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

scouserstation wrote: »

First Up wrote: »

Well at least there are other ways of getting to France with IF and Stena from Rosslare and if all else fails, the landbridge through UK. But I can't see anyone trusting the WB Yeats (or IF) for quite a long time.

There is also the option of using the new Brittany ferries sailing from Cork to Santander, which is only a 2 hour drive away from southern France

True but its 26 hours on some sailings and 33 hours on others on a ship that sounds like a truckers ferry. Its an option and I've not ruled it out for a trip I'm doing to Spain in September but I'll need customer reports.

mikerd4

I sailed dublin to holyhead on the Epsilon amd thought it was pretty bad even for such a short journey. Cant imagine the trip to France with kids on it being anyway enjoyable.

oinkely

We were affected for our return trip at the end of July.
Rang the booking office yesterday and got a very helpful agent. Options were epsilon a day earlier or OW a day later.
Went for the OW as the Stena boat was pretty basic and I believe the Epsilon is similar.

Not the disaster that the media are making it out to be for sure

manshay

judgefoozle wrote: »

This is what I'm worried about - we're due to leave on a Sunday. I've a wedding the day before and I've booked Disneyland from the Monday.

So leaving day before not an option - leaving day after means losing out on nearly two full days in the parks.

Looks like best/only option is via UK but I really wanted to avoid long 6+ hour car journeys this year. Can't think of any other option but im waiting to hear what they can offer.

Really shoddy way that they're dealing with it though.

Judgefoozle,

Try and get the overnight UK ferry Portsmouth to Le Havre(Brittany Ferries) and you'll have a much shorter French road journey. We did this going to Euro 2016 in Paris, it is an economie service but cabins were roomy.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Only just catching up on this debacle now. hope ye all get sorted without too much disruption folks.

manshay wrote: »

Judgefoozle,

Try and get the overnight UK ferry Portsmouth to Le Havre(Brittany Ferries) and you'll have a much shorter French road journey. We did this going to Euro 2016 in Paris, it is an economie service but cabins were roomy.

Thanks - I'm just looking up my options properly now but that one is booked up. Pity, would've been a good one.

Because of Irish Ferries mess, I had to cancel my outward Dublin-Cherbourg and use my "Free" Ireland-UK trip from last years's booking. They say "Free" but you still have to pay for kids & an extra charge as it's during July.

Any other route suggestions?

We're coming from Galway so at the moment I'm thinking Dublin - Holyhead, then Dover to Calais. But I'm dreading that drive down through the UK. I've done London - Holyhead before but not with kids.

AlanG

Just called them, about 20 mins getting through. Got on the OW out of Rosslare the day before and they say the sailing back on the 31st is not impacted so will go ahead. Somehow I think I will be ringing them again once that is cancelled. The 150 voucher off next year is disgraceful considering the impact of this debacle. They could at least have applied it this year and no doubt it will have lots of terms and conditions.
Irish Ferries will be well down my list of options in future if they don't come up with something better, really poor compensation considering the cost of the extra driving, holidays and cost and hassle of getting one nights accommodation in France will likely be twice that. I am sure some people will be far worse off than me.

judgefoozle wrote: »

Thanks - I'm just looking up my options properly now but that one is booked up. Pity, would've been a good one.

Because of Irish Ferries mess, I had to cancel my outward Dublin-Cherbourg and use my "Free" Ireland-UK trip from last years's booking. They say "Free" but you still have to pay for kids & an extra charge as it's during July.

Any other route suggestions?

We're coming from Galway so at the moment I'm thinking Dublin - Holyhead, then Dover to Calais. But I'm dreading that drive down through the UK. I've done London - Holyhead before but not with kids.

If time is limited, we usually head over to Chester, down the M6, M4 and then M25. Not to bad depending on the time of day.
Years ago the Chunnel would let you go on an earlier train if you arrived early but we weren't given that option the last time.

If you want to break up the journey in the UK we've found Legoland Windsor/Longleat to be enjoyable. If you take a southern coastal route you can see Stonehenge (literally drive past it) or stop off in Warwick Castle if you want to see a decent castle.

Heading South or Southeast from Holyhead will be more scenic than going via Chester, but will take 2-3 hours longer.

judgefoozle wrote: »

Thanks - I'm just looking up my options properly now but that one is booked up. Pity, would've been a good one.

Because of Irish Ferries mess, I had to cancel my outward Dublin-Cherbourg and use my "Free" Ireland-UK trip from last years's booking. They say "Free" but you still have to pay for kids & an extra charge as it's during July.

Any other route suggestions?

