Travel arrangements from Southampton, UK to France

I think your basic options are three:

• Flight. I use skyscanner.com to research intra-European flights. You'd probably be flying from either Gatwick or Heathrow. If you use London as your origin, France as your destination and specify non-stop flights, the best options will pop up. Many different destinations are possible.

• Ferry. I don't know that it is the best choice, but I've used directferries.com for ferry travel. I believe there are ferries between Southampton and Caen (near Bayeux for the D-Day sites), Cherbourg and Le Havre. There are also ferries from Poole to Cherbourg and St-Malo. The latter travel by way of the very interesting Channel Islands, stopping in Guernsey and Jersey. I believe there are other English departure points, but it seems Southampton would be best for you unless you want to stop off in the Channel Islands. I will issue my usual caveat: These are large ferries, but they can still be canceled. I've booked 5 of them on the St-Malo run over the course of 2 trips, and 2 of the 5 were cancelled--one of them for 3 days running.

• Eurostar train from London-St Pancras to Paris. I'm not sure whether there's an earlier stop in France.

I suggest flying from Southampton to France. I just checked and it is just 3-4 hours to Paris with a connection on KLM. I flew out of Southampton in May and it was a very user-friendly airport. It is not too far from the Southampton Port and you could just take a taxi. We flew to Edinburgh rather than take a train because it saved us time and money.

Southampton has a small international airport, with direct flights to a few cities in southern France, but not to Paris or northern France. We flew from there to Amsterdam a few years ago, and there are plenty of flights from Amsterdam to French cities, but that seems like a lot of flying to go a short distance. You could get a train to Gatwick (changing at Clapham Junction) and fly to either Paris airport from there. Or train to Heathrow (changing at Reading and then Paddington) and fly from there. I love ferries but that would take longer and acraven has noted the risk of a cancellation.

If you really don't have a specific French destination in mind, you could fly British Air from Southampton to Bergerac, a gateway to the Dordogne region, and start your road trip there. Auto Europe can help you find car rental options.

Rome2rio is a good search tool for purposes like yours. It's not always right but it gives you a good idea of the options. Make actual bookings on the carriers' own websites.

It always amazes me (in a nice way) how people can the time and make the effort to help a fellow traveler out. Many thanks! I will review the options submitted so far, and see what will work out best. Merci!! again.

most environmentally sound route is train to London and Eurostar to Paris or Lille.

It has been a long time since I've made the New York to Southampton run, I think that we switched to flying in about 1963 or 1964.

We always called at Le Havre both ways.

If your boat calls there I can't imagine Customs (or Immigration) being any more a problem there than landing in Southampton and then returning to France.

Have you asked the cruise company? It would be way easier.

Just a guess, but I think the reason "Airways" gets shortened to "air" is that is what Americans are used to when the full Airlines is not used. I know that no one does it purposefully or to irritate anyone else. That said, it can be annoying when people consistently use the wrong name to describe something or pronounce it differently.

We have that a lot in the United States. One region of the country gets it in their minds that a word is pronounced a certain way and uses it consistently. An example is the state of Oregon. The correct pronunciation (at least the pronunciation used by those that live there) is Or-gun. If you talk to someone from the Midwest, they will be pronouncing it Or-E-Gone.
Another example is Illinois. The "s" is not pronounced, but you will find many people that pronounce it anyway. You can get upset, or you can just accept that there are regional differences.

I will try to make sure I use the Airways designation for British Airways, but please understand that when people forget, they do not mean any offense.

Initially, we had hoped to disembark the ship at Le Harve, which is
the last port before Southampton, but customs might make that
impossible.

Why would customs make that impossible? I the ship stops in Le Havre, I assume it is to let off passengers who want to visit Le Havre or surrounding areas, in which case there needs to be immigration and customs available so that you can leave the ship. And once you have left the ship, I can't see why anyone would force you back on the ship assuming you are allowed to stay in the Schengen area.

We took a transatlantic cruise from Florida to Hamburg. Our personal destination was TULIPS, that is to say Haarlem. The port of call before Hamburg was Rotterdam. We requested permission from the cruise line to disembark at Rotterdam. First reaction was there would be no partial refund. We were just fine with that, as we didn't expect it, we just didn't want to have to take a train from Hamburg when we would be so close to our destination. There was an online form to fill out, easy. We assumed that this had something to do with their head counts? Permission was granted. We waited until the glut of day trippers were on their ways, and then left the ship. We requested our passports be stamped in Rotterdam, much to the surprise of the agent there. But..... we were counting Schengen days so a beginning date was necessary (to us). So, ask your cruise line, you may be pleasantly surprised.

A smile while I remember, I bought my first baguette, in halting French, in Le Havre, which was a lovely port day. Chilly coming from winter in Florida, but lovely.

Donna

Of course it's British Airways, I knew that but somehow didn't put it down. Saving keystrokes? Confusion with Icelandair or Aer Lingus, or the late unlamented US Air?

And, to the last point about disembarking at LeHavre, I don't see why that wouldn't work, saving time and money. I've been on Alaska cruises that started in Vancouver and ended in Seattle, with a stop in Victoria the day before the end. Lots of Canadians got off at Victoria rather than spending the last night onboard to disembark at Seattle and then make their way back across the border. I can't imagine why a cruise line would object to that, as long as you're not looking for money back. In fact, I don't really see how they could prevent you from taking your luggage ashore and proceeding from there, as long as you've settled your bill. It's not like you joined the Navy or something! ;-)

Let me reinforce the comment above about getting passport stamped. you MUST have an entry stamp for Schengen purposes to avoid catastrophe when exiting. We were once delayed an hour on exit having to prove our date of entry because Rome agents just waved everyone through without stamping passports. The guy pulled with us for the same problem missed the plane.

You can get upset, or you can just accept that there are regional
differences.

This!

I just looked at this thread of messages that started with my question about getting from Southampton to France after our transatlantic cruise. I did check with the cruise line to see if my sister and I could disembark from the cruise at Le Harve rather than the next day at Southampton, but at this time, the cruise line said that is not an option (possibly due to Covid?) I was not given detailed information. I am going to recheck with the cruise line again, and again, over the next coming months to see if the policy changes. I know for certain that if we would be able to make an early disembarkment we would have to pay an extra fee for the arrangement, so there is definitely no refund for leaving the cruise one day early!

Regarding some contributors' thoughts on pronouncing words or using different terms, I am married to a fine gentleman from the state of Missouri .Here in New York, we pronounce it "Missour"e." But when we go back to visit his family, they always pronounce it as Missour"a." As long as it is not "Misery" I think it is all is good!!

Many thanks again to those of you, who took the time to provide advice and feedback. I am truly grateful for your help!!