Dover cruise terminal: getting into town and what to see ashore

Where the Dover cruise terminal is

Dover cruise terminal is not one building but two, both on the Admiralty Pier in the Western Docks, on the opposite side of the harbour from the ferry port. The two are well away from the cross-Channel traffic at the Eastern Docks below the castle, with their own road access along the seafront, and cruise passengers have no reason to go near the ferry lanes at all.

Cruise Terminal 1 has the more remarkable history. It occupies the old Dover Marine Station, the great railway station built on the pier between 1909 and 1914, where boat trains such as the Golden Arrow ran alongside the cross-Channel steamers and where hundreds of trains carried away the troops landed during the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. The station closed to rail traffic in 1994, the year the Channel Tunnel opened, and after a major refurbishment it reopened in 1996 as a cruise liner terminal, with the old concourse turned into the passenger hall. Its story is told on the page about Dover Marine Station.

The terminal was so successful that a second one, Cruise Terminal 2, opened further out along the pier in 2000. Which terminal a ship uses is set by the port for each call and is given in the cruise line's documents. From Terminal 1 the town centre is a little under a mile away; Terminal 2 lies further out along the pier and a little further from the town.

Getting from the cruise terminal into Dover

Dover is one of the easier cruise ports for exploring on your own, because the town, the seafront and the castle are all close together in one chalk valley. The question is mostly how to cover the first stretch, out of the docks and along the seafront.

On call days a shuttle bus into the town centre is often arranged for passengers; whether it runs, where it stops and whether there is a charge depends on the ship and the day, and the shore desk on board is the place to ask. Taxis wait at the terminals on most call days, and a taxi is the simplest way up to the castle or out to the white cliffs. Whether passengers can walk out of the port on foot, and by which route, also depends on the arrangements on the day; when walking is possible, the level route along the seafront promenade to the town centre takes around twenty to twenty-five minutes.

Once in town, almost everything is within walking distance. The Market Square is the heart of the centre, with Dover Museum on one side of it and the Roman Painted House a few minutes away. Dover Castle stands on the hill to the east and is reached by a steep climb up Castle Hill Road; most people with limited time take a taxi up and walk down. The white cliffs above the Eastern Docks are best reached by taxi or car, unless there is time for a long walk.

What to see in Dover on a cruise stop

A typical port call leaves somewhere between four and ten hours ashore, and the right plan depends on which end of that range the ship gives you. The castle alone can fill a whole day, so choosing is part of the job.

With four hours or so. Pick one thing and do it properly. Dover Castle is the obvious choice: the Great Tower built for Henry II, the Roman lighthouse and Saxon church inside the walls, and the wartime tunnels in the cliff, from which the Dunkirk evacuation was run in 1940. With a taxi each way it fits comfortably into a short call. Alternatively, spend the time in the town centre: Dover Museum, the Roman Painted House and a walk along the seafront to the memorial to Captain Webb, the first man to swim the Channel, can all be done on foot. The Dover Castle visitor guide covers what to see at the castle in detail.

The Marine Station in 1921.With six to eight hours. Add the white cliffs. From the National Trust visitor centre at Langdon Cliffs a cliff-top path heads east towards South Foreland Lighthouse, with the view straight down onto the ferries in the Eastern Docks on the way. A morning at the castle and an afternoon on the cliffs makes the most complete day Dover can offer a cruise passenger. The route is described in the guide to white cliffs walks.

With a full day. Consider Canterbury. Trains from Dover Priory reach Canterbury East in well under half an hour, and the cathedral, the medieval streets and the city walls make a full day out. The station is a short taxi ride from the terminal. Leave a generous margin for the return: the ship will not wait, and the last part of the journey back through the docks always takes longer than expected. Other ideas are in day trips and the year in Dover.

A few things are worth checking before going ashore: whether the attractions you have in mind are open on the day of the call, since several have seasonal opening, and the all-aboard time, which is usually well before the ship sails. Opening times and admission are published by the attractions themselves and are not given here.

A short walk through Dover town centre

For passengers who would rather see the town than queue for a taxi, a loop of the centre on foot takes a couple of hours at an easy pace and passes most of what Dover keeps from its long past. Start on the seafront, where the promenade curves round the harbour from the Prince of Wales Pier towards East Cliff. The memorial to Captain Webb stands on the front, and the statue of Charles Rolls, who flew to France and back without landing in 1910, is close by.

From the seafront it is a short walk inland to the Market Square. Dover Museum stands on the square, and its best-known exhibit is the Bronze Age boat found under the town's streets in 1992, a sewn-plank boat about 3,500 years old and one of the oldest known seagoing boats in the world. A few minutes away on New Street, the Roman Painted House preserves the painted walls of a Roman building from the port of Dubris, some of the best-preserved Roman wall paintings in Britain, still in place on the walls where they were painted. The story of the Roman town is on the page about Roman Dover.

Further up the main street, the Maison Dieu was founded in the thirteenth century as a hostel for pilgrims on their way to and from Canterbury, and later became part of the town hall. From there the castle is plainly visible on its hill, and the road up to it starts nearby. Anyone short of time can leave the climb for a taxi and still be back on board long before the all-aboard time.

Arriving for a cruise from Dover: London, Heathrow and the train

For passengers starting or ending a cruise in Dover, the journey to the terminal matters as much as the voyage. Dover lies at the end of two main roads from London: the M20 and A20 from the M25 by way of Folkestone, which arrive along the seafront close to the Western Docks, and the M2 and A2 from the Medway towns and Canterbury, which arrive above the town. The roads are described in the guide to getting to Dover and the ferry port.

By rail, high-speed trains have run from London St Pancras to Dover Priory since December 2009, taking a little over an hour, and slower trains run from London Victoria and Charing Cross. There is no railway into the docks any more, so the last stretch from Dover Priory to the terminal is by taxi. For travellers coming from Heathrow or Gatwick, the cruise lines usually offer coach transfers, and private transfers run by road; the drive from Heathrow is around the M25 and down the M20, and traffic around the M25 makes a generous margin wise.

Parking for the length of a cruise is arranged through the cruise line or the port, usually at the time of booking, and luggage is dropped at the terminal on embarkation day. Arrangements differ between cruise lines and are best confirmed with them rather than on arrival.

The view of a cruise ship in Dover

A large cruise liner at the Admiralty Pier can dominate the view across the harbour, and the best places to see one are from above. From the castle walls or the Western Heights the whole length of the pier is laid out below, with the ship alongside, the marina in front and the ferries swinging in and out of the Eastern Docks across the bay. On a summer evening, as a ship sails, the cliffs and the castle light up behind it, and the scene is much as passengers on the steamers saw it a century ago.

The pier has a long history of its own. It was begun in 1847 as part of a plan for a great harbour of refuge, and for most of the twentieth century it was where the boat trains met the Continental steamers. The history of Dover harbour and the Western Docks pages tell how the cruise terminals came to stand where the boat trains once waited.