Europe cruise and DCL Transfers

[dlhowell]

Wondering how the DCL transfers work for the European ports?

I booked one of the Europe cruises for June 2016 (OBB) and got the DCL transfers when I signed up just because I wasn't sure how things would work in these locations. Cruise leaves from Dover and ends in Copenhagen. I'd like to be able to start planning more for the trip (I know, it's super early...), but I have no idea where to start.

I assume that DCL transfers only work out of certain hotels, or maybe only for those who fly in the same day? I don't like the stress of flying in same day and would actually like to fly in a day or two early and stay a day or two after the cruise in order to see some of London and Copenhagen.

How do you know which hotels you can use for the DCL transfer? Are the departure hotels in London or in Dover? Are the return hotels near the Copenhagen airport or somewhere else in the city? Disney won't provide any info or arrangements for air travel into the UK, so you definitely have to figure out that part on your own.

How do the DCL transfers work the day of departure? Will you get to the port much later in the day, or is there a possibility to use this and arrive early to the port terminal?

I can most likely arrange for my own transportation at much cheaper price, but if DCL works out to be an easier option, then I would be willing to pay the extra money.

 

[nzdisneymom]

We have used DCL transfers from airport to pre-cruise hotel to port as well as from port to post-cruise-hotel to airport in Europe and Canada. In 2010 we flew to London arriving so we spent three nights in London before the cruise (maximum that DCL would accommodate) and stayed at a DCL hotel (expensive!). We also used DCL transfers in Barcelona twice and it worked the same way - you check with the DCL representative at the hotel to get your transportation boarding time for the morning of the cruise - they usually send people out in 30-minute increments on motor coaches, so if you want to get to the port earlier rather than later, make sure you sign up for your time as soon as possible at the hotel with the DCL rep. They give you a letter about what to do with your luggage - they typically collect it early in the morning that you're sailing and they load it onto a cargo truck rather than onto the bus you're going on. You don't see your luggage again until it's delivered to your stateroom.

At the airport, because we arrived earlier, we had a small van waiting to get us in London, but in Barcelona, there were multiple DCL families on the same flight so they had a couple of motor coaches that took us to the hotel. At that point, our luggage went with us on the motor coach. There are DCL reps / drivers holding DCL signs to pick you up at the airport to take you to the hotel. i imagine it's the same if you're going straight to the port.

For the return trip, you get a letter in your stateroom with instructions and they take you to either your hotel if you are staying at DCL hotel post-cruise or to the airport.

 

[dlhowell]

We have used DCL transfers from airport to pre-cruise hotel to port as well as from port to post-cruise-hotel to airport in Europe and Canada. In 2010 we flew to London arriving so we spent three nights in London before the cruise (maximum that DCL would accommodate) and stayed at a DCL hotel (expensive!). We also used DCL transfers in Barcelona twice and it worked the same way - you check with the DCL representative at the hotel to get your transportation boarding time for the morning of the cruise - they usually send people out in 30-minute increments on motor coaches, so if you want to get to the port earlier rather than later, make sure you sign up for your time as soon as possible at the hotel with the DCL rep. They give you a letter about what to do with your luggage - they typically collect it early in the morning that you're sailing and they load it onto a cargo truck rather than onto the bus you're going on. You don't see your luggage again until it's delivered to your stateroom.

How far out did you find out which were the DCL hotels? Did Disney contact you at some point to provide you this information, or did you have to contact them directly? Were they likely to be sold out if you didn't book them soon enough in advance?

At the airport, because we arrived earlier, we had a small van waiting to get us in London, but in Barcelona, there were multiple DCL families on the same flight so they had a couple of motor coaches that took us to the hotel. At that point, our luggage went with us on the motor coach. There are DCL reps / drivers holding DCL signs to pick you up at the airport to take you to the hotel. i imagine it's the same if you're going straight to the port.

Was the van something that Disney provided, or did you arrange that on your own?

 

[Ofinn]

Wondering how the DCL transfers work for the European ports?

I booked one of the Europe cruises for June 2016 (OBB) and got the DCL transfers when I signed up just because I wasn't sure how things would work in these locations. Cruise leaves from Dover and ends in Copenhagen. I'd like to be able to start planning more for the trip (I know, it's super early...), but I have no idea where to start.

I assume that DCL transfers only work out of certain hotels, or maybe only for those who fly in the same day? I don't like the stress of flying in same day and would actually like to fly in a day or two early and stay a day or two after the cruise in order to see some of London and Copenhagen.

