long day, 6 hours of which are intransit. There really isn't very much in leHarve itself. Honfleir is a fairly nice town about 30 minutes from leHarve. 

If your goal is to tour around London then board/disembark in Southampton, about 90 minutes from London. The last time we were there we stayed pre-cruise right in Southampton, which is a very nice town. We took a private transfer right from Heathrow.  

[susancruzs]

Another vote for the National Express bus from Heathrow to Southampton, very easy, I've used it several times.  I plan on using it again Oct. 2021 prior to a Crown Princess cruise.  I used it Oct. 2019 prior to my Northern Lights cruise, stayed in Southampton 2 nights, plan on staying 3 nights this time.

[geoherb]

We've flown to London the past three years to catch cruise ships in Southampton. The first time we took a train from Paddington, changing trains in Reading. The next two years we took the National Express coach from Victoria Coach Station. That was a very nice and inexpensive way to travel. We stayed overnight in Southampton the first two times. On our first trip, we got there early enough to go to the Tudor House and SeaCity Museum (which has a great exhibit on the Titanic). The second time we took a later coach and just walked a little bit around the town, bought a couple of bottles of wine, and ate at a pub. Last year, we wanted to maximize our time in London and went to Southampton the day of our cruise. 

 

I'm a big fan of London. There's so much to do there, but there are also great places to see around there if you have time or want to get away from the city.

[sandyoftheseas]

This is what we did:  Flew to London took a taxi to our hotel and stayed in London 3 nights.  The day of the cruise we bought a London to Southampton tour through Viator stopping at Stonehenge. We arrived at the cruise ship around 1pm.  The worst part about that was the Elite embarkation was after the xray screening so we had to stand in a long line until it split off into the Elite line.  Upon our return to Southampton we used a private transfer to the airport because we wanted to set our own time to leave and we did not want to wait for a bus to fill.  We then flew to Paris and spent 4 nights there in a room overlooking the Eiffel Tower.  It was a very busy but amazing trip.  We feel if you are spending the money for flights,cruise, tours etc.  we want to see and do as much as we can.  We also did a private tour (overlords tours) with 3 other couples we found on our roll call to Normandy it was a long day but we feel we seen every thing we wanted to see and our guide was great.  

Edited July 27, 2020 by sandyoftheseas
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[BarbinMich]

We've always disembarked or embarked at Southampton on our multiple Transatlantic cruises.  Nice town to wander around, especially High St. and the road that follows the harbor, east of High.  There are also scattered historic sites between the hotels and High St.

 

We've never gone to Paris from Le  Havre (docked there 4 times) because of the travel time mentioned above.  We did one ship's tour from Le Havre on our first time there:  Monet's Giverny and the town of Rouen-well worth it.  On some of our later stops at Le Havre, we visited the art museum (mostly modern art, including Monet) located where the Seine enters the ocean and another time visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and yet another time visited the House-Museum of the Ship Owner which was built in 1790 and is very well maintained.  One can walk to all of these from the dock.  Only "snag" we had in Le Havre was when we stopped there on May 8, VE Day.  Almost everything was closed.

Edited July 27, 2020 by BarbinMich

[TeaBag]

1 hour ago, sandyoftheseas said:

 

  Upon our return to Southampton we used a private transfer to the airport because we wanted to set our own time to leave and we did not want to wait for a bus to fill.  We then flew to Paris and spent 4 nights there in a room overlooking the Eiffel Tower.  It was a very busy but amazing trip.  We feel if you are spending the money for flights,cruise, tours etc.  we want to see and do as much as we can.  We also did a private tour (overlords tours) with 3 other couples we found on our roll call to Normandy it was a long day but we feel we seen every thing we wanted to see and our guide was great.  

Sounds like you had a great trip.  National Express operates on a precise schedule, so you do not have to wait for the bus to fill up.  They have a great reservation system and I think if you reserve you can get a better rate, as we did.  We plan to use them again if our cruise goes ahead in 2021.

[crimson moon]

On 7/26/2020 at 4:17 PM, 2travelcats said:

Hello - I’m looking at Princess British Isles cruises and see we can board at either Southampton or Le Havre.  

 

Just wondering the pros and cons of getting to these ports from the airport as we will fly in from the USA.  

 

Looks like Le Havre is much farther from Paris than Southport from London.

 

We want to stay a couple days in the port city before the cruise so I don’t think a Princess transfer will work.

 

Thanks for your help and suggestions - 2travelcats

Just wondering if Southport was a slip of predictive text or what?

 

Southport is way North of London and even further North of Southampton. It is a good six to seven hours drive from Southport to Southampton down some of the busiest motorways in the UK which are notorious for delays due to accidents, roadworks and sheer volume of traffic.

[2travelcats]

Yes - Southport was my error.  I should have typed Southampton.  Sorry!