dover ferry V Eurotunnel

[Xander]

Okay guys and dolls,

Which is best.. the train or the boat?

If the boat which one... (i did not realise that there is like 10 different ferries over the pond)

for all of the above:

Do you have to book in advance or can you just show up?

yeah that is about it.. any other tips/hints suggestions would be great...

right now we are planning a crossing on a Saturday midday (in both directions).. not great but that is the best we can do...

[Jacqueslemac]

Depends where you're going!

Most of my trips involve Normandy at some point in them, so with this in mind, my thoughts are:

Portsmouth - Cherbourg. Brittany Ferries. Almost always far too expensive, except if you're a foot passenger. Really handy for western France once you've landed, though.
Portsmouth - Le Havre with LD Lines. Pretty reasonable. Overnight on the way out. Mostly I sleep in a sleeping bag on the deck and get quite a good night's sleep. The homeward crossing is from 5pm until 9pm, which is a pain for me as it's too early to sleep yet means I don't get home until the small hours. Le Havre is also really handy for the western half of France and connects straight into the autoroute system.
Dover - Boulogne with Speedferries. Cheap if you stick exactly to what you've booked, but try to change something (especially at the last minute) and they'll play awkward buggers and rip you off.
Dover - Calais. Tons of ferries from different operators. Just turn up and there isn't a problem, but keep your eyes out for cheap deals and snap 'em up.
Dover - Dunkerque with Norfolk Line. This one's like it was in the old days. Pretty cheap, and they're fairly flexible if you change your plans and arrive early. You're dropped off miles away from anywhere but within easy reach of an autoroute.
Harwich - Hook of Holland. The easiest UK port for me to get to, but only good if you're heading east (NL, D, DK etc). Again, use an overnight crossing and you'll arrive ready for a long day in the saddle.I've never used the tunnel as every time I've looked it's vastly more expensive than the cheapest ferry. And I check it every time, as I'm intrigued to know what it's like.

I've never used St Malo, Roscoff or Dieppe, so can't comment on those.

P.S. My sister lives in Farewell, so can't be far from you.

[Xander]

Depends where you're going!

Romania....
and we plan on having 2-3 hard days riding to get there too...
O/n not an option cus we cant leave till 1000h on sat. and dont want to loose that much time...

[pooh]

Hey Xander ;)

I always prefer the ferry to the tunnel. Far more exciting :D To me it emphasizes the adventure/trip ... and gives you a chance to have a pint (shandy of course), watch Blighty disappear from view and look forward to the road ahead. Plus ..... I'm a little CHLAUSTRAPHOBIC :(:(

I think the cheapest ferry to Calais is the P&O route.

http://www.poferries.com/tourist/

Can buy tickets online for about £15 each way with a bike. You can also just turn up, but for the sake of either a phone call or 5 mins online with P&O you might not want to take the risk of the ferry being full. They normally wont just put the bikes in anywhere, they have there own designated space so when full it's usually full ....

The other route and the one I prefer is Dover - Dunkirke with Norfolk Line.

http://www.norfolkline.com/ferry/

The tickers are a little more. Prob £20 each way, but the ferries are new or been completely refurbed, and more importantly they put the bikes on 1st which makes one feel rather important :mrgreen::-D. This gives you time to strap your bike down and wonder round the ferry without a soul onboard. Which in turn means 1st in the queue at the bar ;)

[Snaphappy]

Sounds like a nice trip,
good advise so far.
Check the websites for good deals Ostend-Dover is a freight ferry geared up for truckdrivers who need a break in comfort, highly recommendable if you can spare the time and cheap.
Calais-dover are **** holes but your not on long, the chunnel for speed but your in the wagon I believe for bikes there are benches to sit on, for cars you stay in the car, quick and very basic

[twotter]

Three trips to the continent by bike in the last three years and I've always used the Tunnel so far and it's been absolutely fine. No delays and no problems. I have always prebooked but on each return trip I've turned up early and not had to pay any extra, just caught the next available train.

In my experience they load bikes on last and it's just a case of using the side stand and leaving it in gear. I usually dump my gear on the bike then mooch around looking at the other bikes or fiddle with my GPS changing the settings to metric.

Once in France you have to wait for the cars to go then you get to ride along the full length of the train, which I quite like for some reason.

