I like the coach station in Southampton as it is near the Town Centre and also the train station…read more It is also not too big so you would be hard pushed to miss your coach and there are always plenty of taxis waiting for you. The display boards are always working and the staff on the desk are friendly and helpful. There are a couple of vending machines which are reasonably priced and plenty of seating inside the terminal. The toilets are a decent sized and always clean and tidy. Even though it is near the Town Centre, there is no trouble there and you feel very safe.

We sailed on Celebrity Apex on a Norwegian fjords cruise two weeks ago. The original cruise…read moreterminal was City Center terminal however it was subsequently moved over to Horizon a few days before we were set to sail. It was a non issue as both terminals are nearby to each other. The Horizon cruise terminal is the newer one of the two. We pulled our 24 inch luggage over from a nearby hotel. Took about 15 minutes. We had planned to walk our luggage onto the ship. But then a cruise terminal worker suggested we not as the luggage probably couldn't fit onto the X-ray conveyor belt. We checked the luggage instead. Easy peasy as they tagged the luggage right then and there. It was a seamless process as we checked in using Celebrity's app while home. At the cruise terminal we showed our passports with the app and we're allowed to board. Typically we'll ask for early boarding to take advantage of the lunch buffet onboard. We showed up at 11:20am with a 11:30am embarkation. The day we disembarked was just as seamless. We walked off the ship with our luggage. Thank goodness it was at a downhill slant all the way down into the cruise terminal. A cruise employee acted as the traffic controller instructing passengers where to go depending on your previously transportation arrangements. We met our private transport past the pedestrian crossing. In and out within 10-15 minutes. Back to London for a post stay. Took about 1 hour 50 minutes due to traffic.

A very busy cruise ship port with 4 huge ships coming in this morning. Navigating the port &…read morefinding our luggage was easy as everything was well marked. There were signs for taxis, shuttles, ride shares & tours. The taxi line moved very quickly, we were in our cab in about 5 minutes. The ride to the station was in under :10. We passed several walkers pushing one bag on wheels the 1 flat mile route.

Not to be confused with Mouth Wets Trains, which are a truly mouthwatering prospect…read more These multicoloured trains are mostly red but also yellow and blue, which makes a really interesting color combination. They basically did everything from London to the southwestern tip and all along the South Coast from Portsmouth and Southampton to the West. This train-chain has the most destinations in this region, although the North Coast of Cornwall and Devon and Somerset were woefully under-represented. But the rest of the region was pretty well attended too, except for the coastline from Weymouth down to Torquay which again was under represented by these services. They were operated by Stagecoach which is why they look like the Stagecoach buses, and are expensive. They took over other little local franchises and were taken over by South Western Railway in 2017. It was part of the privatization of British Rail which basically ruined trains for the whole country. Southwestern at least has more traditional looking trains and colours and operates a much lesser part of the region. So it's kind of sad. The only reason I give it a higher rating is because of the colors.

Aptly named South West Trains dominates the rails at lovely Waterloo Station, with services to the…read moresouth and west of England. Destinations include Weymouth, Portsmouth, Exeter St. Davids, Bristol Temple Meads and Reading. They also operate former Underground stock on the Isle of Wight between Ryde Pier Head and Shanklin. I've had the opportunity to ride the line from Reading to Waterloo, which stops at only eleventy billion stations. What is usually a 30 minute journey on the Great Western line to Paddington is an hour and a half on the South West line to Waterloo. I swear, some of these aren't even real stations. They just stop there because they can! But if you need to be at Waterloo, this could be helpful. And the Waterloo to Hampton Court line is useful. It stops at the Wimbledon District Line station on separate platforms. Platforms have an easy to read "next train" board and my experience was that the trains arrived and departed at the scheduled times. The South West trains I've ridden were clean and well kept with a surprisingly low amount of litter or graffiti. On board information screens were quite useful. Helpfully, many South West stations in the London Transport Area (including Wimbledon and Hampton Court) have Oyster Readers. If you're traveling in this area (check first), you might be able to save a huge bunch of £!

