Disney Magic 12 nt. British Isles Cruise 2017

That's ridiculous for them not to stop for a bathroom break on a long bus ride. Our transfer to Dover made a 30min. stop at a rest area with facilities, fast food and a convenience store.

That's interesting. I thought (at the least) they could make a quick detour but no, the driver was adamant. Seems weird if other buses were making a comfort stop. The oddest part (to me) was the bus driver asked the father how old the child was (6) and then he said no. I'm not sure what the point of that was, to be honest. Would he have stopped for a 3 year old? SMH...

That's not good that the driver took you to the wrong hotel

I can't sleep on planes and get car sick so I was trying to communicate and not vomit. I'd fortunately bought some strong ginger candy at ATL or the driver might have been even MORE annoyed with me :sick:

were you charged more than $67.50 for the LHR to hotel / hotel to port transfers?

Just looked up our receipt-$540 for 4 for ground transportation so looks like we were charged $67.50 for each leg. I really did pay for convenience!

How did they find you at the airport?

I had provided DCL with our flight data and then as we exited baggage claim there was a man holding a DCL sign with our surnames. I wasn't sure how it would work but that was easy. We took the elevator to the parking area, he went and got the van and off we went to the wrong hotel :)
I had been worried about that step for nothing (much like the immigration line-made everyone basically run so we could beat the rest of the plane and it went super fast. Guess I was remembering the 2 weeks before waiting in line at EDI for 45 min :sad1: ).

Our Stonehenge tour was fantastic. To be able to walk the inner circle is worth catching a 4am private car to london and the weather was perfect

Your Stonehenge preview photos look great!
 
Day 1 continues.............
Checking –in

The Sofitel London Heathrow – Club Level – Booked Privately

Honestly, who feels like going back to revisit something you’d crossed off your planning list months ago? Not us. First place we turn to solve our hotel problem is directly with the Sofitel. Good thing. A search for 3 adults, does exceed capacity for the standard room, but not for a suite.

This was the lowest category offered:
________________________________________________________________________________________________

junior Suite - large room with king-size bed plus sofa bed, Club Millesime Lounge access.
3 Adults , 0Child

35 m²/373 sq.ft., bathroom with bath and separate walk-in shower, sofa bed ideal for up to 2 children. Club Millésime Lounge access. FREE unlimited WIFI or broadband Internet access, FREE light breakfast in Club Millésime. FREE soft drinks in minibar.

Members Rate, Room only
GBP 281.30 per night

Up to 10% extra off


Members' rate, Join while you book

Total price VAT included for 1 night
Taxes included



This rate is reserved for members of the Le Club AccorHotels, a free loyalty programme.


members rate conditions:


Take advantage of the hotel's most flexible offer. Be or become a member of Le Club Accorhotels. Members must present their card upon check-in at the hotel (or their member number if they have not yet received their card).

  • Payment at the hotel
  • Free cancellation
Breakfast included
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

If you convert the GPB @ 1.28 USD = $ 725 USD total for 2 nights.

wow. A mini-suite for all of us for 2 nights with lounge access for $192 more than the $ 534 DCL was charging for 2 standard hotel rooms to accommodate the 3 adults for just a single night.

We’ll take it.

There was no charge to become a member of the Le Club AccorHotels so we signed up. This allowed us to reserve the room with just a card on file - no deposit down, free cancellation & a 10% discount. If anything else changed we were covered.

The only thing left was to call the DCL and see if we could cancel the room reservation but still keep the cruise transfers from the Sofitel to the port. Their answer - "yes you can still have the transfers."

And there it was right on the cruise reservation. Room dropped but transfers from the Sofitel still listed.
That was easy. We really lucked out.

The suite life @ the Sofitel London Heathrow

We knew nothing about this hotel. Non-generic online pics were hard to come by and the club level description was vague.

The jr. suite we initially reserved only posted this 1 stock photo:

sofitel jr suite.jpg


I say initially because this isn’t the room we wind up with. 5 days before we are about to leave for this trip, the Sofitel emails an upgrade request for their Prestige Suite.

I ignore it.

JQ on the other hand………. (apparently isn’t as cheap as I am)

Next thing I know this arrives in the inbox: (too funny)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear xxx

We have received your Sofitel London Heathrow eStandby Upgrade® request.

What's next?

You will find out if you are upgraded when you arrive at the hotel.

If you are upgraded you will be charged the additional nightly fee shown below for your new room type.

If you are not upgraded you will keep your currently reserved room, and pay nothing extra. (See confirmed room details below).

Your requests are awarded subject to availability. At most one premium room request can be awarded.

