Frequently Asked Questions

You can book online through our simple booking system. Select your dates, choose your service (Meet and Greet or Park and Ride), enter your vehicle details, and pay securely online.

Please notify us at least 30 minutes before your booked time slot if your arrival time changes. You can call or text us on the day.

We accept standard cars only. Unfortunately we cannot accommodate vans, transits, or mobile homes due to space constraints at our facility.

Yes. We cater for fly-cruise one-way bookings. You can select Fly as your departure or arrival method during the booking process.

We recommend arriving at least 90 minutes before your cruise departure to ensure no disruption to your boarding. We operate on strict 30-minute time slots from 07:00 to 16:30.

You drive to the short-stay car park at your departure terminal. Our uniformed staff meet you, inspect your vehicle, and assist with luggage if required. We then drive your car to our secure CCTV-monitored facility. On your return, we bring your car back to the terminal.

You drive to our secure off-site parking facility. We then provide shuttle transport directly to your cruise terminal. On your return, we collect you from the terminal and transport you back to your vehicle.

Absolutely. Your vehicle is stored in a private, CCTV-monitored, gated facility with overnight lockdown. We carry £2 million public liability insurance and our staff are equipped with body cameras at terminals.

When your ship docks, simply message us 30 minutes before you need your vehicle. Our staff meet you in the short-stay car park at your return terminal with your car ready and waiting.

Luggage assistance, electric car charging, and a full valet can all be added during the booking flow. Live prices are shown on the add-on step.

Yes. The chat assistant on the bottom-right of every page can take you through a full booking. It pulls live availability and prices, asks you the same questions the booking form would, and produces a payment link you tap to pay. We never charge you without your final tap.

English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and Arabic. The assistant detects your language automatically and remembers your choice for the session. You can also pick from the language menu at the top of the chat.

Audio never reaches our servers. On modern browsers it goes straight to your browser's built-in voice recogniser. On Firefox we fall back to Deepgram, where the audio is streamed directly from your device to Deepgram and not stored. We only ever see the resulting text.

Only if you're signed in, and only your own bookings. The assistant uses tools that refuse to return any record that doesn't belong to you. Cancellations, reschedules, and refunds are always staged as a draft for you to review and confirm before anything is changed.

Three layers. A pattern filter blocks common prompt-injection attempts before they reach the AI at all. Every message you type is wrapped in a tag that tells the AI to treat it as data, not instructions. And the AI's instructions explicitly forbid it from changing roles, revealing its prompt, or acting outside parking, terminals, and booking topics. Each blocked attempt is logged for our team to review.

For anonymous visitors: 24 hours of inactivity, then we archive the chat and after 30 days replace it with a short summary. For signed-in customers: 30 days of inactivity. The full transcript is deleted after 30 days of being archived. The summary is kept for up to 6 months and then deleted entirely.

Yes, but only when you're signed in and only after you confirm. The assistant prepares a draft showing the cancellation fee, your refund, and whether you're inside the cancellation cutoff. You tap Confirm to apply or Reject to walk away. Refund issuance is an extra step for you and our team.

Yes. Quotes come straight from the same pricing engine the booking form uses, with the same discounts and the same cap on busy days. The AI never makes prices up. If you give it dates, a service, and a ship, it will quote the exact total you'd see in the booking form.

Tell it. The assistant can correct itself within the same chat. If you're not getting where you need to go, tap the Contact link in the chat header or call us on 07767 227 739. Anything price-related, refund-related, or that needs human judgement is something you can route to us at any point.

Yes. The chat bubble lives at the bottom-right of every page, on phones and tablets. Voice dictation works wherever your browser supports it (Chrome and Safari on iOS / Android both work). The booking flow inside the chat is mobile-optimised.

Yes. Ask "what terminal does Britannia leave from on 12 May?" and the assistant pulls live sailing data and replies with the terminal, drop-off time, and any rules specific to that ship. It won't guess if it doesn't know.

Yes, signed-in customers can reschedule via the assistant. It checks availability for the new dates, re-quotes any price difference, and shows you a draft. You confirm, and the new dates apply with the original discount preserved if you had one. Outside the cancellation cutoff, the price recalculates fairly.

Yes. City, Horizon, Mayflower, Ocean, and QEII. It knows the postcode, drop-off layout, walking distance to the gangway, and which cruise lines typically use each terminal. It can compare two terminals side by side if you're unsure.

No. The AI can quote you a price and prepare a booking, but the final payment is always made through Stripe via a payment link. Your card never goes through the AI. We chose this on purpose for security and audit reasons.

The booking form at /book always works without the AI. The phone line and email are also always open. The AI is a faster route for most things, not the only route. If we're running maintenance on it, the chat bubble shows a message saying so.

On the same device with cookies enabled, yes, your previous chat threads stay accessible for the lifetime of the session. We do not link AI conversations across devices unless you sign in. Signed-in customers see their AI history under their account.

Yes. Tell the assistant about wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, large families, oversized vehicles, or any other consideration. It captures the request as part of your booking notes so the meet-and-greet driver knows before you arrive.

No. The assistant is scoped to Cruise Azure and Southampton cruise parking topics only. If you ask about something else it will politely say it can only help with parking and your booking. This is on purpose.

Only what is needed to make the booking: name, email, phone, vehicle registration, dates, and ship. It does not ask for payment card details (those go through Stripe), and it does not ask for irrelevant personal information.

Signed-in customers can. Visit your account area and the chat sidebar shows past sessions. Anonymous visitors see only the current session's messages.

It checks live operational notes from our team. If a terminal is closed, the assistant tells you which alternative terminals your cruise line uses, and offers to switch your booking. Weather delays are handled by our ops team and the assistant relays anything they've published.

Tap the contact link in the chat header, or call 07767 227 739 between 7am and 5pm any day. The AI is not a substitute for the team, just a faster route for the routine 80%.

Yes. It pulls the live add-ons list, shows you the price of each, and includes anything you select in the final quote. Add-ons appear on your booking confirmation and on the meet-and-greet driver's notes.

It is the fastest way to get a quote, ask a question, or start a booking. Most cruise parking visitors have a specific question (a date, a ship, a terminal). The chat answers it without making you read through every page.

Yes, completely free for customers. There is no subscription, no premium tier, no extra cost added to bookings made through the chat. The price you see is the same as the booking form.

Pricing varies by trip length and is the same at every terminal. Live prices for both services are shown on the Services page and in the booking flow.

Yes. Returning customers receive a discount code after their first booking. The code is valid for bookings made within one year and must be used with the same email address.

Cancellation refunds are available within 14 days of booking only. A £25 administrative fee applies to all refunds. Refund requests must be made in writing to bookings@cruiseazureparking.com.

Cruise Azure Parking is a premium meet and greet cruise parking service based in Southampton. We provide secure parking for cruise passengers departing from all five Southampton cruise terminals: City, Horizon, Mayflower, Ocean, and QEII.

Visit our Contact page or call us on 07767 227 739. You can also email bookings@cruiseazureparking.com.