I half fancied nipping across to the Isle of Wight for Cowes week, so thought I`d look at ferry prices. Silly me.
Putting in my preferred dates and times for car, caravan and me and SWMBO came in at about £260 return which I though was abit steep but hey ho..
One of the sites we looked at is next to a cycleway so you can cycle into Cowes (no parking issues and the odd drop of liquid lubricant, perhaps), so I thought I`d better add the bikes on the roof to the quotation (after all, even with the bikes on the roof they still aren`t higher than the caravan) but the quotation came back at £516 !!!!! An extra £250 quid for using the fresh air above the car?
We went to IOW a good few years ago, it was the last time we went tent camping, silly price to take a caravan. we didn't even like it all that much. Rained for 2 days solid, didn't help.
Discounted Insurance Quotes for UKCampsite.co.uk visitors! Up to 12.5% off!
We went there a couple of years ago with the caravan. Absolute nightmare on their tiny roads. You need to check carefully that there is easy route to the site. Certainly not prepared to pay the huge ferry fares anymore.
Yep done the IOW and never again as ferry prices are ridiculous plus really bad roads shaking everything to pieces. Once you have been you have seen it all!
We took our caravan to the IOW in 2021 and got a far better rate for our ferry crossing through the campsite than we did from the ferry company. Worth asking!
------------- "Don't wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect."
"Normal" car (photo is of my old BMW which was taller than my current V60) and the bikes (full size) aren`t higher than the van. "Chelsea Tractors" and "Faux X Fours" I can fully understand, but I`m not paying double for using a space the ferry company can`t use.
I`ve done the same exercise on Newhaven to Dieppe (same dates) and the difference is a 15% increase which would be palatable.
Its probably as simple as badly written computer code that automatically adds on a cost for bikes on top of a car as it means the car must go onto a different, taller, deck, without taking into account that it was already on that taller deck because of the caravan. Of course it may have also been written that way deliberately ....