I suppose on one level it's hard to review a cruise line when it's the only cruise I've been on. I…read morewasn't sure exactly what to expect, but I did have some expectations, and well, I'm not sure any of them were met by P&O. We thought a cruise would be perfect because I like to go out and explore stuff while we're on vacation, and the other half likes to relax at the pool or the bar and drink a bunch of cocktails. It sounded like a perfect combination of the two. So we went on an 11 night cruise down the Atlantic coast leaving from Southampton. We had stops in La Coruna, Casablanca, Cadiz, Malaga, Gibraltar and Lisbon as well as four sea days. The cruise sounded great (we were really excited about Casablanca) and there was a fine dining restaurant on board with Marco PIerre White's name attached. I'd never been to one of his restaurants, but I knew the name, so I was hoping for good things. So first off, our room was fantastic. We did splurge and go for a mini-suite. (Because hey, it's a honeymoon, so why not?) It had a balcony. We also got canapes every night. It's a good thing we did splurge because we spent quite a bit of time there. (The reasons will be clear later.) We even brought four bottles of our own wine to enjoy on board because again, hey why not? So after we arrived, we had several hours before our room was ready, so we went and grabbed a bite at the buffet. After having lunch at the buffet, I realized that I pretty much didn't want to go back to the buffet again. Luckily there are several restaurants and places to eat, so it really wouldn't be an issue. We also checked out some of the bars and had some cocktails. While cheap, they were clearly watered down and not really that great. This isn't boding well. The pools were quite small, and honestly, there were always a lot of very sun-burned white people around them. Speaking of white people, apparently cruise lines are places where it's still okay for the primarily white passengers to be served by minorities. It felt very Victorian. I know that they probably pay well, and they probably make a lot of money, but there was a level of discomfort attached that I wasn't okay with. They were also obsessed with hand sanitizer on the ship. There were always people try to squirt you with it outside of the restaurants and when you were boarding the ship. Apparently they were worried about norovirus which is a virus that isn't killed by hand sanitizers. It really was frustrating and at one point a very elderly woman complained quite loudly that we weren't using it. I actually didn't hear, but I probably would have said something quite rude if I had. But speaking of the restaurants... The first night we ate at the "fine dining" restaurant. It's not fine dining. We were severely disappointed (especially with our cheese plate that was cold and the cheeses were boring). So we figured we wouldn't go back. However, after a few meals at the standard restaurant, we realized that it was far worse (except for the cheese) and maybe we should go back to the other place just for something decent. The Italian restaurant on the ship was far better. We basically decided to eat in port whenever possible. The wines were okay, but not great, although if you want expensive champagne, it was quite a bit cheaper than getting back in the UK. Basically, the food was geared toward an older, British palate instead of having a more interesting selection. So with the lack of good food, good wine and good cocktails, we spent a lot of time in the room reading or drinking our own wine while we were on the ship. Or in port if we could. We also frequented the casino for something to do and played a lot of blackjack. The port selection was great, except most of the time we arrived at 8:00 am. When I'm on vacation, I don't want to have to get up early, so we did miss a lot of time in port. I'm not sure why they were obsessed with making us get there incredibly early, but it was probably due to the obscene amount of elderly people on the ship. They like mornings or something, don't they? It was alright in most cases, as we could leave later and didn't need to be back until 5:30 or so, but in Gibraltar we were only there from 8:00-12:30 so unfortunately we were forced to have an early morning so we could rush to the rock and see stuff then head back. It does give the opportunity to try places and I definitely want to go back to Malaga and Lisbon. The onboard entertainment was pretty goofy. I think I did Karaoke. Otherwise there was a lot of cabaret shows (which I saw a bit of one and realized how awful it was) and other stuff, but nothing I was really interested in. Again, I feel like it was geared to a different age group and people who really like to do British things. Lots of quizzes and ballroom dancing. So it was disappointing on that end as well. I'm still not against cruises after this, I think it will just involve a lot more research into what the ships have to offer first.

