Brittany Ferries

[Nich]

I Have just tried several price comparisons for traveling to france next year. I am amazed at how much the sailings have gone up. We will have to start looking at new ways of traveling in the future. Has anyone else tried to compare this years and next yet ?
Nich the wood
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[Coco]

If they've gone up drastically from this year's prices then I don't think I want to look! But knowing Brittany's policy of not releasing the new timetables until mid-November, how have you managed to make these comparisons?

We've changed to the tunnel property owners club, but that's no help if you don't already have a property. And only time will tell if it's going to be any better - with all the delays they are having due to refugees in the tunnel we may well find we have to revert to the ferry!

Coco

[LesBlancs]

I tried to make a reservation with BF a few weeks ago, to go out in October & return in December. Because the new schedules were not out, I agreed to make a provisional return in November, and change it later.
Your message prompted me to check today, and the good news is that the schedules are now available.
The bad news is that the return trip cost has risen by 53% (November 9th as compared with December 3rd) both of which should be the lowest category ferries! Not only that, they also intend charging me an amendment fee.
I have written to David Longdon, the MD, asking him to justify this increase, & have cancelled the reservation for the moment.
A sign of things to come?
Bob.

[Coco]

Nich

I've just done some comparisons this morning of identical crossings to those I have done this year. Easter this year was 245 and for 2002 would be 258, our June break was 210 and next year would be 258 and our August one was 197 and next year will be 227. The overal prices themselves haven't risen that much but the cabin prices included in each of those have risen by 50%. They were an appalling rip-off before, now it's unbelievable!!!!

Coco

[LesBlancs]

I have just done the same exercise, and the results were similar to yours Coco. This return crossing in December (or even a week later in November) seems a bit of an enigma! An increase from 77 to 118 for a campervan + trailer is amazing - perhaps they have a new minimum "wage".
Bob.

[Gemma1]

NEVER AGAIN!!! Never having travelled on the Portsmouth to Caen crossing, we needed to "pop over" last Thursday and decided to give it a try as we were only going for a long week-end. We caught the 11.15pm Thursday night , which was not full, but were only able to book a two birth cabin with bath and shower. The boat, which I expect many of you who have travelled this way will know, was called The Duc of Normandy and, I think, was last refurbished in 1989!! but, as I say, never travelling this route before, either going from Portsmouth to Cherburg on the express or using the tunnel, which we have decided is THE WAY TO GO!! - we made the best of a bad job. Needless to say Friday was a complete wash out , having both worked Thursday, travelling to and from London and back home again and then commencing our journey to Portsmouth - perhaps we are not as young as we thought! so, after pottering around for several hours Friday morning yawning our heads off, we had to give in and have "40 winks" - mine lasted three hours! Saturday was great. Sunday we had to leave the house at 2.30pm to catch the 16.30. Everything started out well. This time we were very impressed, we were travelling on The Normandy,a much more refined boat and we had a four berth cabin with amenities. Tres Jolie!! or so I thought. Suffice to say that half way across the weather deteriorated and I was poorly, to put it politely. Finally, 930pm, we were due to dock but no, they could not secure the boat to the quay, so it was another 20 minutes before we finally disembarked and we arrived home at 12.20am and so I say again, NEVER AGAIN. PS I did read the ships magazine on the outward journey which mentioned a new bigger boat coming into commission for 2002 called The St Mount St Michel, so I think we can safely assume that this why BF have put their prices up. Bon voyage!!

Rosemary

[Lizzy]

While we are having a moan about prices on Brittany Ferries generally, thought I would join in. I was booked to return last Friday (with mother and brother) from St Malo to Portsmouth which was booked about 4 weeks ago. As things turned out, we needed to change this to return on the Thursday instead. When I rang to alter the booking on the Wednesday before, I was told there would be an extra charge of 50.00!!! This was not for the alteration to the booking but that was now the price of that particular crossing. Wow!! The boat was quite empty so maybe prices had increased to cover the costs!! Without any prices being quoted in brochures, it is very difficult to complain/protest.

[Caz<H2><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3>Carole (87)<FONT><H2>]

We've just had our first experiance with Brittancy Ferries (first with any ferry to be honest). We traveled on the 11:30pm sailings both ways. Price wise I have nothing to compare to as I say we are novices, we sailed from Plymouth to Roscoff - 6 hours there, 8 hours back (someone moved England?). To Roscoff our 4 berth cabin was obviously the most basic the shower floor being the floor of the bathroom! and in the depths of the boat, on the way home we'd been promoted to upper class - our own shower tray!! and seperate dressing table. Only thing that spoilt it was that the engines packed up about 30 minutes outside port. Everyting went black til emergency genny kicked in which sounded as thou it was next door. My other half who wasn't too keen on sailing anyway promptly ordered everyone up and dressed 'just in case'. Bless him!! We had to dock back to front so lorries and caravans had to reverse off. Of course someone jack-knifed their caravan leaving just enough room for the lorries with about 1 inch to spare. Oh glory be sitting in the car for an hour with a three year old getting bored!!! Can't say it put me off that much tho - better than swimming.
Carol

[Gaynor]

We are just about to sign for our French property and have joined the BF Property Owners' Club. We want to sail Portsmouth-Caen because our house is less than one hour's drive from Caen. I have booked for five return trips to France - school every holiday fron Christmas 2001 to August 2002 (inclusive). We intend making the most of our house! We are tending to choose convenient crossings (time-wise)for short breaks and cheap crossings for long breaks - always with cabin. We have ended up paying just over 1000 altogether instead of 1500 (full price for exactly the same crossings). We reckon it's a good saving and, although by no means cheap, by far the most convenient option for us.
I'd be interested in trying the short Cherbourg crossing some time - although we quite like the Caen sailing. We feel that the holiday starts on the boat. (Perhaps we are masochists!)
I'd also be interested in train travel from Cherbourg to Caen and beyond. Is anyone used to travelling by SNCF? I've consulted their website but cannot work out where the useful (to us) stations are in Normandy. Is there such a thing as a route map?