Saturday, August 30, 2025
Cruise Compass
Dinner Menu: Welcome Aboard
Today’s Weather
Location at Start of Day
Location at Sail Away
View from Port Webcam
Location at End of Day (not recorded)
Early in planning I had to figure out the answer to the question “how do you get from your London hotel to Southampton?” The site https://londontoolkit.com came to the rescue here and I learned that, in the range of options, these made the most sense for us:
- Cruise line-sponsored shuttles that (maybe?) picked you up from your specific hotel…although I never got around to confirming this. Cost was apparently GBP89 per person.
- Shuttle van service that (definitely) picked up at 3 specific London hotels and (maybe?) could be scheduled to pickup at YOUR hotel. Tasks about 2.5 hours and is designed to get you to Southampton around 11:30A. Cost was $124 per person and (maybe) $180 per person for custom pickup.
- Train service from Waterloo Station to Southampton Station. This takes about 1:20 plus about 10 minutes to get to the station from our hotel. Costs were about $20 per person for standard class. Advance sale tickets opened up about 4 months before date of travel. If you looked online prior to this you would see ridiculous prices (along the lines of $150 per person), which initially threw me for a loop until I understood that you couldn’t ACTUALLY purchase a ticket. Once at the SOU station it is either a 15 minute walk or 10 minute taxi ride (GBP 10) to the cruise terminal.
- National Express Coach (bus) service from London’s Victoria Station to the National Express terminal in Southampton. This was the least expensive option (although pretty close to the same price as the train), taking about 2 hours from London, and being subject to any and all possible road delays. I believe the main attraction of the bus was that luggage handling was easier than the train. The bus had guaranteed storage spaces in the luggage compartment, whereas the train essentially has NO provisions for full-size luggage beyond “get it on the train, try to find a home for it, and keep an eye on it.”
Because of the potential for traffic gridlock related to beach-bound traffic, as well as the general principle of strategically trading money to buy speed and/or comfort, I decided early on to use the train service and then grab a taxi to the port. I did put out a question on CruiseCritic regarding the reliability of this service and received a fantastic answer that set my mind at ease about taking the train on morning of embarkation as well as well as receiving guidance that any kind of train strike would almost definitely NOT impact this particular route.
Doing a bit more research on buying train tickets led to the discovery that online purchases direct from the South Western Railway website would fail for non-UK users, as the site requires users to create accounts, and won’t accept non-UK addresses. However, the solution appears to be to use another National Rail company, as they can all book tickets for each other with no additional fees, and the LNER site, in particular, was called out as a good choice. It appears that the privatization of the railroads has led to differing user experiences depending on the company you use! A UK resident pointed out that SWR runs routes that are much more oriented to UK natives, while LNER visits (more) places that tourists would go, which is why their ticket-buying experience is more considerate of non-residents. Another CC user helped clarify that, when purchasing on LNER’s website, we’d receive the message that no reserved seats were available and that we might have to stand during the trip. This is apparently an artifact of the fact that SWR doesn’t sell reserved seats on that train and everything is first-come/first-served. So the warning could/should be ignored as being unhelpful!
I did do some test lookups in May 2024 for train tickets for August 2024 (equivalent to what I’d be doing in May 2025 to actually buy tickets for August 2025). I did note that the limited number of 1st Class tickets were booked pretty quickly. On May 1, 2024 I could check (Saturday) August 17 – and for all the trains that arrived at SOU prior to noon – which approximates what we’d be doing in 2025 – there were typically only 3-5 seats left. So looked like I needed to setup a calendar reminder so I could ensure I bought tickets on the first available date in 2025. My tests on 6/1/24 suggested that I could purchase a ticket up to 82 days in advance, so I set an alert for 6/1/25 (90 days ahead of desired date) and started paying attention from there.