How do you know which hotels you can use for the DCL transfer? Are the departure hotels in London or in Dover? Are the return hotels near the Copenhagen airport or somewhere else in the city? Disney won't provide any info or arrangements for air travel into the UK, so you definitely have to figure out that part on your own.

How do the DCL transfers work the day of departure? Will you get to the port much later in the day, or is there a possibility to use this and arrive early to the port terminal?

I can most likely arrange for my own transportation at much cheaper price, but if DCL works out to be an easier option, then I would be willing to pay the extra money.

We are on your cruise. I'm planning on Spending a couple days in London and using DCL transfers. I'm waiting for them to get back to me about the hotel prices, but the hotels they are contracted with are 5 star so I'm guessing they will be more than I want to pay. My plan is to take the Heathrow express to Paddington station, and stay at a hotel around there, and then take it back to LHR to catch the Disney transfer. The Heathrow express takes about 15 minutes. I was also told I could catch the transfer at one the hotels even if I didn't stay there. The hotels are listed on the air, transfers, and hotel section of your reservations.

In Copenhagen I'm going to catch a cab to the airport it's only about 10km to the airport. We may spend the night in Copenhagen I'm not sure.

I have never been to London so any advice on where to stay would be appreciated.

Check your reservation you will find the hotels listed there. Takes a little searching, but they are they there.

 

[jrabbit]

We are cruising out of Dover THIS SUMMER . DCL said that there will only be transfers from Heathrow and Gatwick. $75/person one way.

We will be visiting London for several days prior to our cruise. I think that the train / taxi will be about $60/person (price will vary depending upon which departure time you select) one way and we will NOT have to go back to one of the airports. Only about a 2 hour train ride. I'm looking forward to this part of the trip too.

See Great Britain National Rail - the actual rail "company" to Dover (Priory) is Southeastern.

 

[jrabbit]

...
I have never been to London so any advice on where to stay would be appreciated.
...

It depends upon what you want out of your stay. Want to stay at a chain hotel that you know or do you want to immerse yourself in London?

If you want a smaller (and way more interesting) local neighborhood hotel - check out Rick Steves London guide book. Lots of great info on places to stay and what to see if that type of travel floats your boat. We used his guidebooks on our first European Adventure (Barcelona, Rome, Florence and Venice on our own then on the DCL cruise back to Italy). Invaluable information in his Spain/BCN, Italy and France guidebooks. We are using the London, Baltic's and Paris guidebooks for our upcoming trip - will be heading to Paris for several days before returning home.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

[

We are on your cruise. I'm planning on Spending a couple days in London and using DCL transfers. I'm waiting for them to get back to me about the hotel prices, but the hotels they are contracted with are 5 star so I'm guessing they will be more than I want to pay. My plan is to take the Heathrow express to Paddington station, and stay at a hotel around there, and then take it back to LHR to catch the Disney transfer. The Heathrow express takes about 15 minutes. I was also told I could catch the transfer at one the hotels even if I didn't stay there. The hotels are listed on the air, transfers, and hotel section of your reservations.

In Copenhagen I'm going to catch a cab to the airport it's only about 10km to the airport. We may spend the night in Copenhagen I'm not sure.

I have never been to London so any advice on where to stay would be appreciated.

Check your reservation you will find the hotels listed there. Takes a little searching, but they are they there.

View attachment 85568View attachment 85571

Ok so you have two maps above 1 a Heathrow connections, and 2 Dover connections.

Note do not use London Bridge re works there lots of trains do not stop this year and you might get held up for hours.



Hotels DCL on their website quote two hotels Transfers will run to/ from those and to / from airports of Gatwick and Heathrow.

Avoid staying in areas where there is construction work.
Crossrail construction at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon.
At Victoria outside the station the ticket office for the tube is being rebuilt.

Good places.
Waterloo, Kensington, Tower Hill. Notting Hill Gate, Bayswater, Regent Street.

 

[Ofinn]

It depends upon what you want out of your stay. Want to stay at a chain hotel that you know or do you want to immerse yourself in London?

If you want a smaller (and way more interesting) local neighborhood hotel - check out Rick Steves London guide book. Lots of great info on places to stay and what to see if that type of travel floats your boat. We used his guidebooks on our first European Adventure (Barcelona, Rome, Florence and Venice on our own then on the DCL cruise back to Italy). Invaluable information in his Spain/BCN, Italy and France guidebooks. We are using the London, Baltic's and Paris guidebooks for our upcoming trip - will be heading to Paris for several days before returning home.

I'd rather not pay more than 250 a night. I'm waiting to see the price Disney gives me on their contracted hotel.

View attachment 85568View attachment 85571

Ok so you have two maps above 1 a Heathrow connections, and 2 Dover connections.

