France Ferry & Campsite info (use Search function) mod warning post 1

afkasurfjunkie

have to disagree there. If you can get a deal any time in June there’s a lot less happening in school. First week back is quite important for laying the basics and settling in the kids.

fits

we are going to France the last two weeks of August. Ferry and campsite was very reasonable. The children will miss the first two days back but I think it’ll be ok.

padraig.od

What sort of weather can I expect in mid August in Brittany or Normandy? Always went south of Nantes and always in June/July.

Fann Linn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123302482#Comment_123302482

Literally just checked my ferry details now and as opposed to when I booked last August for 29 August this year, it was €33 cheaper booking then, for identical cabin etc.

And having done the same with my Eurocamp booking it too is practically identical. I booked that last year too, but got an early booking discount of €200, plus a loyalty bonus of €79, plus an excess of 11 nights bonus, so the holiday comes in as the same advertised price as of today.

They must have a bottom line price and work off that.

That's with Brittany Ferries Rosslare Bilbao and Eurocamp to the Dordogne in a premium 3 mobile.

Heroditas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123310153#Comment_123310153

Should be mid 20s, maybe a bit higher. Brittany and Normandy can be hit and miss but it should be nice at that time in August.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123310024#Comment_123310024

We're going mid August, ferry was much cheaper versus July or first week of August

Tricky part is finding dates where the ferry and accommodation line up. We're doing centre parcs this year instead of Eurocamp, they came in around the same price.

Of course I "had" to book 10 nights to get the ferry home to line up, thankfully it was an easy sell to the other half 😂

Biggest concern is if/when we get hit with Le Strike. We ended up staying extra in France last year with the port strikes, if that happens this year the kids will miss a day to two of school

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123309594#Comment_123309594

I'd definitely agree for primary school kids, they tend to have pretty much finished the curriculum by early June so there isn't much going on

Secondary schools tend to be a bit of a race to the finish on the other hand

Mid September is another option, gove the kids time to settle in but before they're up to full speed with classes

I dont know

We still haven’t booked anything for this year & it seems the ferry options are limited, and expensive!

Last year we went Dublin -Cherbourg & stayed at Domaine des Ormes in the last week on June (kids missed 3.5 days of school but they were already on the wind down for a couple of weeks)

We only booked it on 8th June & went 22nd as we were waiting on 2 kids passports – Ferry was ~€1200 and camp £430 (2 adults, 3 kids 6,4,3)

Wife can’t do June this year, so we’re looking anything between 28th June – 17th July. We only did 7 days last time and are thinking 8 or 9 days would be ideal this time around

I’ve been looking at the Cork – Roscoff route, as we’d like to maybe go to some of the camps further west in Brittany, but all the cabins in the return journeys seem to be sold out!

Have heard Carnac is a nice place, but it’s a 4hour journey from Cherbourg v 2.5 hours from Roscoff (although the travel saving on the other side would be lost for us on this side going from Dublin to Cork)

I see the likes of Kelair still advertising trips on this route – would it be likely that travel agents would have reserved X amount of cabins & these could be released nearer the time?

It’s a risk waiting it out, so we might book the Dublin-Cherbourg route

browne_rob5

Stena are going to replace the Horizon with the Vision from 15 April on the Rosslare to Cherbourg route. That will bring capacity from 600 to 1,700 so you might get good value on that route if it works. Stena website hasn't been updated for this yet though.

Vic_08

Irish Ferries have just announced they are buying the formerly leased "James Joyce" ferry, from May it will be on the second Holyhead rotation that currently also does a Dublin - Cherbourg sailing on Fridays and return on Saturdays. It has higher capacity with significantly more cabins and is a much nicer ferry all round than the current Isle Of Inisheer that is on that route.

Might be useful to some on here.

Edit: They haven't added it to their schedules yet and it remains to be seen what if any changes to their timetables they make once it is in service and IOI is no longer used on Holyhead.

Heroditas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123319316#Comment_123319316

Cherbourg to Carnac is a very pleasant drive. Stop off in Rennes Alma for a 30min break, pick up some supplies and you're halfway there.

Carnac is absolutely beautiful.

suilegorma

Hopefully someone here might be able to help. We booked a one way with IF using as many Tesco tokens as we could at the time and were keeping an eye on prices to see if they dropped and we could do the cancel and rebook like we did 2 years ago. We used the credit to pay for Club Class and really liked it, but not enough to pay for it in cash :) Prices haven't changed so I think we got an ok deal and this won't happen again this year. We have some more tokens but looks like we can't use any more on our existing booking. Outside of cancelling and rebooking to add our new vouchers, is there a way around this?

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123319430#Comment_123319430

April sailings were loaded last week and now May and first half of June has gone live for booking with the Stena Vision to France.

They probably have to go through it manually and rebook everyone into their new cabins, which isnt a big issue for standard 4bed cabins but for 6bed and suites they might need to contact customers to confirm the new arrangements.

EletricMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123344063#Comment_123344063

Why did they only pull the stena vision from Rosslare/Cherbourg route last October to run it again this year.

browne_rob5

Think they were trying to sell it but couldn't find a buyer. They sold a different ship and moved things around. Vision is inefficient and doesn't have enough cargo space for this route so probably won't be there long term.

EletricMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123345217#Comment_123345217

I haven't sailed to France yet but it looks to be a nicer ship than what Brittany ferrys offer? The cabins look nicer anyway!

browne_rob5

I haven't been on it myself but most reviews I have seen are positive. I had it booked for our journey home this summer before it was cancelled so on the WB Yeats now.

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123345275#Comment_123345275

Brittany runs 4 different ships to Ireland where the Pont Aven from accounts is one of the swishest ferrys anywhere, the Cotentin very basic, Commodore Clipper small but nice (and really nice grub), the Armorique not overly swish, not overly big, but good grub and is a really nicely designed, Salamanca is nearly brand new and more comfortable than the likes of freight ferries like Cotentin or the Stena Horizon.

The prices for Stena and irish ferries are off the scale bonkers this summer so I'll be going with Brittanny or landbridging it - and even with Brittanny a number of their sailings have all cabins booked out so theres not a fierce amount of options at the peak of the summer

munchkin_utd

Stena have updated their website and now all sailings for the rest of the year and into January are bookable on the larger capacity Stena Vision and prices have reduced from unprecedented insane off the scale rip off fares, to far more modest amounts.

Both the fare and cabin cost are reduced, and obviously being a ferry with way more cabins means some sailings which had no cabin availability now do have cabins

As an example of the price drop, a one way flex fare for car + adult + 2 kids and 4berth cabin on Aug 11th was costing €892 this morning when it was to be operated with the Stena Horizon, now its bookable for "only" €457 on the Vision

I dont know

Thanks @munchkin_utd, prices for July below, much more affordable

That ferry seems to arrive at 16:00 every sailing. If you add in a 4+ hour journey plus the time it takes to get off the boat & a pitstop along the way we're going to be pretty late checking in. I much prefer the Irish Ferries arrival times
Still, good value

idontknowdoyou

if anyone needs a roofbox halfords have a sale on some of them.

BailMeOut

Sorry if been asked before but a French buddy of mine said that toll booths are or have been removed at a lot of locations and you can now just drive through at speed and pay later. How extensive is this and do you need to preregister your car first with your reg?

Fann Linn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123370911#Comment_123370911

I'm with bip and go for tolls in France and Spain. I think it cost about €20 for the tag a few years back and you can pay the tolls for both motorways plus car park fees through it. It's the pay as you go option and so long as it's used at least once annually there is no admin fee applicable.

As above I can book car parks, pay tolls etc plus if you've an electric car I believe you can pay your recharge fees through it too.

I've a referral code I can pass onto you if interested and we can both get a €5 reward too.

padraig.od

Hey guys, i have 3 kids - 10, 9 & 6. We took the ferry to France when the youngest was 4 and got all five of us into a single cabin. Hoping to squeeze us all in again this year. Will the ferry company request us to book 2 cabins to sleep all 5 of us this time? Last time youngest slept in a cot, but we won't get away with same this time.

spuddy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123370911#Comment_123370911

I don't think it's that widespread yet, it's just a handful of motorways so far. No doubt they'll all convert in time, but unless you're travelling on one of the routes, there'll be no change this year anyway. Plus it seems to work like the M50 in that you can pay for it online after you use it, if you don't have a tag.

• The A14, a 21km stretch of road linking the west of Paris with the A13 (barrier free as of June 19, 2024)
• The A13 in Normandy, at the Heudebouville (Eure) tolls. barriers will progressively be removed on the motorway, which will be entirely barrier-free in December 2024.
• The A79 between Saône-et-Loire and Allier (already barrier-free)
• The A4 near Boulay (already barrier-free)
• A 53 km stretch of the A69 motorway between Toulouse and Castres (will be barrier-free in 2025)

https://www.thelocal.fr/20240417/peage-france-to-start-scrapping-motorway-tollbooths

https://www.thelocal.fr/20240425/reader-question-how-will-frances-new-free-flow-tollbooths-will-work-for-foreigners

https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/peage-flux-libre

Citizenpain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123377946#Comment_123377946

with Brittany there is no issue putting 5 in a 4 berth . Mine are similar ages .

Bring an air bed or let 2 go head to toe

Gwento

When you go to reserve a cabin the booking system won't let you book 5 people in a 4 person cabin you'll have to book a seat for the 5th person

rex_turner

I'm going to disagree slightly with both posters above.

We are a family of 6 and always travel with Brittany ferries. For the Pont Aven which sails Cork-Roscoff at the weekend you can just book one cabin and no need need to book extra seats etc. We have done the this on several occasions and are doing it again this year. It's a tight squeeze but the last few years we've only done it in the return route and live close to the ferry so suck it up.

On the Amorique which is the midweek sailing Cork-Roscoff I'm pretty sure you have to book a berth for everyone (or seat).

We're sailing from Rosslare this year, can't remember which boat but it's on a Monday and I had to book two 4-berth cabins.

So basically even within Brittany Ferries it varies. If you ring them they might be more flexible.

CheerLouth

We were on the Amorique last year & didn't have to book a berth for everyone - we're also a fam of 5. Same this year for Irish Ferries, we've a 4 berth cabin booked & I noted that they explicity state that they only provide bedding for the number of berths in the cabin. We just bring a thick yoga mat, a sleeping bag & pillow & one of the kids camps out on the floor.

BailMeOut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123378622#Comment_123378622

Always travel with 5 in a 4 bed berth on the Pont Aven and never had an issue.