I also (very briefly) looked at the difference between First Class and Second Class on the train system and, frankly, couldn’t see any value in the more expensive tickets. In June 2025 someone on CC posted about their recent train trip and mentioned that they’d run across several cruise passengers who had bought FC tickets only to discover that these seats were regularly oversold and that they could find no open FC seating! Strangely, UK-based respondents not only confirmed this, but clarified that a ticket (on this “commuter train”) didn’t actually guarantee you a place on the train – there is apparently no limit to how many they might sell, and even with a ticket (and even with a specifically-timed ticket) you might find yourself with no room on a train! Finally, on June 18, 2025 I purchased two tickets on the LNER website for the 935A train. Total cost at time of purchase was about USD 37 for both tickets.
Having decided to take the train, the next task was figuring out how to get from our hotel to the Waterloo train station. The initial two main options were to take the Underground or take a bus. In this case, the bus was the hands-down winner, as it avoided the use (and endless stairs) of Charing Cross Underground station and replaced it instead with a short 500’ walk from the hotel to the bus stop for a bus that arrived every 3 to 8 minutes. In the end, we went with option #3(!) – we just grabbed a cab outside the hotel at the Charing Cross station taxi stand and were at Waterloo Station in about 6 minutes – no muss, no fuss, no bus! Cost was just under GBP10, but we were happy to trade cash for convenience in this case. No need to walk our luggage down the street and onto a bus.
As for boarding in Southampton itself, the main questions to be answered were:
a) What were the options for getting from the SOU train station to the cruise terminal, and
b) How strictly were boarding times enforced? For this one, it seemed that boarding was extremely efficient and Royal was NOT really paying attention to whether you are arriving in your assigned time slot or not.
As for a), I found several videos online that discussed various options. Essentially, the two most viable were to take a 6-8 minute taxi ride from the taxi queue just outside the train station to the terminal for about GBP 10, or to make a 10-15 minute walk between same. The walk is along mostly level sidewalks and seemed quite doable, particularly if the weather cooperated. I thought we were still spry enough to do this if we wanted to. FWIW, the walk also took you past a pretty good wine shop with decent prices, so we could potentially stop and pick up two bottles of wine if we wanted. OTOH, there was a giant CC thread where EVERY current Royal cocktail recipe was being posted, and we spent the intervening months before the cruise trying a LOT of them and finding a LOT of them we liked, so we figured to be much more aggressive with cocktails this cruise and wine seemed like it might be superfluous! Probably going to be a last minute decision. (Our March 2025 cruise on Navigator proved that we were OK to forgo wine drinking in favor of cocktails!)
Another thing I like to do is locate webcams for all the various ports we’d be using. There’s not a lot to learn from these, but occasional visits during times when ships were arriving or departing were sometimes entertaining. Although I couldn’t find a webcam specific to the pier used by RCCL in Southampton, there were still 5 different cameras available that could be used sequentially to get a good long look at various arrivals and departures.
Finally, in June 2025 I decided to cash in 30,000 B of A credit card points in return for $300 OBC. This would go a long way to covering our cocktail expenses onboard.
Right around August 10 I happened to check the Royal app on my phone and noticed that they’d started to populate the Cruise Compass with (some) of the activities planned. I started a new tab on the Spreadsheet of Fun with the intention of jotting down certain classes of events (such as Headliners and other special shows, game shows, trivia, lectures, etc) so I could begin to try to find a nice mix of stuff that didn’t all collide with one another. Both trivia and music acts were very slow to populate – a week later those events were still missing – and I noticed that the headliner schedule was re-arranged a few times, so I probably started this exercise too early. However, it ultimately was helpful because we were able to strategically time our theater attendance and ended up attending things that we might otherwise have missed in other venues. We also ensured that we caught as many of the different musical acts as possible. By the time we flew out all Cruise Planner data was present except for the music schedule from cruise day 9+. That fully populated during our days in London.
At that same time that the activities calendar was published, the MDR menus were posted, too. This was VERY handy for me, as I was able to go through each night’s menu and pre-plan my meals. This way I ensured I got a nice variety and avoided repetition that might have otherwise resulted from not knowing what was coming in future days. I also discovered that a couple of the MDR menus were “difficult” to select options from, and that caused us to spend time after boarding on this first day adjusting our dining plans. We moved a couple of our specialty reservations to coincide with the nights of poor MDR choices. By the time of the actual cruise, a couple of the menus had swapped positions for reasons unknown.