Requested eStandby Upgrade(s)® Prestige Suite

Extra per night £61
Total extra for the stay £122


All prices subject to applicable taxes.
You can MODIFY or CANCEL your request(s) up to 24 hour(s) prior to day of arrival by clicking HERE

Currently Reserved Room
All prices subject to applicable taxes.

Room Type: Junior Suite

Arrival: July 07, 2017
Departure: July 09, 2017

eStandby Upgrades® at these substantial savings are determined at time of check-in and are not guaranteed.

Remember:
Find out at check-in if you receive an eStandby Upgrade®. If not, keep your original booking and pay nothing extra.


We look forward to welcoming you as our guest!

Warm Regards,
Sofitel London Heathrow
+44 20 8757 7777

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

You can see where this is going - of course it comes through.
(There goes another piece of that 750 we saved)

But I have to admit, JQ scored a big win on this impulse!

By the time we check-in it’s close to 9pm UK time. We’ve been up since 2am US time. So it’s taken a good 14hrs to get here. We open the door, and this is what greeted us.

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Yes, that’s the sleeper sofa all prepped and waiting for Iron Man.

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They were expecting him.
With clean towels on the bed.

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His own bathroom (off the entryway)

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A well stocked fridge – all complimentary

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and some fresh baked cookies sitting on the desk

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Continued in the next post..............
 
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Checking –in continues.............
The Sofitel London Heathrow – Club Level – Booked Privately


This suite really was outstanding. Well worth the price. We loved it.

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The master bedroom was a room in itself.

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Robes/slippers/you name it

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A much welcome and very comfortable King bed.

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With a great master bath

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That had an awesome shower with 2 shower heads and 4 body sprayers all going at once.
(where has this been all my life)

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Some nice accessories as well. (you can't see them all packed in there)

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We were set
You really didn't want for a thing.
.

Next up: a visit to the club lounge
 
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That's interesting. I thought (at the least) they could make a quick detour but no, the driver was adamant. Seems weird if other buses were making a comfort stop. The oddest part (to me) was the bus driver asked the father how old the child was (6) and then he said no. I'm not sure what the point of that was, to be honest. Would he have stopped for a 3 year old? SMH...

I can't sleep on planes and get car sick so I was trying to communicate and not vomit. I'd fortunately bought some strong ginger candy at ATL or the driver might have been even MORE annoyed with me :sick:

Just looked up our receipt-$540 for 4 for ground transportation so looks like we were charged $67.50 for each leg. I really did pay for convenience!

I had provided DCL with our flight data and then as we exited baggage claim there was a man holding a DCL sign with our surnames. I wasn't sure how it would work but that was easy. We took the elevator to the parking area, he went and got the van and off we went to the wrong hotel :)
I had been worried about that step for nothing (much like the immigration line-made everyone basically run so we could beat the rest of the plane and it went super fast. Guess I was remembering the 2 weeks before waiting in line at EDI for 45 min :sad1: ).

Your Stonehenge preview photos look great!

Thanks so much for posting this. I can't tell you how great it is hearing from fellow cruisers out of Dover. it will help a lot with planning

That story about your bus to Dover keeps sounding worse and worse. Wait til you see our bus. Everyone was pretty much seated up a level and well shielded from the driver.

I think your hotel driver was lost and didn't want to admit it. You'd think a Disney hire would have his information straight. If that were us, we'd have no idea he was going to the wrong place and would have gotten dropped off and left there. It's really good you knew your way around.

You and me both paid for convenience. At least you got that bad ride to the hotel in London thrown in. I'm serious - never again if I can avoid it.
 
The suite life @ the Sofitel London Heathrow

We knew nothing about this hotel. Non-generic online pics were hard to come by and the club level description was vague.

The jr. suite we initially reserved only posted this 1 stock photo:

View attachment 262814

I say initially because this isn’t the room we wind up with. 5 days before we are about to leave the Sofitel emails an upgrade request for their Prestige Suite.

I ignore it.

JQ on the other hand………. (apparently isn’t as cheap as I am)

Knowing that we had gotten a good deal on the room(compared to DCL), The minute I read that email I thought the upgrade price was worth it. Although it wasnt guaranteed. After all, this is our first trip abroad and I wanted to enhance the experience wherever possible.

The room was crisp, modern and spotless. The hotel service was on par with any Disney hotel. I would stay there again.
 


You got a lot for your money! Great job with your research

Thanks. We did get lucky on the whole thing. There's really not much recent information on all this. I'll share a room video if I can figure it out. This is the first attempt at posting pics without photobucket so we'll see.

The lounge was another hit.
 
Your detail and information is fantastic!!!! Thank you so much for providing such great information! I would have eaten this up before the cruise, LOL!

