Hello all,
I've been out of the UK for almost 10 years now so have rather lost my current knowledge on various travel issues.
We have a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 from New York to Southampton booked in June for my birthday (originally for my 50th but then Covid postponed it).
We fly out from Heathrow T5 to JFK, spend a couple of days in New York and then cruise back to Southampton.
We are driving over from Germany via Harwich (to drop in to see my Mum) with the plan to get the ferry overnight and then drive to Heathrow over the following day, via Mum's in Ipswich. We plan to book a hotel with parking at Heathrow and then when we return to Southampton to get a train or bus or something from Southampton to Heathrow, collect our car and drive home via Harwich.
The whole ULEZ zone thing is a bit new to me. Are the Heathrow airports within it? Klaus's car is a 3 year old diesel Octavia so I think is OK in ULEZ but if for some reason we can't take it, we would have to take my 24-year-old Mercedes SLK which is Euro 2 or Euro 3 (can't work out which) so presumably is not allowed in the ULEZ.
Secondly, I can't see any direct transfer from Southampton to Heathrow apart from taxis which are super-expensive. Does anyone know of an efficient route that doesn't cost the earth?
Is there a better option than car at Heathrow? Our flight leaves Heathrow at 11:40am so that's not too antisocial a time.
I've got six months to organise it but want to make sure after our lovely luxurious holiday the last bit isn't some train nightmare in the UK!