Back to the day of…
We were up at 730A for a light breakfast and then out of the Clemont to an available taxi (no waiting) and walking into the doors at Waterloo Station at 830A. The station is a wonderful mix of old-timey architecture with a thin layer of technology over it. We checked the schedule boards and waited for our train to come up on the list. The boards show active schedules for each of the 18 or so platforms, and then there’s another section showing upcoming trains – so you basically have to wait for your train to be promoted off the “upcoming” board to the “at the platform” board. Given the busy pace of the station our 830P train didn’t make it onto the “at the platform” board until around 810P. Upon boarding we discovered that the train wasn’t anywhere near as full as we had expected, so we took seats on either side of the aisle from each other and placed our bags on the seats next to us without any concerns.
Upon arrival at Southampton Central we stepped off the train, left the platform, exited the station, and walked barely ½ block to the head of the taxi queue, where there were already 5 taxis lined up and loading up at the same time. We got into the 5th cab (being 5th in line) and were on our way to the station. For such a short ride there was a surprising amount of traffic that had to be navigated, and the stop lights seemed strangely timed. There was a lot of sitting in traffic. While the taxi is supposed to be faster than walking I felt like, in the end, the timing was about the same.
Once we exited that taxi, however, things really moved fast. We had to cross a couple of drop-off lanes to get to the main sidewalk of the terminal, and before we were halfway across a porter came up and accepted our bags from us – so we were free of those before we knew it. Once in the doors of the terminal we showed our e-Passes and were directed to dude with tablets who took our pictures (click click) and dropped the rope behind him allowing us to head for the gangway. From taxi to standing on the ship was about 8 minutes, tops. Incredibly efficient!
We immediately went to our muster stations (B6) to check in,
then went over to Giovanni’s as I was hoping to change our 2nd reservation from night 13 to night 15, since the night 15 menu (Bon Voyage) seemed so bleak. They had no availability at the time, however, so left it as-is. We were able to pull off the rescheduling later in the cruise. With those administrative details out of the way we headed up to Windjammer for the (expected) blah lunch. We both had some variation of their carved beef.
I had made a pre-cruise commitment to myself to try a wider variety of foods, including desserts, so started with two new dessert choices: Apple Pound Cake (both thought it pretty good) and Crème Brule with Caramel (both thought OK but not perfect).
Post-lunch, we picked up E’s soda cup at the Pool Bar. We then lounged on a lounger until staterooms opened at 1P. Below are some photos I took of the surrounding area from the fantail area of the Windjammer. Both P&O and Princess were at neighboring docks. We were sailing out of the City Cruise Terminal.
We unpacked ourselves in the room (lots of storage space, and we did a surprisingly good job of keeping our cabin tidy throughout the whole cruise) and I had the Samsung DEX connection to the TV sorted by about 215P, so we made the first trip to our home-away from our home-away-from-home: Schooner Bar. We met Don and Cheryl, a couple from Kentucky, and chatted about 45 minutes with them. She was a retired finance type and he was a retired air traffic controller, so I was able to grill him on some topics that were of real interest to me.
Around 3P, we decided to sample Park Café’s snacks, so we returned to Deck 11 (home of Windjammer, the pool, and Park Café). At PC we picked up a couple of turkey wraps and then stopped at the Pool Bar to get our first drinks of the cruise. This drink (a mai tai) was our first hint that Royal has opted for an absolutely HORRIBLE OJ mix. It took us about 3 drink orders to recognize that any drink with OJ in it was unpleasant to drink. Once we figured that out we ended up drinking mostly nothing but Handcrafted Margaritas for the rest of the cruise. We took food and drink to a seating area on Centrum 9 and listened to a couple of the music groups for about 2 hours.
There were several music acts aboard, and even now I’m having troubles ID’ing two of them. The musicians were:- The house band, Cosmic Waves. This was 4 people: guitar/vocals, bass/limited backing vocals, drums, and female vocalist. For the first several days I thought this was Banda Certa, but later realized their true name. They were quite good and had a very wide music catalog and am not sure I ever heard a repeat. The only complaint (minor) is that the female vocalist’s Mexican accent made her lyrics a tiny bit mushy – but they were technical quite accomplished and we enjoyed their stuff many time.
