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Viator is one of our affiliates for a reason: they have tours that are appealing. (At least to me.) One that I’m absolutely astounded (and delighted) to discover is this one: Southampton Shore Excursion: Pre-Cruise Tour from London to Southampton via Stonehenge.
Here’s the overview:
Leave your central London hotel for your cruise departure at Southampton Port, stopping to visit Stonehenge on the way! The prehistoric stone circle, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sits roughly half-way between London and Southampton, making it an ideal stop before your cruise. Explore this intriguing monument at leisure, pondering its many mysteries before arriving at Southampton Port.
I knew Viator had Stonehenge day trip tours from London. (In fact they’re listed on our Macabre and Unusual Tours page.) But say what? Stonehenge is on the way to our port?
We had planned on taking the train to our port. It’s why we opted to stay at the Hampton by Hilton London Waterloo. It’s right near the train station. (Which is why I don’t get to stay in one of London’s haunted hotels. Well that and because they were out of our price range.)
But to learn there’s a way to possibly sneak in Stonehenge during our very limited time in London?
I found a very helpful site (The London Toolkit) which explained all about the trains and had a link to a site calculating how much our train tickets to the port will be. (Like I emphasized in my post “Researching London’s Most Haunted Hotels,” Wayne’s all about costs. I don’t know. Something to do with the accountant in him.)
Train tickets will run us about £80 per person. That’s about $124.
Which is good for me. Tickets for the Pre-Cruise Tour from London to Southampton via Stonehenge are $108.97.
But there’s pros and cons to both.
If we take the train, we can sleep in a little and catch the train later in the morning, or even around noon. Travel time is about 90 minutes.
If we do the pre-cruise tour, we’ll have to be up early. Tour pick up is around 8 a.m. It will also be about a five hour adventure.
Wayne’s vote is “No!” (Naturally. That’s his vote 90% of the time.)
But he was adamant about “Not wasting time looking at what amounts to a pile of rocks and spending a small fortune for the hype” after he found tickets on the Megatrain. Which is a LOT cheaper than either taking the tour or buying regular train tickets. (Yet, still is the regular train, just sold at a discount.)
Anyway, there went my selling point that the tour would be cheaper. Bummer.
I’ve always wanted to see Stonehenge. However, I’m trying to stay positive about it.
Oversea hauls are hard. And stressful. Who knows how we’ll sleep Friday night. We could be wiped from the trip and not want to rush getting somewhere by 8 a.m. (Our hotel isn’t one of the hotel pickup points, so we’d have to haul our stuff to the nearest hotel. Which leaves a chance we could get lost, be late, miss the tour…things that have happened to us before and we’re leery about having happen again.)
Plus, the next day we’ll be at our first port stop in Guernsey. Since we’re only there from 7 a.m. – 3 p.m., we’ll want to be up early and off the ship as fast as possible. Especially because it’s a tender port. That cuts into the sightseeing time.
Anyway, getting up early and hitting it hard our first two days doesn’t sound very fun to either of us. (Wayne’s actually an early bird, but I’m not. We know each other well enough to avoid possible conflict starters, which such a chaotic schedule could be.)
So Stonehenge will have to wait for another day. Hope the rocks don’t end up toppling over before I get a chance to see them.
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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