It was a really hot day as we crossed the sea to the Isle of Wight. We are so sorry we missed the…read moreisland's Pride festival over 15/17 July Prides are colourful and family friendly. The departure area at Southsea is kindly described as no frills functional. If you'd like a coffee it's Costa out of a machine and if it's a rest room then you must leave, go across the road to another, publicly controlled facility, equally kindly described as functional. Most publicly controlled facilities/services in England have been wilfully ruined by the government in office some 11 years out of a warped ideology and much is already gone not to return. Woe betide if you need medical or emergency dental help and if your not a uk subject please be well insured - getting any prompt dental treatment is nigh on impossible (and not accidental) in the worlds 5th richest economy. It's a rum do to vote yourself to be poorer but the working poor and the super rich carried the day. When the truth outs, and it will, it won't be a pretty sight. In the UK the working poor receive more state benefits than unemployed folk - yet bizarrely taxpayers subsidise the super rich. The hovercraft staff are a friendly bunch and once on the island side there's at least decent rest room facilities and it looks a little bit more modern and pleasant. The craft itself is impressive, quite spacious within, not noisy and comfy seating. Dis and embarkation are very straightforward. It has a top speed of around 50 knots so it can move at a lick. All in all t'was a grand day out.

The family at AtlasAdventured highly recommends this experience!…read moreWe traveled from Portsmouth Southsea to Ryde in August of 2023. We originally planned on taking the ferry, but when we found out about the hovercraft we just couldn't pass up the opportunity! As of 2023, this is the world's only commercial hovercraft! Tickets were more expensive than the ferry, but you got there a lot faster. It was 80 pounds round-trip for our family, with our 4 year old being able to ride for free (it is cheaper if you get a roundtrip ticket for same day use). The ride took about 10 min. There is a Hoverbus that will provide transportation to the Hoverport. You can find the Hoverbus stops on their website. The waiting room on the Southsea side was nice and the staff were friendly. There are restrooms and a Costa coffee machine. They do recommend you show up 15 minutes early. The staff on board was super friendly and there is space for your luggage. It was a smooth ride, and so much fun! The location in Ryde was not so pleasant. We arrived about an hour before our departure time due to us taking public transportation to get there. Once we got ourselves settled in the waiting room, my husband went to leave to go get our toddler some snacks, and was yelled at by the lady at the desk, threatening him that if he left the building he would have to purchase another ticket or would not be allowed on the hovercraft. If we had known that you were not allowed to exit the building we would have dragged our luggage, in the rain, to a nearby restaurant and waited! I could not believe how rude this lady was. I scoured their site and other reviews, and nowhere does it say that you cannot leave the building, and this particular woman has been very rude to countless people. Maybe it's time for someone in charge to reprimand this person. She is ruining a lot of people's experiences. I would have given a 5 star review if not for this individual. Once we got out of the waiting room and onto the hovercraft, it was such a great experience. Just watching the hovercraft pull up and onto the sand is so cool. I thought it would be loud, but they do a good job of dampening the noise while inside the hovercraft.! If we ever go back to the Isle of Wight, this is definitely the mode of transportation we will use to get there.

Very efficient, loads of sailings, freindly service, takes 35 minutes, book on line (don't worry…read moreabout their request to print off the booking confirmation, they'll accept your booking reference as evidence and print off a ticket in the office). Not cheap, but then what is? Fantastic views of Lymington and Yarmouth from the decks. The lounges are comfy with big picture windows. Excellent trip and well worth it for an easy way to have a scout round the Isle of Wight. Recommended.

One of the worst ferry terminals I've had the pleasure to spend time at. The building has no cash…read morepoint and the coffeeshop has no working card machine! (12th November 2013). The saving grace is that the building has a toilet! My tip bring hard cash if you find yourself stuck here for an hour or so.

If you live in Lymington, you may end up with Lymington disease, so be careful…read more What a beautiful little old town - one of those little Old Towns, and it's just very memorable, and somehow unlike any other little town we've been to recently. So absolutely gorgeous then. The old station house looks like a beautiful old pub or large cottage. It's one of the highlights of the town. It's little and old and beautiful and definitely prettier than the nearby railway station. The service is away from the main town and it just has a single track that comes down here. It's been a line for a hundred and fifty years now which is pretty amazing.

Lymington is a great place for a day out, and this gorgeous little station is well worth a visit in…read moreits own right. Viewed from the car park outside, it looks much like any other station, but step inside and you're transported to another world entirely. The Station Master is friendly and welcoming and the walls are plastered with pictures of steam trains, newspaper reports and authentic railway posters of yesteryear. Every nook and cranny from the ticket office to the waiting room is filled with little bits of history including old signs and signal equipment, and more personal items such as old suitcases with labels saying where they've been. Real care and attention has been lavished on this station, even down to silly things like soft covers on the metal chairs in the waiting room, and the staff and supporters deserve to have real pride in what they've created. Brilliant.

Time to let off some steam at the Isle Of Wight. With this Steam Railway no less…read more This is a little old steam railway on the Isle of Wight, so if you're making the Isle of Wight your holiday destination, this would be a great part of it. It's one of the many Heritage Railways in the UK and one of the prettiest. I've loved it for a very long time and probably always will. It's actually a good way to get around the island as well, which is funny because it's not really a method of transportation per se, and yet it is because it's such a small island and a lot of people don't bring their cars over here.

