Traveling From Cruise Ship Port in Southamton, England to Rouen France.

Totally unreasonable, even if you self dis-embark.

Especially for something as high stakes as this.

Ships can be late for all manner of reasons. Even if you do dock on time there are procedures the ship has to go through before anyone can disembark.

Then what happens if the train is delayed for some reason? An example I was on a train today when a road vehicle hit a bridge 30 minutes before we were due to pass over. All rail traffic had to be stopped while the bridge was checked for damage. The delay to rail traffic was two hours.

The first sensible train to book, if self disembarking would be 10am, or noon if the ship is handling your baggage.

You then have 90 minutes check in for Eurostar. Thus a 10am departure from Southampton gives a 3pm earliest possible Eurostar

are you docking on a weekend or a weekday? Weekdays you will run into rush hour, weekends is when schedules change for scheduled engineering work and the usual times get longer because trains make extra stops, and Sunday services are less frequent and slower.

If you want to make an 8:00 train (or an 8:15) into Waterloo or Paddington, what time do you need to disembark and get a taxi to the station?

The weekday 8:00 goes into Waterloo, which is south of the river. The train takes an hour and a half. The fastest way to St Pancras from there would be tube. Northern Line (Charing Cross Branch) 5 stops to Warren Street, change to the Victoria for 2 more stops to St Pancras, figure half an hour. If all the stars line up.

The weekday 8:15 goes into Paddington and you can take the Circle Line or the 205 bus or a taxi.

You need to check into Eurostar a minimum of 90 minutes ahead - you have queueing, then security, then British Border Control, then French Border Control and Customs before you get to the waiting room, and they don't make exceptions, unless you are in the top Business First Class. Are you?

You would have to be very lucky and be one of the first off the ship -- with luggage - and get a taxi immediately and everything on trains work perfectly.

You might be lucky and it might work. Or you would need a new Eurostar ticket if one was available.

We recently disembarked at Southampton. Taxis were readily available and we took one to the National Express Coach station and arrived around 8:30. That was with everything going smoothly. We took the 9:15 coach to Victoria Station and arrived there at 11:50 am.

We were the last ship to arrive in port that day ( docked at 7 am) so perhaps you would get going quicker if your ship docks earlier?

Is there the possibility of a later train, say around 3 pm?

It can be hard to control the order of Disembarkation from a cruise. For example, high-price suite customers and people going to airports tend to get preference in departing. But every trip is different. It sounds like you have not been told what time they plan to arrive with the ship?

The weekday 8:15 goes into Paddington and you can take the Circle Line > or the 205 bus or a taxi.

That is importing yet more risk into an already hugely risky venture as a train to Paddington needs a change at Reading, so you are now risking two trains, on different routes, being on time. And it's a tight 9 minute connection at a station you don't know leaving little or no room for the Southampton to Reading being late.

The first and huge risk is the ship being on time, not being delayed at sea by mechanical, weather or medical emergency reasons.

Then not docking at one of the further away berths like the QE2 terminal- the berths which are a longer taxi ride to the station. Unlike the main terminals you are dependent on a taxi from those two berths- Berths 38 and 46.