P&O Britannia cruise around Norwegian Fjords Bergen,…read moreAndalsnes, Flaam, Stavanger Wow I am in love with Norway and the Fjords. The views from the ship that we passed was out of this world so green (so many trees) along with snowy mountain tops and waterfalls cascading down them was a spectacular site. The places we visited in Norway was all so quaint and pretty. Depending what time you go to Norway also depends what you might see for example summer there is not so many waterfalls. Also in spring summer night does not go dark and in autumn and winter Norway only gets about 5 hours sun then pitch black darkness. Anyway onto the actual cruise ship. I sailed on P&O's Britannia last year and was not impressed with my whole experience due to a number of issues from my cabin, service, décor, excursions etc. but this time around was a completely different story and I must admit I have now fallen in love with Britannia. I had a balcony cabin this time around rather than an inside one this was far better as I had more room to manoeuvre around in and I could step out and watch the stunning views that passed by me and get some fresh air and even have breakfast out on it. Watch out though for attack of seagulls when coming into port if you have breakfast on the balcony (could re-enact the film The Birds). The bathroom still small though and still smelt but I think this is to do with the plastic and confinement. Plenty of hanging space and much more hangers this time which was great as this time instead of me hogging all the hangers my husband had some for his shorts etc. The cleaner Janet we had on this trip as well was a very pleasant happy young lady and even made me a towel animal every night even though they don't do this anymore she especially made an effort for me. The room was always kept clean by her. I gave her a big tip at the end of the trip to show my appreciation for all that she done. Pool area was much better this time around as well with the pool being clean and not turning us bue this time however was a tad cold in temperature. Restaurants great food seems to have improved in main freedom dining restaurants. Ones that you pay a surcharge for still as outstanding. Buffet food in the buffet area still needs improving luke warm. However waiters in the freedom dining main restaurants still need to work on their manners and smiles but other than that the food was good. Also I was disappointed that the bar area (Broadies) has cut down on their selection of ciders from 72 to now just around 50. The quizzes at night like last time amazing so enjoyable they even have game shows you can play along with other travellers from Pointless to the Chase but they call them something different. I played the Pointless type one was such fun. The entertainment people really are a laugh and so friendly and they even remembered us from last time back in July so made us feel like VIPs. However the theatre shows though was still the same so a bit disappointing in that front and apparently these won't get changed until approx. 3 years time so even though I love Britannia I properly won't be going on her again until the shows change. Also whilst on board I done another cookery class which was great this time chocolate making as I have never done chocolate making before and it was very interesting and mucky at the same time. So worth doing I was stuffed on gooey chocolate brownies by the end of it. Some exterior round Britannia needs to still be fixed i.e. snooker balls as chipped, wallpaper peeling off some walls in restaurant but other than that the ship looks lovely from inside and out and is one of the most modern interiors in a ship at present and looks grand. Casino is quite small and do feel it needs to be made bigger as was quite hard to get on roulette table at times as too many people but good fun either way. All excursions on this trip also went well and saw some amazing places in Norway. I took such trips as the Flaam Railway, the tram up Floyen Mount and the train around Andalsnes which all was spectacular with the views. So I would definitely go back on Britannia as I have now fallen in love with her on this second time around but I will wait as mentioned earlier the theatre shows won't be changing until approx. 3 years down the line and I do love my theatre so would like new ones. Will miss you Britannia until the future.

We had a one night stay before our cruise. I redeemed Marriott Bonvoy points…read more The hotel is conveniently located near the Southampton cruise terminal. The hotel suggested we take a cab but we managed to pull our 24 inch luggage from the hotel. We cut through the Holiday Inn parking lot. I wouldn't recommend you walking unless you're very mobile. It took us under 15 minutes. We enjoyed the hotel. Very upbeat. We noticed a photo booth on the mezzanine and table tennis. We had a choice of 500 points or food credit $10 per person. I took the food credit as we were going to eat before leaving for the terminal the next morning. Spent about another $12 USD out of pocket. Standard breakfast food options. We also had hotel bar food for dinner the day we checked in after the two fish and chip places suggested by the hotel didn't work out. Ordered: * hubby had chicken wings * I had Mac n cheese balls * BIL had chicken curry * sis had egg rolls We each were given a free cocktail voucher. It was like a fruit punch. Also got local beer. There's a shopping center across the street. It was a Sunday so stores closed early.

Location is fantastic! Easy to get to from public transport, across from the mall, and near the…read moreseaside. The docks, historic sites, and restaurants are just a short walk. The bar on the ground floor is pretty cool and I enjoyed all the decor. We were given a complementary welcome drink, which was greatly appreciated. The room was comfortable and the bathroom was nice. Unfortunately, I only had about 90 minutes of sleep due to going to bed late and needing to get up early to catch a bus back to Heathrow. The bed and pillows were lovely and there was nice lighting, even a motion sensitive light under the bed so you didn't trip over things in the dark. I wouldn't hesitate to book this hotel again. It was nicer than I anticipated and felt "cool" and "trendy." Drink were a bit pricy but there are countless options within a short walk.