I wonder how many people reading this actually travelled by steam train when it was a daily mode of…read moretransport rather than a novel journey to remind of how it used to be? I ask because I did. Do I miss it heck, yes - the intoxicating unique smells, the noises, the sounds, especially the thump of huge slabs of heavy metal, hitting heavy metal yet staying unmarked and gold, red and black lacquered steam engines, dozens of yards long, breathing and hissing as if alive. Many's the time I got to be up with the driver and coalman as we chugged along - the intense fiery heat, sulphur smells and coal being fed continuously - real men of steel with hands that could crush you. Here at the Isle of Wight is a beautifully preserved railway with lovingly restored steam engines with comfortable period carriages and charming rural stations. It is charming and worth supporting but I suspect with its location it'll rarely ever draw a crowd. The staff are dressed in traditional Southern Railway uniforms from a different era of time that will never return. All that's left is five miles of Steam Railway and an electrified eight mile main line from Ryde to Shanklin from a railway system which once extended over 55 miles of mostly rural Wight. The first line opened in 1862 between Cowes and Newport and in 1900 a second railway delivered a complete island rail service. It's now a revenant to haunt those of us on what we had and stupidly allowed greedy politics to ruin letting them enrich only themselves - those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing; some things will never change as long as we stay stupid and the evidence is right in front of us from 1O Downing Street to Mar a Lago. The price of our stupid is already intolerable and fast becoming incalculable as we lurch toward fascism which is dictatorship lite.

We took the harbour tour from the historic dockyard. It turned out you could pay separately for the…read moretour rather than it being included in a dockyard ticket. The tour itself is a nice 45 minutes trip through Portsmouth harbour. We were in luck: nice weather and the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier was in full view. What is not to like.

Not as aged as Old Milton…read more This is a typical little station with a road bridge going right over it at the end of the platform. Not too many trains stop here anymore, but it has a cute little Old English style house here which separates it from many other of the regional stations. Definitely one of the prettier stations in Hampshire, but also very low key. It dates to 1886 and it's just a little village railway station really.

I use the train a lot, so feel reasonably qualified to tell a good station from a bad one and was…read morepleasantly surprised by New Milton Railway Station when I visited recently. There's plenty of car parking and the station platforms and buildings appear clean and well-maintained. The ticket office staff were helpful and knowledgeable despite my asking awkward questions about different ticket types and rail operators. The waiting room was warm and comfortable and although I'm not a trainspotter by any stretch of the imagination, the wall displays of old steam trains and railway memorabilia were interesting to look at and helped to pass the time.

The station was very very crowded. There were machines to purchase train tickets, with a card, but…read morewe stood on line to be sure we got on the correct train. There was a wide gate on the left to scan our tickets & get onto the track. Announcements were made regarding the trains arrival & tracks. Local trains stop here as well. There were benches to sit & wait. We asked where the best place to stand & were told if we wanted a seat to move towards the back. The floor was marked with which train car was stopping. Once the train arrived, we dragged luggage up one step and left it piled up to the side, thankfully, we did not have to lift our luggage overhead. There were plenty of seats and clean restrooms. We got off at Waterloo, the last stop.

The main train station servicing the city of Southampton, we took a South Western Railway train to…read moreLondon on a Sunday morning here after getting off of our Norwegian cruise boat. It's about 1 mile from the cruise port, and we decided to grab a taxi. It cost about £7 for the short trip, and was dropped off about 1 hour before our scheduled trip. We had already purchased our tickets on-line through the South Western Railway website, and for two adult tickets to go to Central London cost £18.40 for the two of us. You can either print out the QR code tickets or put it on your Apple wallet. You need the QR code to scan as you enter the station, but there is no gate that prevents it. The train station was pretty empty when we got there, but began to get more crowded as the departure time approached. Northbound is on the other side of the station (Track 2) from where you enter, and there is an elevator to the skybridge that goes to the other side. Everything is outside, so having a warm coat for a brisk January English morning was mandatory. There are clear electronic displays giving arrival times for the trains. The best part was that the station had free high-speed wi-fi, and we took full advantage of it. The train came right on-time (around 8:23) and we left promptly at 8:26. It was open seating, and there were a total of 10 cars, so there was plenty of seats. We sat at car 5, and was able to put our standard carry-on bags on top of the luggage racks above each seat. Folks who had large checked bags, just used their seat next to them to store their luggage. The seats were relatively comfortable, and each had standard british electric sockets that worked. The train itself had wi-fi throughout our trip (speed of about 5mb or so). The announcements were made in English only, were very clear. The conductor checked our ticket halfway through the trip (around 9:35). I had folded my paper QR code so it became unreadable, but was able to use the backup from my email to get scanned. We had a few stops (Fareham at 8:40; Havant at 9:06; Guildford at 9:38; Clapham Junction at 10:14). Our final stop was Waterloo at 10:49, at which time we could enter the London Underground. First, you had to exit the South Western train area, and they require you to show your ticket to do that.

This is a wonderful circular walk around the historic walls of the city of Southampton. They were…read moredefensive structures built around the town in the 10th century. Approximately a 2 mile walk, absolutely beautiful..