Southampton (London), England Port Reviews

This was actually embarkation day, so after arriving at Heathrow, we were directed to our transfer shuttle bus area. I realize they were trying to organize a lot of people, but I felt like part of a herd of cattle. We had to wait with hundreds of other people going to various ships in one small area with not enough seating, therefore having to stand for close to an hour before being called by assigned color to large buses to go to our individual ship. The bus was packed to capacity and our luggage was taken from us to be loaded on a semi truck without our room number associated with it. Apparently they were just going to match the ID tags to the manifest and deliver them to the stateroom. That didn't work very well since my husband never did get his delivered and we had to go to Guest Services at 9:00 pm to have them track it down. Thankfully, it did make it aboard, but was inconvenienced by it. We weren't able to use the computerized paper tags that are usually sent because of the airline. If they had just taken a few minutes to ID the luggage before loading it on the truck, it would have been much smoother. We then rode 1.5 hours to the port as a sardine. Once arriving at the terminal, things went smoothly through check-in. We were disconcerted that they kept all our Passports, saying that Ireland required the ship to submit them for all passengers, but that they would be delivered to our stateroom in a few days. They never were. We had to go to Guest Services and request them back, but we weren't alone. Quite a few people were very confused about the procedure. Surely there's a better way other than being without our passport for days on end.

we just used this port for embarkation and debarkation. Did not take an excursion.

we hired a taxi driver for 250 pounds who took us everywhere for a day far cheaper than a private driver

No excursion was done at this port.

Not really part of the cruise.

Not much to see.

only passing through

Stayed one night here before the cruise. Seemed like an average port city. A word of caution is the hotels don’t normally have AC unless you get a 5 star hotel. We didn’t hang around in Southampton much though, we spent most of the day in Salisbury visiting Stonehenge and the Salisbury Cathedral. An easy 30 min train ride but well worth it. A lot to do up there.

The UK insists on a face to face with customs, but only provided 2 agents for 3,000 passengers. Oh, and the trains were not running that day.

My departure port of choice