"Getting to the cruise docks at Southamption" Train / Bus Stations Tip by Dabs

There are several ways to get to Southampton for a cruise, depends on how fast you need to get there, how much you want to spend and if you want to go directly from the ship

a) most people seem to recommend the train although it is not cheap, it offers more frequent service from London's Waterloo Station to Southampton. There are currently trains every 1/2 hour with a travel time of 1:20, £34.10 one way per person. You have to take a taxi from the train station to the cruise docks

b) another option is the National Express bus, the journey time averages about 2 hours and the buses leave less frequently than the train. It was £7.50 per person one way if reserved in advance

c) Greyhound is another bus option

d) cruise ships all offer transfers, ours was $49 per person

e) Megatrain, if you are willing to stay in Southampton until 12:55pm on your day of return, Megatrain has £6 fares. Going to Southampton, there were quite a few trains that would get you there by the time the ship sails for only £6-8. I understand they are regularly scheduled trains that the Mega company reserves a car in, quite a bargain if you can work with their schedule

We opted to take a transfer to the ship from Heathrow, you don't want to risk missing the ship because you didn't want to spend a few more £. It ended up being a good decision, our minivan only had three of us and when I mentioned I'd never been to Winchester, our bus driver stopped and let us wander about for 20 minutes.

Going back we decided to take the train, mainly because of it's flexibility. We opted for the self help disembarkation, we kept all of our luggage and took it off the ship at around 7:30am, got a taxi which cost under £6, bought our tickets and got on the 8am train to Waterloo which got us there at 9:20. If I had gone for the bus, I would have picked the 9:30 bus and would have arrived in London around 11:30.

Mode: TO
Type: Train