Here is the link for the Thistle Hotel in Trafalgar Square:
http://www.thistle.com/en/hotels/london/trafalgar-square.html

It was fantastically located, right behind the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. Surprisingly, it was very quiet, even with the London Pride Celebration close by! We got a room with a King bed and pull out couch for my daughter. It was beautiful and comfortable. I believe we paid about 400.00 per night with tax and fees. It came with a free deluxe breakfast every morning. We stayed two nights.

With regard to the transportation to the ship:
What we didn't realize when booking the hotel, is that the streets would be closed for the marathon on Sunday morning when we needed to travel to the ship. On Saturday, we had no problem with the street closures because we planned to walk to all our destinations anyways. But on Sunday .... with luggage ... We knew that we could walk about a 5-10 minute walk to get to Charing Cross Station, where we could pick up a cab or take the underground to St. Pancreas Station, where we were catching the Dover Express Train, but even a 5-10 minute walk with all that luggage ... ugh ... but luckily, one of the front desk staff was getting off shift Sunday morning, and as a result was allowed to drive out of the area even though the streets were closed. He kindly offered to driving us to St. Pancreas station!!! So sweet!!!! We paid him 20 pounds of course. But it solved the problem!
Then the Dover Express train from St. Pancreas Station to Dover Priory Station was so easy!!! It wasn't too hard to negotiate on with luggage - was roomy, comfortable and not too crowded. I believe it cost 78 pounds for the 3 of us and took us a little over an hour. Once we got to Dover Priory station, it was a 5 minute cab ride to the ship (which they were charging 12 pounds for, because they could). There was a line of about 20 families waiting to take the cabs to the ship from the dover station, but it moved very quickly since it was such a short ride. At least 10 cabs were making the round trips and we were in a cab in less than 10 minutes after getting off the train. I was really impressed with both the Dover Express Train and the Gatwick Express Train. They were both a lot easier than I anticipated and you could buy the tickets very easily from real people, which made them easy to use. I never tried the Underground, which seemed a lot more confusing to me. I was intimidated by the stops and changing trains. Express trains have no stops and go straight to you destination at high speed. It's fantastic and I highly recommend it as a way to get to Dover from London!
 
Your detail and information is fantastic!!!! Thank you so much for providing such great information! I would have eaten this up before the cruise, LOL!

Here is the link for the Thistle Hotel in Trafalgar Square:
http://www.thistle.com/en/hotels/london/trafalgar-square.html

It was fantastically located, right behind the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. Surprisingly, it was very quiet, even with the London Pride Celebration close by! We got a room with a King bed and pull out couch for my daughter. It was beautiful and comfortable. I believe we paid about 400.00 per night with tax and fees. It came with a free deluxe breakfast every morning. We stayed two nights.

With regard to the transportation to the ship:
What we didn't realize when booking the hotel, is that the streets would be closed for the marathon on Sunday morning when we needed to travel to the ship. On Saturday, we had no problem with the street closures because we planned to walk to all our destinations anyways. But on Sunday .... with luggage ... We knew that we could walk about a 5-10 minute walk to get to Charing Cross Station, where we could pick up a cab or take the underground to St. Pancreas Station, where we were catching the Dover Express Train, but even a 5-10 minute walk with all that luggage ... ugh ... but luckily, one of the front desk staff was getting off shift Sunday morning, and as a result was allowed to drive out of the area even though the streets were closed. He kindly offered to driving us to St. Pancreas station!!! So sweet!!!! We paid him 20 pounds of course. But it solved the problem!
Then the Dover Express train from St. Pancreas Station to Dover Priory Station was so easy!!! It wasn't too hard to negotiate on with luggage - was roomy, comfortable and not too crowded. I believe it cost 78 pounds for the 3 of us and took us a little over an hour. Once we got to Dover Priory station, it was a 5 minute cab ride to the ship (which they were charging 12 pounds for, because they could). There was a line of about 20 families waiting to take the cabs to the ship from the dover station, but it moved very quickly since it was such a short ride. At least 10 cabs were making the round trips and we were in a cab in less than 10 minutes after getting off the train. I was really impressed with both the Dover Express Train and the Gatwick Express Train. They were both a lot easier than I anticipated and you could buy the tickets very easily from real people, which made them easy to use. I never tried the Underground, which seemed a lot more confusing to me. I was intimidated by the stops and changing trains. Express trains have no stops and go straight to you destination at high speed. It's fantastic and I highly recommend it as a way to get to Dover from London!

thanks. same here. I would have loved reading so much more on this before we left. Hopefully, we're filling in some gaps for any fellow Disney cruisers out of Dover.

What's most amazing is how different all of our pre-cruise experiences are. There are so may ways to go here. It's really great to share this information.