The very best bit of the whole experience is riding down over the flyover and past the fuel station on the left to join the A16 motorway. It always makes me feel as though I've got a relief map of the whole of Europe stretching out in front of me and puts a huge silly grin on my face :D

My brother and I are heading over in May to revisit the Somme and then ride over to Normandy, staying at Jacqueslemac's place. Instead of coming home on the Tunnel we're going to give LD Lines a go, so we can make the most of the extra time in Normandy. Looking forward to it but will probably have a look on t'internet to see how I should go about tying the bike down :toothy8:

[Dee Duble Yuh]

If belting across Europe on Autoroutes, bear in mind that the Belgian ones are not toll roads (Peage), whereas many French ones are. However, the quality of the road surface on the Belgian Autoroutes is somewhat variable.

If you plan to use the Belgian Autoroutes that might affect which ferry you use. For example the Norfolk Line crossing to Dunkirke is only a short hop to the E40. Or take the E42, N38 and A19 to avoid Brussels.

[davsato]

ive never had any problems with the P+O dover ferry, they are pretty flexible timewise unless theyre fully booked and they do deals like 10% off if you look in MCN, member of BMF, or whatever. look in the bike mags.
speedferries are ok when ive used them but prices have crept up to more than P+O and they only let 4 bikes on the boat at a time last time i tried, something about special wheel clamps or some drivel like that. P+O are better, and only a bit slower.
the tunnel is only cheap in the wee hours, sometimes as low as £15, at most other times its extortionate.
brittany ferries, pompey-cherbourg i just done a day trip with the brood last week on the fastcat, for £10 each. for £15 i couldve taken the bike too, but the offer was only with vouchers from 'the news' local paper and only till the end of april. it was a good crossing, but whenever ive looked into going over for our annual summer jaunt theyve been extortionate too (i save loads by riding to dover, and i only live 3mi from pompey ferryport)

[MR.T]

I went over on the tunnel a fortnight ago and it was effortless and smooth. No problems with strapping/damaging the bike, just park it sideways in gear and 20 min later you're putting your gear on again to dis-embark.As Twotter experienced, i arrived early on both the outward and the return and at no extra cost i was allowed on the next train. £61 i paid return, not that cheap but it was quick and no damage to the bike.The only thing i will say is if you are travelling a long way down to the crossing you don't get much of a break as you would on a ferry.
If going to Normandy as i am in July, it is about the same cost to get the tunnel and ride 210 miles to Normandy than it is to get the boat with a cabin and arrive on the doorstep.
Hope you enjoy your trip.

[apple3]

I have used the Train many times when it works its great but a simple problem often causes a 1hr delayer. To be honest you get a feeling of Adventure with the ferry. I do like Speed ferries but at the end of the day its whats cheapest or going my way. In the Summer all the crossing are maxed out a delay will happen.
A3

[Xander]

Well after all the great advice we went with the train.. why.. cus the timing was right.. they had one that was closest to our ETA.. which meant less faffing around.. not scientific.. but there you go...

[davsato]

and now after saying how good they are ive had my 1st ever proplem with P+O!
we are DoverOvering in 2 weeks, 3 of us have had our trip booked since january and 1 wanted to join in so he booked last week. lo and behold, the sailing times we first booked dont exist anymore, theyve moved 20mins so we thought, its probably tides or something and he booked on those times. alarm bells rang so i checked with P+O and the boat we originally booked is in for maintenence and our first 3 bookings are now an hour further on!
"we were going to tell everyone a week before the sailing" says P+O.
"when the boats probably full and it would be too late to change and all travel together?" says i.
"err.....oh yeah" nuggets.

this is the trouble with the 1vehicle=1booking system, if they realised bikes rarely go singly and you could book bikes as a group they could see you want to travel together. and they would have made £25 ammending the booking to include our mate, they tried it on each of us (thats another thing, i couldnt ammend all of ours, you each had to do it yourself!) but we soon explained it was their cock up not ours.:error::error::error::error:

[davsato]

well that turned into a bit of a saga. because the fishermen decided to block calais a day before our sailing, we had to cancel the P+O booking and managed to get on the portsmouth/le havre LDlines overnight boat. not great trying to sleep in the bar, but hey-ho.
as it happened it was great, for these reasons;
1. P+O gave us a full refund. although they were £39 and LDlines was £78, i live 2miles from the portsmouth ferryport and dover wouldve been a tankful of gas either way, so that would be £50+ to add, so cheaper in the end.
2. a longer sailing but we got there (le havre) earlier than we wouldve been in calais, and it was only an extra 40mi to where we were going.
3. it was great not to have the ****ty 120mi dover-portsmouth ride when we got home. the A20/M20/M25/A3 were created to rub in just how good french roads are, and to remind you youre home now, sucker!

wont bother with dover again, but next time we go over we're going to take sleeping bags and doss in the corridors like those 'in the know'