We're coming from Galway so at the moment I'm thinking Dublin - Holyhead, then Dover to Calais. But I'm dreading that drive down through the UK. I've done London - Holyhead before but not with kids.

If time is limited, we usually head over to Chester, down the M6, M4 and then southern M25. Not too bad depending on the time of day. Avoid the M25 between 3 and 7.
Years ago the Chunnel would let you go on an earlier train if you arrived early but we weren't given that option the last time.

If you want to break up the journey in the UK we've found Legoland Windsor/Longleat to be enjoyable. If you take a southern coastal route you can see Stonehenge (literally drive past it) or stop off in Warwick Castle if you want to see a decent castle.

Heading South or Southeast from Holyhead will be more scenic than going via Chester, but will take 2-3 hours longer.

josip wrote: »

Avoid the M25 between 3 and 7.

Thanks for the tips - Between 3-7 looks like when we'll be on it

Any difference with Sunday's or is it busy every day?

In case anyone else in the same situation, I found this website good to check over options as it gives alternatives for same date too:

https://www.directferries.ie/

SusanC10

We did Dublin-Holyhead and drove to a spot just South of London and spent a few days there and then took the Chunnel Folkstone-Calais.
The Dublin-Holyhead part was fine and the Chunnel was fine too and only 35 mins.
While it wouldn't be my ideal way to go to France due to the amount of time spent in the car in the UK , if I were in the position that some are now in with the current IF mess, I would strongly consider it.

What's the deal with getting the chunnel back from Calais? Is there still a load of hassle there like there was a few years ago with huge delays etc, or has that all finished? We're due to sail from dublin on the WBY on the 3rd of August. I've been trying to get in touch with Irish Ferries to see what the story is with August bookings, but haven't heard anything back from them yet. The fact that they've said nothing about August at all makes me worried that there's a chance that another tranche of emails will be heading out to the August customers in the next few days/weeks.

Toots wrote: »

What's the deal with getting the chunnel back from Calais? Is there still a load of hassle there like there was a few years ago with huge delays etc, or has that all finished? We're due to sail from dublin on the WBY on the 3rd of August. I've been trying to get in touch with Irish Ferries to see what the story is with August bookings, but haven't heard anything back from them yet. The fact that they've said nothing about August at all makes me worried that there's a chance that another tranche of emails will be heading out to the August customers in the next few days/weeks.

We can back the Chunnel in 2016 and 2014 at the end of August.
There weren't any problems/delays for us then.
I think the trucks had the most hassle since they would be backed up/parked along the hard shoulder leading to the terminal.
Cars usually drive all the way in.

SusanC10 wrote: »

We did Dublin-Holyhead and drove to a spot just South of London and spent a few days there and then took the Chunnel Folkstone-Calais.
The Dublin-Holyhead part was fine and the Chunnel was fine too and only 35 mins.
While it wouldn't be my ideal way to go to France due to the amount of time spent in the car in the UK , if I were in the position that some are now in with the current IF mess, I would strongly consider it.

This was the best/only option we have and I've it booked - Dublin to Holyhead, then travel the 5+ hours to a Hotel in Dartford, next day finish the journey to Folkstone and get Chunnel.

Should arrive in France same time as before - but to do that there's an extra 7 hours driving I hadn't banked on!

judgefoozle wrote: »

This was the best/only option we have and I've it booked - Dublin to Holyhead, then travel the 5+ hours to a Hotel in Dartford, next day finish the journey to Folkstone and get Chunnel.

Should arrive in France same time as before - but to do that there's an extra 7 hours driving I hadn't banked on!

Have a look along your route and see if there's anything interesting you could see?
It's horribly cliched, but on our European hols we enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

josip wrote: »

Have a look along your route and see if there's anything interesting you could see?
It's horribly cliched, but on our European hols we enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

I'd be the same - really love the ferry and journey across and we think holiday starts once we leave the driveway, but I've just spent half a day researching new options, paid any extra charges involved... so we're just on a mission to get there and blank out the reality of a very long drive to start our holiday... I'll get over it!

Normally we would break up a long journey like that with a visit to some landmark - Mont St Michel my favourite so far - but I don't think we have the time on this occasion. By the time we get off the boat it'll be nearly 5pm.

Would be great to get an earlier boat, like the 8.30 to land around 10.30 - but I'm working late the night before and we're also coming from the west so would mean setting off around 4.30/5am.

I sent them a DM on Twitter asking were August bookings safe and got a DM back saying that the cancellations are affecting bookings up to the 29th of July and that all services after that are scheduled to operate.