Note do not use London abridge re works there lots of trains do not stop this year and you might get held up for hours.

Hotels DCL on their website quote two hotels Transfers will run to/ from those snd to / from airports of Gatwick and Heathrow.

Avoid staying in areas where there is construction work.
Crossrail construction at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon.
At Victoria outside the station the ticket office for the tube is being rebuilt.

Good places.
Waterloo, Kensington, Tower Hill. Notting Hill Gate, Bayswater, Regent Street.

Thank you. I'm from Southern California. Public transportation is foreign to me. I've never used a bus(except at WDW), never a subway(once in New York), and I've never been on a train unless you count Hogwarts express at Universal. We all drive cars here that we log 100k miles on in five years. I guess I have some studying to do. Good thing I have over a year to figure it out.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

I'd rather not pay more than 250 a night. I'm waiting to see the price Disney gives me on their contracted hotel.


Thank you. I'm from Southern California. Public transportation is foreign to me. I've never used a bus(except at WDW), never a subway(once in New York), and I've never been on a train unless you count Hogwarts express at Universal. We all drive cars here that we log 100k miles on in five years. I guess I have some studying to do. Good thing I have over a year to figure it out.

I understand, London has the best public transport system Of any capital of the world, fully integrated regular service, easy to navigate and deals cut, we have many new trains on The Underground and building new lines.

Try to get an " Oyster" card that covers most tube services and rail services, excludes Heathrow and Gatwick expresses, We also can use contactless payment by cards they say most foreign cards work as well but there are reports some do not. If you use your contactless card ensure its the same one each time, as they cap costs to day or week tickets.

 

[mmouse37]

I can't navigate NYC subways but can easily handle the London Underground. Signs are clear and concise. I totally agree on the Oyster card. We used for bus and tube service. So much easier than paying out of pocket at each station. We used for the amount of days we were in London (non DCL trip).

MJ

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

If you purchase The London Pass you can buy an oyster add on, you can get information on Oyster on

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

That's TFL. Transport for London.

 

[nzdisneymom]

How far out did you find out which were the DCL hotels? Did Disney contact you at some point to provide you this information, or did you have to contact them directly? Were they likely to be sold out if you didn't book them soon enough in advance?

Was the van something that Disney provided, or did you arrange that on your own?

DCL hotels were available for adding to cruise reservations pretty early on. Are you using a travel agent? If so, let them know you're interested in finding out about DCL's hotel add-on. If you booked on your own, call them directly. You will find that DCL hotel costs are pretty pricey and are usually at really nice hotels. We like to splurge on the hotels sometimes when we can afford them because we typically stay Holiday Inn Express and it's nice to stay somewhere nicer as part of the vacation experience.

Yes, the van was what DCL provided for our transportation from airport to hotel. They had another van when we returned from hotel to airport after our cruise.

The best thing to do is just call DCL and ask about transfers for your specific cruise - it sounds like it varies based on when you're sailing and where you're sailing from. Our initial looking for London area in 2016 shows that we can likely arrange our own private transportation for less than what DCL would offer, but for our return from port to airport, we are planning to use DCL simply for convenience.

 

[NancyIL]

Booking hotels and transfers through DCL will be convenient, but you'll pay a lot for that convenience! I second Rick Steves' guidebooks: http://travelstore.ricksteves.com/catalog/index.cfm?fuseaction=catalog&parent_id=158 - especially his Northern European Cruise Ports and Mediterranean Cruise Ports. If your Northern Europe cruise isn't until 2016, wait for the new edition of that book to come out this September.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

I personally think any books will be out of date, how many of them quote where major construction work us underway? Where to avoid it, we have massive construction projects running, the Crossrail project us the biggest construction project in Europe. You do not want to be staying next to that.

How many of them report the major electrical fire in London at Holborn today that's ongoing and have shows canceled and roads closed?

How many of these books report major issues at London Bridge station and not using the main line station there.

 

[jrabbit]

...
Thank you. I'm from Southern California. Public transportation is foreign to me. I've never used a bus(except at WDW), never a subway(once in New York), and I've never been on a train unless you count Hogwarts express at Universal. We all drive cars here that we log 100k miles on in five years. I guess I have some studying to do. Good thing I have over a year to figure it out.