- Two different keyboardist + vocalist duos. One was called Banda Certa and the other the CBJ Duo. Even now I’m not sure which was which. Both featured a male keyboardist and a female vocalist. One of the keyboardists also had recording backing music to supplement the keyboard. One of the vocalists – I THINK it was CBJ – was more of a contralto and all their music was transposed down several steps from original keys. We preferred the duo who didn’t transpose, but neither one of these groups was of the quality of Cosmic Waves.
- A piano+violin duo, the B-Twins. Twin sisters always wearing identical outfits playing a range of tunes from classical to pop. The violinist had a bit more finesse than the pianist, who just seemed to bang stuff out at max volume. However, they were pleasant enough to listen to and we heard them several times, mostly in the Schooner. There were a few repeats in their numbers, but they had a decent mix of tunes.
- A solo guitarist, Beatriz. We only listened to her a few times, mostly in the Schooner. She didn’t seem to have a big repertoire, as we heard Classical Gas (among other things) several times. To us, she was mostly innocuous background music.
- A guitarist/vocalist, Lee Simon. He played exclusively at the Pub, which we not only never set foot in but we never actually even passed by (other than once on Boarding Day, before the Casino had opened). The Pub was on Deck 6 (like Schooner), but was located between the Casino and the Theater. We never wanted to pass through the Casino when heading forward to the Theater, so we always did that passage via Deck 5.
- A pianist/vocalist, Dave Carey. He played at the Schooner, but mostly late at night, past our bed time, so we never heard him play.
- And, of course, the Brilliance of the Seas orchestra, who backed the Production shows as well as some of the Headliner acts, along with the Royal Caribbean singers. The four singers were pretty run-of-the-mill in terms of talent.
After a quick pre-dinner nap for E we went down to the MDR for our first meal. We were seated on Deck 4 next to a port-side window and served by our waiter, Keysheelie from the Philippines, and our assistant waiter, James from Bermuda. We instantly liked both of them and therefore took steps post-dinner to lock in table 622 as our permanent table for the rest of the cruise. The MTD experience on Brilliance seemed much less disorganized than it had on Navigator. Post-dinner we found ourselves sitting on Centrum 5, listing to Cosmic Waves, then ended at the Theater watching Duo Elegia, a married couple that did a rather mundane circus act including dance, hula hoop work, minor clowning, acrobatics, and aerial work.
Through the cruise we always attended the 2nd showing, typically at 9P. Our audiences were always appreciative, but were generally pretty subdued. A typical Sunday matinee audience, if you will. I believe that the 7P audiences were ALWAYS pretty subdued. This cruise definitely had a much older demographic than other cruises we’ve been on. In total I’m not sure we saw more than 8 kids, and at least 3 of those were babies. I wouldn’t be surprised if E and I were below the median age aboard.
At this point we were already settling into a pattern that would be repeated throughout the cruise for us. Basically, our days involved:
- Wake up and go to Windjammer for breakfast. Carry our tablets with us.
- Spend most of the morning sitting in Schooner Bar, playing our daily games, reading, and/or playing The Crew.
- Hit up Windjammer for lunch.
- Spend most of the afternoon sitting in Schooner (or Colony Club a few times).
- Head to the cabin around 530P or so for possible nap and then get ready for dinner
- Dinner (615P for specialty nighs, 645P for MDR nights)
- Head up to Centrum 6, 7, or 8 to sit and listen to live music playing on Centrum 5.
- At 830P, head over to the Theater and grab our preferred seats (balcony house right) and read until the 9P show.
- At 945P head back to (most commonly) Centrum 9 seating to listen to more live music.
- Bed time
As such, in subsequent nights of this narrative I’m going to dispense with blow-by-blow accounts and simply show the pre-cruise plans vs the actual things we did and, where appropriate, make comments about stuff that was unique.
