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 Topic: Brittany ferries price increases
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
30/12/2022 at 12:12pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Never found Brittany Ferries to be 'cheap' at any time in many decades of using ferries!
Had the 'ouch' feeling over fares several times when forced onto BF by P and Os withdrawal from particular routes. Think the one that hit hardest was when P and O abandoned the Portsmouth-Bilbao route, we'd done that crossing for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed the 'short cruise' type experience, next time we wanted to go a year or so later, P and O had withdrawn and BF had taken on the service. What a contrast, the cost had gone up something like 50% IIRC and the ship was an awful 'tub' with very limited facilities, rode the waves like a bathtub, nothing like the cruise ship experience we'd had before, and the route across the Bay of Biscay was the shortest (and potentially the roughest!) whereas the P and O ship previously had deliberately swung wide into the Atlantic deep water where the Whales were to give passengers a Whale watching experience (with free info and a Whale watching guide giving lectures and acting as a spotter for us, which was a great experience that really made the trip for us! - nothing special for our trip, that was their normal service!). By contrast the BF ferry experience made us question whether we would ever do that route again, and so far have not done it again in many years!
Mourn the passing of P and O on the western channel crossings too, pretty much forced onto BF for the routes that work best for us (yes, they are a virtual monopoly!), but we pay dearly! On our annual pilgrimage to the Le Mans races, we try and get as many as we can in the car to split the ferry cost as many ways as possible, with only two of us the ferry fare is the lions share of our expenses for a week at a premier motor race, race tickets, food and drink (we live well!), and accommodation all pale into trivial costs by comparison!
..... and as for superior French cuisine, think BF take catering lessons from our motorway service operators! ... do miss the lovely (and reasonably priced IIRC!) Full English we had on P and O!
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
01/1/2023 at 5:41pm
Location: Wessex
Outfit: Dethleffs Trend T675
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Quote: Originally posted by chrisandsandra on 31/12/2022
Living in Somerset and usually holidaying on the west coast of France using Brittany Ferries is actually cheaper for us than the current Dover/Calais routes once fuel, time and extra nights accommodation needed to get to our 'starting point' in France are taken into consideration.
I worked it out and the Plymouth/Roscoff crossing has saved us about £60 on the total costs before our Club Voyage discounts for next year. With CV discounts it's much, much cheaper. I do appreciate though that this is not the case if you live in some other parts of the country or heading to other destinations.
We did try Newhaven/Dieppe once but the timings etc were not that good for us and we didn't enjoy the journey, but once again each to his/her own.
Regarding the price rises on BF just out of interest I've done a comparison of our last 4 journeys using Plymouth/Roscoff from 2019 to 2023 and our 2023 fare both ways is actually only £4 cheaper than it was in 2019 though the overnight cabin is £35 more expensive. Maybe it's because we book very early.
We're in a similar position, we're close to Portsmouth, when we set off it usually takes between 30-45 minutes to reach the ferry port. Google maps tells me I can get to the Euro Tunnel in just under 3 hrs in a car (Dover would obviously be slightly longer), experience has shown that this is about 4hrs in the motorhome. So there's the cost of fuel there and the extra time it takes.
We're aiming to hit the French west coast (Brittany, Vendée, Charente-Maritime etc), this year. To get down to the Vendée takes a leisurely 5 hrs from St Malo. It would take us about 8 hrs to get down from Calais to St Malo, so again there's the cost of the fuel and the time involved getting to what would have been our starting point if we'd used BF from Portsmouth.
So for us, doing the holiday we're planning on doing, there's an added 12 hrs driving and the loss of a day in reaching our setting off point in France, let alone before we'd reached our ultimate destination. I know we could factor in a stop between Calais and St Malo but why should we when we could be in the Vendée and we'd have to do the same on the way back!
Therefore, for us, BF offer the best option, we can take a night crossing from Portsmouth to St Malo, get a meal on board (which we enjoy), get our heads down and find ourselves in St Malo bright as a button the following morning. We'd be in the Vendée by early afternoon on our first proper day.
We have used other crossings, we used the old LD Lines overnight crossing from Portsmouth to Le Havre when we were going to northern France and we've used EuroTunnel taking advantage of our Tesco Club Points when travelling to the Netherlands and further north, it was logical to do so and wasted the least amount of time.
We're both still working and time is the most important factor for us, we can stretch to paying BFs prices, I can't get any additional holiday time so I have to use it wisely. Once we've retired cost will become important but then we'll have the time to take advantage of the cheaper crossings.
I guess it all boils down to how you balance cost vs time vs convenience and what's important to you, once again, it's the old horses for courses thing coming to play. The Club Voyage discounts certainly help.
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