Port to National Express station

[Slyfox16]

Is making a 10:00 reservation on the National Express bus realistic in terms of finding your luggage and getting a cab to the bus station? We are docking at 6:00 May 12th on NCL. There are 4/5 ships docking that morning and concerned about getting a taxi.

 

[John Bull]

Hi, 

 

The Nat Express timetable isn't showing me a 10.00 coach, but there's one to Heathrow at 9.45 and another to central London at 10.05.

You should be good for either 🙂.

 

Norwegian Prima's cruise terminal (City Cruise Terminal) is only about 3/4 of a mile from the coach station.  Yes, there are 4 cruise ships arriving on sunday 12th May - they're all big ships but being a sunday morning, other than for those cruise ships there'll be little demand for taxis and virtually no traffic. And two alternative routes should one be clogged. There will probably be a line for taxis, but lines move quickly because almost every taxi journey will be to the train or coach station or to a city centre hotel, then the taxi returns for its next fare.

If you are tolerably mobile you can walk to the coach station in 20 minutes - it's level ground.

 

6.00 will be ship's arrival time, disembarkation usually starts around 7,00 unassisted (haul your own luggage from your cabin) and the first tranche of assisted disembarkation at 7.30.

Unassisted and the first couple of tranches of assisted means no delays through the cruise terminal and plenty of taxis.

Things can go wrong with later disembarkation, so if you are allocated a later slot go to Guest Relations and ask for an early slot citing your onward travel arrangements (you might "forget" to take your coach tickets with you, and "mistakenly" tell them that you're booked on the 9.15 or even the 8,25 coach to London 😏). Or disembark unassisted when disembarkation starts.

 

The later you get off the ship the more-likely you'll find a line in the cruise terminal and another for taxis.

If you get off the ship early you're not going to have a problem making the coach, but you could find yourself spending a long time in the coach station waiting room.

Whichever you choose depends how lucky or unlucky you feel 😏

 

JB 🙂