Thanks so much for walking us through your express rail line journey from London to Dover. Managing the luggage is the main reason we tend to avoid that option. (Although we did take the train to cruise out of NY last year - much shorter cruise and we're pretty familiar with it)

London was an entirely different situation and I commend you guys for taking this on with a 12nt cruise. Very well planned and executed despite the traffic nightmare and what a great cost savings. I love that the hotel staff gave you a ride. That would have been a grueling walk.

The rail lines are confusing when you hear terms like Oyster Card or Express vs Underground being tossed around. It really didn't click at first.

But don't worry. They'll be a glimpse of the Underground on this report. Not by choice. But our Stonehenge tour bus was thrust in the middle of the road blockades as well. So they just dropped everyone at various Underground stations leaving us to fumble our way home. All I can say is, you have to be a quick study or haste makes waste!
 
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reading all this is making me realise how much I take for granted knowing how to get around London and Heathrow and England in general for granted. I lived in London for 4 years and before that was a frequent visitor as my sister lived there for 4 years before that. I will be going back for another visit to London and possibly Edinburgh in the next 6 months, so now Im going to detailed trip reports for you guys :)
 
reading all this is making me realise how much I take for granted knowing how to get around London and Heathrow and England in general for granted. I lived in London for 4 years and before that was a frequent visitor as my sister lived there for 4 years before that. I will be going back for another visit to London and possibly Edinburgh in the next 6 months, so now Im going to detailed trip reports for you guys :)

Tink, I remember when you helped us with that 1 day London touring plan on our cruise meet thread months ago, and just rattled off the transit stops like they were nothing.
I told you I was going to print that out and take it with me. What I really meant to say was, I was going to print it out and take a crash course in both the lingo and logistics of the London transit system because my head was spinning.:lmao: Heathrow Express / the Tube / Dover Express / Black Taxis / Red Bus / The Underground / Oyster Card - omg too funny!

Yes! You definitely should post detailed reports on those trips coming up. Your knowledge is invaluable!
 
The suite life @ the Sofitel London Heathrow
Club Millesime Lounge


(FYI: I’m not using photobucket for this report, so you’ll have to log in to the Disboards to view the pictures in full screen.)

Moving on - let's take a look at the Club lounge.

sofitel11.jpg

We were really impressed with this lounge. Comfortable seating in a very casual atmosphere, well stocked with great food.


Note: Heathrow Terminal 5 Priority Pass Access is located at Club Millesime


This is what the club has to offer:

sofitel concierge offerings.jpg

By the time we arrived, they had stopped serving the evening hors d'oeuvres. Only the bar and beverage areas were available.

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So we grabbed some cold drinks and took advantage of the broadband workstation and free wifi at our disposal.

The next day, we missed both breakfast and afternoon tea, due to the Stonehenge tour.

Which brings me to:
London Travel Tip #2: Be willing to cut your losses.

You can't do it all given the short amount of time. Taking full advantage of the lounge would be the first of many losses on this trip.

Fortunately, we made it back in time for the evening canapés that night.

They serve a decent amount of food, all of which is really very good.
(The bar area opens an hour ahead of time)

Cheese and Crackers

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Fresh Sushi, Stuffed Tomato w/Mozzarella, spinach w/potato and onion spanakopita

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On the other side - Chicken Tenders

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and Mini Chicken Pies

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Delicious!

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continued in the next post........
 
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The suite life @ the Sofitel London Heathrow continues……
Club Millesime Lounge Part II

I'm jumping a bit out of sequence to showcase the hotel amenities in better order.

We visited the lounge one last time - the morning of the cruise - to check out their “light continental breakfast”.

And we were early enough to snag a table, which was nice. This place got crowded - fast.

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They set up a cold buffet at the bar:

with cheese, berries & compote fruit / vegetable crudites / smoked salmon & cold cut meats

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plus banana, strawberry and & raspberry smoothies and a selection of yogurts.

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There was also a very nice breakfast spread in the main area.

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Scrambled Eggs / Sausage / Bacon / Vegetable Sausage (w/potato filler) / blistered tomatoes/ Croissants and Danish

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On the other side – breads / rolls / muffins
(I think JQ snagged one of the last chocolate muffins)

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Plus 2 side buffets: cereal and fruit

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with coffee, tea juice and a variety of drinks

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Great kick off before a long day’s journey to a much anticipated cruise.

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Up next: A quiet dinner at the hotel
and the complications of getting to London by 5 am. the next morning.
 
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We just booked for next September and I'm really enjoying this trip report! Thank you for sharing all the details as I'm a little panicky about making everything work out.
 
What fabulous pictures! You documented everything so beautifully!!!! Even the food! I don't even have one picture of our hotel room!
Looks like a nice spread!!!
 

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