Spend a long weekend up in the Bay Area. Stay on the east side - like Hayward - then use BART to get into the city and the buses to get around. That's what we did to "learn how to use mass transit". We figured if we could not figure it out there ... where "everyone" speaks English, then spending 2 weeks in Europe was going to be "impossible". Surprisingly enough, this mini vacation really helped us learn how to use subways - but our Washington DC trip really cemented the learning. I feel capable of going to any major city now and being able to get to where I want to go using their metro system - even without knowing the language (they just need to use the "normal" alphabet - not Greek or Russian )

Two hints:
1) Buy "length of stay" transportation tickets - so you don't feel constrained by having to pay yet again for moving from one section of town to another
2) for the metros - you need to know the "general direction" that you are going - so finding out what station is way AFTER the stop you want so you then can go to the correct platform (and get on the correct "colored" train) and go the right way because generally each train will have two platforms on opposite sides of the tracks and you need to be on the correct side.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

Two hints:
1) Buy "length of stay" transportation tickets - so you don't feel constrained by having to pay yet again for moving from one section of town to another
2) for the metros - you need to know the "general direction" that you are going - so finding out what station is way AFTER the stop you want so you then can go to the correct platform (and get on the correct "colored" train) and go the right way because generally each train will have two platforms on opposite sides of the tracks and you need to be on the correct side.

I do agree our trains show the destination, so you need to have the tube map, freely available at all ticket gates and know the route, not not all trains go to the end of the line, many turn back earlier, so the destination may not be the end of the live but still get you there.

The tube lines are colour coded follow those, the dark blue line or the red line, the trains no longer generally are colour coded there in the main red white and blue.

Word go the wise.....on escalators stand on the right, walk fast or run on the left, if you stand on the left you will be run over, we are a nice bunch but we work in the city.

On the tubes we have rush hours and crush hours, actually rush hour is 6 am to 10 pm now, but crush hours are 7 am to 10 am and 4 pm to 7 pm.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

I personally think any books will be out of date, how many of them quote where major construction work us underway? Where to avoid it, we have massive construction projects running, the Crossrail project us the biggest construction project in Europe. You do not want to be staying next to that.

How many of them report the major electrical fire in London at Holborn today that's ongoing and have shows canceled and roads closed?

How many of these books report major issues at London Bridge station and not using the main line station there.

Every guide book is out of date by the time it is published, but if you are not familiar with travelling to Europe, Rick Steves guide books really help with the general logistics. Our first trip to Europe combined a stay in London, a DCL Med cruise and a stay in Barcelona.

My husband is from SoCal and, like the OP, was nervous about using public transport. I'm from Hayward in the SF Bay Area and grew up riding Bart. We both quickly adapted to using the Underground, busses in the south of France and trains, metro and trams in Rome. I think we have Rick Steves to thank for the general information. -- Suzanne

 

[NancyIL]

I personally think any books will be out of date, how many of them quote where major construction work us underway? Where to avoid it, we have massive construction projects running, the Crossrail project us the biggest construction project in Europe. You do not want to be staying next to that.

How many of them report the major electrical fire in London at Holborn today that's ongoing and have shows canceled and roads closed?

How many of these books report major issues at London Bridge station and not using the main line station there.

For you to suggest that guidebooks aren't useful because they wouldn't tell you about a fire that happened in London today is ridiculous! I never said one should ONLY consult guidebooks, but it's a good place to start - especially if you have a knowledgeable author and a recent edition. It sure beats asking questions on social media like, "What's there to do in Copenhagen?" My response to that question is to go to the library and check out recent travel guides, as well as Trip Advisor on the Internet. It amazes me how many people haven't figured out how to use Google!

 

[kiford]

We are cruising out of Dover THIS SUMMER . DCL said that there will only be transfers from Heathrow and Gatwick. $75/person one way.

We're on the Jul 10 Northern European cruise and wanted to use DCL transfers and stay in London. The two hotels we were told about were the Grosvenor House and the Hyatt Regency London Churchill. We wanted to stay 4 nights but our TA told us that DCL only arranges for three nights prior so we're staying at the Comfort Inn at Heathrow the night before. The Comfort Inn is something like $150 CAN for two of us including breakfast. Then we go back to the airport and DCL will take us to the Grosvenor House and then will transport us to the port and then drop us at the airport afterwards. Yes, it is $75/person per trip. nzdisneymom's description is pretty much what we experienced in Barcelona in 2010 and 2013 so I expect it will be the same in London.

When I printed out our pre-arrival guide from the DCL site, I noticed that they also had two additional hotels - one at Heathrow and one at Gatwick - both Sofitels.

 

[3Down1Up]

In Barcelona we found out what hotels DCL was using for transportation to the port, then booked one of those hotels on our own. DCL was charging too much - we got rates on our own at a cheaper rate, and just signed up for the transport the morning of the cruise and took that. Do your research: whatever DCL offers can be used as a guide, but you have a lot of time to figure out something on your own at what would most likely be a lower cost.