-United Kingdom.England.Portsmouth-
Today we will board the Resilient Lady and sail off to visit the shores of France and Spain. We spent a few days in London – an expensive city which I never get tired of. We had to find our way south to Portsmouth to board our ship. I had a not so easy time trying to plan out how best to arrive. Below is the result of my research which I am sharing out in the hopes that you will find the information here in one place.
Table of Contents
Getting to Portsmouth
From London to Portsmouth Southsea
I had to decide when to get to Portsmouth and settled upon spending a night here before the cruise began. I came to this decision due to past times when the public transport was not reliable. In the end , it was perfect as there was no stress and after being in London for the last few days : Portsmouth was refreshingly quiet.
We took the train from the London Waterloo Station. An important thing to be aware of and plan for is a delay or change of plans especially when using public transport. I encountered it plenty of times in the UK and this time was not different. The train did leave on time however instead of being a direct train – we had to change to another one and I decided to check the route which differed from the original train and found out that it would be better to stop in Fratton which is closer to our hotel in Southsea.
As soon as we stepped out of the train station , I was aware that we might have another problem which was to get a taxi that could take us to the hotel. As luck would have it, as we were walking to the taxi stand – a taxi came up to drop some people off. We were at the Hotel in 7 minutes!
From London to Portsmouth Cruise port
There are National Express buses from London Victoria Coach Station to travel directly to Portsmouth International Port where the cruises and ferries depart from. It is usually a 2-hour journey.
Getting from Portsmouth to Cruise Terminal
From our Hotel in SouthSea
Our taxi ride was expected to take around 10 minutes and would cost less than 10 GBP. However the port itself had a queue of people being dropped off and was a longer wait there.
From Gunwharf Quays near Spinnaker Tower and Portsmouth Harbour
In hindsight, we found out after the cruise that there is a bus operated by the cruise line that shuttles people from and to the Portsmouth International Port where the cruise and ferry terminals are to Gunwharf Quays (close to the Portsmouth Harbour) with no cost.
*Tip: It is worth to check with your cruise line if there is such a bus available.
From Portsmouth Train Stations
Plenty of trains from London will stop at the Portsmouth Harbour Train Station. Head to the Hard Interchange for public buses to the Port.
If you would rather take a taxi, a better stop would be the Portsmouth & Southsea train station. There is a taxi rank right outside.
Embarkation to Resilient Lady at Portsmouth International
We have Deep Blue Extra Status on the Virgin which enabled us to board after the Rock Stars after 1:45pm which was a very nice privilege indeed. We asked our Hotel to book us a taxi for pickup at 1:30 pm as it takes 10 minutes to the International port – we came with only hand luggage which significantly sped up our whole check-in process.
After showing our status, we were ushered along in to the flowing queue to the check-in stations. The people were friendly and efficient, we were given our bands and proceeded on to the bus shuttle that brought us to the Resilient Lady.
Resilient Lady Cabin
This is not our first time on the Ship. We were already on the Resilient Lady on her maiden voyage. Everything was still very familiar. Below is a quick look at the cabin.
We watched the safety briefing then headed downstairs to the meeting point to get our confirmation of having attended said safety briefing. We went around and stopped by the Pizza Place for a Classic Pizza. As per our ritual, we managed to find a spot at The Pink Agave. One of the earliest to arrive we were seated very soon and our orders came shortly after. I ordered the special platter and finished with my favourite dessert.
While having dinner, the ship set sail and headed to our next destination in France.
-End of Embarkation Day : Portsmouth-
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