What would ye make of that? I'm sure the July service was also scheduled to operate, until it suddenly wasn't.

Replied to them asking could they confirm that the ship would be ready and guaranteed to sail for the August services, barring extreme weather conditions and got a reply say it "we have been advised that service is set to resume with the first sailing being from Dublin port on July 30th."

So nothing concrete there, really. I'm in two minds now whether to take the hit on the cancellation fee and book something else (most likely land bridge) and have certainty on the booking or wait and hope that there aren't any further delays, but run the risk that it might be harder to book an alternative nearer to the time.

SusanC10

Didn't someone earlier on this thread mention booking Stena and having free cancellation ?
Might be worth checking out ?
As in keep existing booking, book Stena as a back up and then closer to the time decide ?

When I was on the phone to them I asked twice whether the August return trip was safe - and that I wouldn't be having to make the same call in July to sort out another mess.

They assured me that August sailings are unaffected - I'll believe it when I see it. It'll take a long time to trust Irish Ferries again so I really wouldn't be surprised.

Booking with Stena not a bad idea if people are fixed on a return date - I've a bit of leeway with return dates, so as long as they offer something before/after it won't affect us as badly as this time has.

I'm not returning til Aug 18th so I'm not overly concerned about the return leg, it's more the outward voyage that I'm worried about. We've paid an arm and a leg for accommodation and stand to lose 50% if we have to cancel within 90 days of the holiday.

I had a look at the Stena option and might book that as a backup. Just have to find out if the cabins accommodate a cot or not.

loyatemu

In their statement they seemed uncertain about whether it would be ready or not for the bookings they have cancelled. This would be give me some confidence that it will be ready for August, they seem to have cancelled the July bookings as a precaution (possibly in the belief that it will save them compensation over waiting to see, and having to cancel much closer to the time). We're coming home on the WBY in early Aug so I hope I'm right

I have to laugh at their claim that it's "outside of their control" though - what bullsh!t. They chose to sell tickets for a ship that hasn't been delivered yet - that's a commercial decision and a commercial risk they decided to take themselves.

loyatemu wrote: »

In their statement they seemed uncertain about whether it would be ready or not for the bookings they have cancelled. This would be give me some confidence that it will be ready for August, they seem to have cancelled the July bookings as a precaution (possibly in the belief that it will save them compensation over waiting to see, and having to cancel much closer to the time). We're coming home on the WBY in early Aug so I hope I'm right

I have to laugh at their claim that it's "outside of their control" though - what bullsh!t. They chose to sell tickets for a ship that hasn't been delivered yet - that's a commercial decision and a commercial risk they decided to take themselves.

Agree totally. Its not like there wasn't a way to monitor the build and check it against the schedule. Did IF not have their own engineering team on the spot to do that? I'd expect that to be a standard procedure.
The shipbuilder has to shoulder much of the blame (and I imagine they will pay dearly for it) but IF most definitely took their eye off the ball. You would expect that they would have double and treble checked the state of play before selling tickets. I assume they wanted to make the most of the highly profitable summer season but that's no excuse. Walking the plank has gone out of fashion but heads will surely roll.

mikerd4

Irish Ferries have been doing live streams of the ship being built so its not like they havent known what stage the build is at. Are they lumping the total blame on the ship builder?

mikerd4 wrote: »

Irish Ferries have been doing live streams of the ship being built so its not like they havent known what stage the build is at. Are they lumping the total blame on the ship builder?

Don't know but the builder wasn't selling tickets.

Nekarsulm

First Up wrote: »

Don't know but the builder wasn't selling tickets.

He wasn't running a high profile ad. campaign for a competition to name the ship either.
Wasn't the prize 10 years free travel or something?

I wonder who won.

Seth Brundle

Nekarsulm wrote: »

He wasn't running a high profile ad. campaign for a competition to name the ship either.
Wasn't the prize 10 years free travel or something?

I wonder who won.

It was free travel for life...
https://www.irishferries.com/ie-en/news-listing/suggest-a-big-name-for-irish-ferries-new-big-ship-to-win-free-travel-for-life/

I wonder if whoever won it is now a little disappointed.

kbannon wrote: »

Nekarsulm wrote: »

He wasn't running a high profile ad. campaign for a competition to name the ship either.
Wasn't the prize 10 years free travel or something?

I wonder who won.

It was free travel for life...
https://www.irishferries.com/ie-en/news-listing/suggest-a-big-name-for-irish-ferries-new-big-ship-to-win-free-travel-for-life/

I wonder if whoever won it is now a little disappointed.

Hope they live long enough to use it.