Staying in London after a cruise - Should I plan it ?

[Jack E Dawson]

4 hours ago, schattenfell71 said:

The ABBA Arena is at Pudding Mill Ln, London E15 2PJ

 

My hotel is The Guardsman, 1 Vandon Street, Westminster, London SW1H 0AH

schattenfell,

We recently did the reverse schedule of what you are planning, spending a week in London first then sailing on the QM2. We booked our train from London to Southampton through The Train Line, see link below. The train runs between London Victoria Station, which is walking distance to your hotel, and the Central Southampton station, a very short cab ride from the terminal where the QM2 docks. The train takes 2 1/2 hours. We were very surprised by how much the prices varied by what time you traveled. There were 4 of us, so we got a group discount, and paid $28 per person for First Class. However, the train after ours was $126 per person. Crazy.

Jack

https://www.thetrainline.com/

[techteach]

@Jack E Dawson How did you manage all of your luggage on the train? I read there isn’t a designated area for it on the train, and I imagine we’ll have 2 large rollers and at 2 carry-ons. I have memories of a carry on sliding down an escalator in Boston…and trying to get our luggage on a train on the Tube in London. There were irritated stares from commuters. I’m still leaning towards hiring a car.

[exlondoner]

5 minutes ago, Jack E Dawson said:

schattenfell,

We recently did the reverse schedule of what you are planning, spending a week in London first then sailing on the QM2. We booked our train from London to Southampton through The Train Line, see link below. The train runs between London Victoria Station, which is walking distance to your hotel, and the Central Southampton station, a very short cab ride from the terminal where the QM2 docks. The train takes 2 1/2 hours. We were very surprised by how much the prices varied by what time you traveled. There were 4 of us, so we got a group discount, and paid $28 per person for First Class. However, the train after ours was $126 per person. Crazy.

Jack

https://www.thetrainline.com/

 

I'm sorry to seem disbelieving, but did you really go from Victoria Station to Southampton? No wonder it took 21/2 hours. It is a bit like going from NY to Chicago via Washington. The station for Soton is Waterloo. And the better trains take about an hour, unless there are interruptions for engineering, or indeed strikes, which we have now been threatened with.

[Megabear2]

There are also massive engineering works at present although the next few weeks on SWR from Waterloo look clear.  The train strike threat is however very real.  

 

Southampton Central is served by Southern railway and GWR as well as SWR and although their services take longer and there aren't so many of them you may indeed find cheaper fares such as Jack E Dawson did.  There are fully flexible train tickets allowing travel by any route which are more expensive but you would be able to use them on any service run by any train line.

 

There is generally a luggage rack area at the end of each carriage and as someone who frequently uses trains running from Munich into Austria and Italy I would say they offer just as much storage as I find on the DB and OB trains I use for that.

 

I hope this is helpful.

[exlondoner]

Most of the rolling stock SWR use between Waterloo,and Soton doesn't have luggage racks, but this is not usually a problem out of the rush hours.

 

incidentally, trainline charge a fee: if you book direct with say, SWR, they don't. If you want to reduce costs, it's always worth looking a splitticketing, though unlikely to make much difference on this journey.

[Megabear2]

4 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Most of the rolling stock SWR use between Waterloo,and Soton doesn't have luggage racks, but this is not usually a problem out of the rush hours.

 

incidentally, trainline charge a fee: if you book direct with say, SWR, they don't. If you want to reduce costs, it's always worth looking a splitticketing, though unlikely to make much difference on this journey.

Sorry, I was speaking about the alternatives such as Southern which I use to go to Gatwick and inward to Victoria as mentioned by Jack E Dawson.  

 

I never use the SWR trains from Southampton so could not comment although the Salisbury ones do have racks.

[schattenfell71]

Can someone recommend a reliable private shuttle company?

[Jack E Dawson]

9 hours ago, techteach said:

@Jack E Dawson How did you manage all of your luggage on the train? I read there isn’t a designated area for it on the train, and I imagine we’ll have 2 large rollers and at 2 carry-ons. I have memories of a carry on sliding down an escalator in Boston…and trying to get our luggage on a train on the Tube in London. There were irritated stares from commuters. I’m still leaning towards hiring a car.

Techteach,

We had 2 large rollers and 2 carry-ons. The train was never very full so we just stacked them on the seat in front of us. The conductor was fine with that.

Jack

 

[Jack E Dawson]

9 hours ago, exlondoner said:

 

I'm sorry to seem disbelieving, but did you really go from Victoria Station to Southampton? No wonder it took 21/2 hours. It is a bit like going from NY to Chicago via Washington. The station for Soton is Waterloo. And the better trains take about an hour, unless there are interruptions for engineering, or indeed strikes, which we have now been threatened with.

Well now you tell me exlondoner:)

We chose that train because it left from Victoria Station, walking distance from our hotel, and because it was cheap. I originally said $28 but it was actually 28 Pounds. Would loved to have done it in an hour but we did not want to have to take the tube or cab to get to the train station. Next time I will know better. Thanks

Jack

[techteach]

@Jack E Dawson @exlondoner Thanks Jack for the great picture. I hope we meet some time on a cruise. (We fly to Chicago to go to the symphony about once a year, pre-covid). We took a train from London down to Portsmouth to see the H.M.S. Victory. It was a week day, and not very crowded. We foolishly bought our ticket while in the U.S. and then didn’t take the same credit card with us, so we had to buy all new tickets. Ah the things you learn… The $$ saved to Southampton is quite a bit. We’re staying at the Marriott Grosvenor in Mayfair, so I’ll maybe take another look at the possibilities since it worked for you two. I sure hope you are both feeling better. — Susan

[exlondoner]

7 hours ago, Jack E Dawson said:

Well now you tell me exlondoner:)

We chose that train because it left from Victoria Station, walking distance from our hotel, and because it was cheap. I originally said $28 but it was actually 28 Pounds. Would loved to have done it in an hour but we did not want to have to take the tube or cab to get to the train station. Next time I will know better. Thanks

Jack

 

Yes, I can see if you needed a terminus in walking distance, it would have to be Victoria, and that there is anyway not a good Underground connection from the Victoria area to Waterloo. However, there is the 507 bus whose sole purpose in life is to get you from one to the other. Anyway, you had a nice journey in a peaceful first class compartment, so can't be bad.

[norahs-lot]

14 hours ago, schattenfell71 said:

Can someone recommend a reliable private shuttle company?

Try getting a quote from West Quay Cars... they are Southampton based. I have not used but I have booked for later in the year.

[mumoftwo]

I find Rome2rio: discover how to get anywhere really useful for working out how to get from A to B anywhere in the world.

[elmsliebev]

we met a friend at St Pancras on Monday. There were big queues for the Eurostar so make sure you factor in enough time for getting through check-in, border control etc. 

[schattenfell71]

Only 3 days for us to leave Kiel with the QV and the only fear right now is the testing. But we are optimistic.

 

Everything is planned but I have a perhaps silly question:

 

We will stay in London after this cruise for 2 days.

 

Do I have to change some Euro in GBP or will it be possible to pay everything with my VISA/AMEX?

 

[exlondoner]

1 hour ago, schattenfell71 said:

Only 3 days for us to leave Kiel with the QV and the only fear right now is the testing. But we are optimistic.

 

Everything is planned but I have a perhaps silly question:

 

We will stay in London after this cruise for 2 days.

 

Do I have to change some Euro in GBP or will it be possible to pay everything with my VISA/AMEX?

 

 

 Lots of places don't take Amex, but you should be fine with Visa. You might like a bit of change for tips though. Employers are not universally scrupulous about passing those on when you pay by card.