Brittany Ferries

Sorting out the travel for next summer but Eurocamp not getting any Brittany Ferries discounts this year. Is anyone aware of a means of getting discounted fares or are we best off just accepting it and booking direct? Direct ferries no cheaper and no BLC discount etc. Thanks!

Find a friend with “Club Voyage” membership [and have had it since before Brexit/Covid … the old scheme has good discounts for family/friends].

Following – we fancy Portsmouth > Bilbao and camp in the Pyrenees next year instead of going to the Alps. The price wasnt outrageous but not cheap either.

P&O are often on my banks cashback scheme which has helped previously!

Buy an english heritage membership and you get 5-10% off depending what you’re doing (IIRC). OK so you maybe don’t want an EH membership, but hey, you still save money most likely too. Also be flexible on route helps, we usually go in one port out another depending on price at each.

We could not find any discount when we went to Santander. I ended up using a cashback credit card in a vain attempt to keep my pride intact of not paying full price…. 😉

It was not cheap – but was cheaper than flights & car hire, was a nice way to travel there and back, and we had all our bikes with us as well. I would do it again.

We got a flat calm crossing really, but there are some tales of rather more wobbly 24 hours…

(Look closely – the newer ferry is significantly slower, the older one saves a lot of hours)

Also:
– take binoculars, the whale watching onboard is amazing, they even have the whale * dolphin trust on board who are out advising folk for most of the crossing.
– consider the Picos as well as the Pyrenees…

P&O are often on my banks cashback scheme which has helped previously!

P&O apparently give Eurocamp a decent discount which would’ve helped if we were going to the Netherlands.

I thought Club Voyage might help but it looks like you have to pay to join?

@matt_outandabout The Plymouth ferry sailing is substantially shorter than the Portsmouth one?

@matt_outandabout The Plymouth ferry sailing is substantially shorter than the Portsmouth one?

I *think* it was more complex than just distance, but may be wrong! Look at voyage duration when you book.

Thanks for the advice on the crossing times, ill check that out.

Does anyone have Club Voyage membership?

Following – we fancy Portsmouth > Bilbao and camp in the Pyrenees next year instead of going to the Alps. The price wasnt outrageous but not cheap either.

We went Plymouth -Santander this year. We enjoyed the crossing, saw minke whales and the kids loved the pool. The crossing is much quicker than from Portsmouth, so it’s worth the longer drive if you’re coming from the SE. We’re in Bristol so about equidistant.

So, further digging later, we are committed to coming home Santander-Plymouth, but DFDS Newhaven to Dieppe is about ⅔ the price of Brittany Ferries Portsmouth to Caen, though 20yo ship vs. brand new and twice the size. My recent ferry experience is limited to Stena in the Irish Sea, Brittany Ferries Portsmouth to Caen and return this summer and the mighty Cal Mac – is DFDS Newhaven to Dieppe OK or is it cheap because it’s grim?

We’re in Bristol so about equidistant.

Same with us – coming from Greater Manchester so any of the south coast ferry ports are much of a muchness.

is DFDS Newhaven to Dieppe OK or is it cheap because it’s grim?

I’m just back from a trip sailing overnight to Cherbourg (Brittany Ferries) and back from Dieppe (DFDS).

The DFDS ship was fine, and it seemed new enough. But it’s smaller than the Brittany Ferry so there was just less to do (and a bit bumpier). It was only four hours so I treated it like a train journey and read my book.

The Brittany Ferry had more bars and food options, and some on-board entertainment. We travelled overnight so had a couple of drinks then went to bed. All very relaxing, but this was a Wednesday night in term time – it’s easy to imagine that it would be carnage in school holidays.

it’s easy to imagine that it would be carnage in school holidays.

On the way out this year we did the night sailing and tbh got on the ship, straight into the bunks, then woke up when they played the tannoy music on the way in to Caen. Way home was a day sailing with coach loads of kids on school trips…

I done Newhaven to Dieppe this year, was almost half the price of Portsmouth to st Malo.

We’ve done the Plymouth-Santander one twice. We loath having to drive around London to the channel ports, you don’t sleep on the boat so need to stop somewhere anyway. Plymouth is slightly further from Edinburgh (we stayed overnight in Gloucestershire) but after a night’s kip on the ferry, a spot of whale watching in the bay of Biscay we found that we’d forgotten just how boring the drive (struggle to keep awake between Preston and the other side of Birmingham).

Also if you are landing in north Spain, Santander and Bilbao are very close to each other in the grand scheme of things so I’d check prices for both destinations…

Also if you are landing in north Spain, Santander and Bilbao are very close to each other in the grand scheme of things so I’d check prices for both destinations…

Yeah, we camped near San Sebastian and even that was less than 2.5 hours from Santander.

@notsospeedydaz Was it OK though?

IIRC you can only go to and from Plymouth from Santander, and I don’t think the Portsmouth-Bilbao sailing is much faster than Portsmouth-Santander. All Brittany Ferries?

Also:

– take binoculars, the whale watching onboard is amazing, they even have the whale * dolphin trust on board who are out advising folk for most of the crossing.

+1 They were on the DFDS crossing from Amsterdam to Newcastle last summer and whales and dolphins were seen.

@ratherbeintobago

Newhaven/Dieppe smaller than the Portsmouth/st Malo or hull/Rotterdam ferrys

No complaints though booked a cabin on way out as overnight.

Newhaven and Dieppe ports quite small and only 1 ferry so much nicer than Dover.

@notsospeedydaz Thanks!

I’ve been using Brittany back and forth to Spain every year for more than 15 years.

Prices have obviously gone up but there is no “cheap” way to take your car to Spain. Driving bores me so sitting on an autoroute through France isn’t for me.

What has changed with Brittany is that you used to get an evening meal and continental breakfast in the ticket price. That stopped 2 or 3 years ago.Now Brittany are trying to sell meal vouchers up front with a paltry discount.

Being a member of the Camping and caravanning club gave a discount on Spanish crossings. Thats been withdrawn.

Leaving in a couple of weeks time i have paid £430 for car,caravan,inside cabin, Portsmouth to Bilbao.

Coming back to Santander to Portsmouth it’s £100 more which doesn’t make sense.

The French route i would choose would be Newhaven/Dieppes nightime sailing. Cheapest price,early morning arrival meaning you can get plenty of miles in on the first day.

We’ve booked Newhaven to Dieppe on the way out, evening sailing then Ibis (strangely Ibis Dieppe just to the south is the same price with breakfast as the Ibis Budget in the town is without), as we can’t get in to Eurocamp until mid afternoon. As it happens Eurocamp can’t book this route, never mind get a discount, which I think is because it seems to be owned by the Dieppe/Rouen local government and run by DFDS as a franchise.

Pity about Brittany Ferries doing away with the meal. I think P&O were doing free food as a means of enticing people onto the Liverpool to Dublin route (on mainly freight ferries) which by the look of it didn’t help…

Avoid Liverpool Dublin route, any bad weather and you end up in Holyhead.

Avoid the freight ferries if the weather is bad unless you get a cabin, awful facilities in the non-truck section.

@saccades P&O packed in Liverpool-Dublin at the end of last year, Stena have taken it on but it looks like it’s freight only.