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any experiences of LD Lines?


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Having not had a car in France for ages, I am out of the ferry taking habit.  Although going to Caen would be easier than going to Le Harvre, Brittany Ferries seem extortionate.  I had never heard of Ld lines until I started looking for ferries elsewhere, are they any good?

Any other suggestions are welcome, we are travelling from Tours to Birmingham in August.

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I travel regularly between the UK and the Tours area and have tried most of the ferry crossings. My current first choice is Transmanche - operated by LD lines. Between April and the end of September they operate between Newhaven and either Dieppe or Le Havre (the latter stops at the end of September). So, during the summer, I travel to Le Havre and in the winter, to Dieppe.

LD Lines own ferries that operate out of Portsmouth are, I believe, older ships. Transmanche has two ships - both brand new in 2006. They are not huge and do not have as many choices of what to do on-board, but they are clean, comfortable and very reasonably priced. The food is quite good as well.

So, my advice is to use Transmanche. You can book them through their own website or LD Lines website - the latter being slightly more user-friendly. A return crossing in June cost me £99 for a car and two adults, my next trip in August is £137.50.

Mel               

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[quote user="Tourangelle"]Having not had a car in France for ages, I am out of the ferry taking habit.  Although going to Caen would be easier than going to Le Harvre, Brittany Ferries seem extortionate.  I had never heard of Ld lines until I started looking for ferries elsewhere, are they any good?

Any other suggestions are welcome, we are travelling from Tours to Birmingham in August.
[/quote]

Based entirely on these, personal, experiences I cannot recommend LD (or rather the Norman Spirit);

I have been locked on the car deck whilst waiting for an "electrician" to plug in the mains supply to my truck. They eventually let me out a 2 in the morning - after being manhandled by a crew memeber "I'm the bosun, this is my ship", for being there without authority.

I was assualted by a crew member as I collected my mains lead, which he accused me of stealing. The loading officer then threatened me when I complained to him.

They are very good at damaging vehicles and loads.

Their administration is laughable. I tried to make a claim on their insurance for a load damaged 12 months ago next week. Despite vast amounts of correspondence, I have yet to receive a claim form.

If you have the nerve to contact the MD of LD, Pierre Gehane, he treats you as if he found you on the bottom of his shoe.

The food is just awful.

The Norman Spirit is the old "Pride of Aquitane" (amongst other names) and is old and dirty - not helped by the fact that they never seem to clean it.

etc etc.

 

One can't compare LD and BF any more than you'd compare Air 2000 and BA. Different leagues.

 

 

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So LD would appear to be out.  Thanks for the input, perhaps I will look at Brittany ferries again, because I really wanted Portsmouth or Poole, to avoid London as much as possible.  Do you know with Brittany Ferries whether there is any benefit booking in advance?

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With LD Lines you get what you pay for, i.e. inferior service. Though if you dare to say that on the Anglo Info Normandy forum you will get torn limb from limb, probably because they are a load of cheapskates who think that Brittany Ferries is part of a conspiracy theory against them and LD Lines is the saviour of the planet. I have used both, and usually go with BF out of choice. The thing in favour of the Newhaven crossings with Transmanche/LD is that they are short. An overnight crossing on the Norman Spirit from Portsmouth is not a nice experience. 

Booking in advance or not is a bit of a lottery. I generally find that outside the real peak seasons when the ships are packed out, you will pay no more, possibly a bit less, if you book with Brittany late. Whereas LD Lines will, like Ryanair, load the fares considerably for late bookings, so you will often pay less for the far better BF service.

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We have used LD Lines since they took over the Portsmouth-Le Havre route.  We have always found our cabins clean, tidy and comfortable.  The early morning self-service breakfast has always been good.  The loading/unloading at both ends has been carried out efficiently and usually on time.

The main problem with the day crossing (if you use the "ordinary" family lounge) has been the extremely noisy, ill-disciplined British children whose parents make little attempt to keep reasonably quiet.

We have had no problems at all with any of the crew.  The "housekeeping" and "catering" staff have always been cheerful and friendly.

Of course, I can only speak of our experience.  We must have made over a dozen crossings with them and the above applies to all of them [:)]

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Having used LD line ever since they took over the late and not lamented P & O operation I agree with Thibault's observations.

LD Line offer a good and reasonably priced service. You will always get the odd bad experience, that's life but then on a site such as this one usually only hears one side of the story.

I will give you two of my recent experience when travelling Le Havre/Portsmouth.

1/  The crossing was a bit rough, not bad but there was a quite a bit of movement on the boat. A party of school children were on board and as soon as it got a bit rough there were ill. And I mean ILL. There was vomit all over the lounge area. The stewards worked none stop to keep things under control with not a word of complaint. They were a credit to the company. By the time we arrived at Portsmouth you wouldn't know what it had been like.

2/ Again on another occasion we arrived at Portsmouth and the ramp could not be lowered for some technical reason shoreside. Not an LD problem. We were kept on the boat for two hours before we could off load and during this time we were supplied with unlimited tea, coffee, or soft drinks untill the problem was resolved. There were a few, and I mean a few, moans but in general the attitude on board was good. At all time we were kept informed as to the progress or lack of progress by the captain.

Both of these happened within the last couple of months, I have used LD Line at least 12 times this year, the next time will be next week.

I am a photographer and I stopped doing work for the British public some time ago because I got fed up with the atitude which now prevails with some Brits. I now work in the commercial sector although I have accepted a commission to photograph a wedding, something which I said I would never do again. However this one is in Poland and should be quite interesting.

I digress.

The Aussie expression "Whingeing Poms" is with some Brits a truism which sadly is very much on the increase.

Incidently I have been traveling across the Channel for 42 years and if the that puts me in the " old farts" category so be it. My Latin is not to sharp  but "expermencia docet" rings a bell. Not sure of the spelling but do look it up.

Have a nice day.

C

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Tourangelle......

I ask you to look again at the detail within my post above - I refer to and recommend Transmanche ferries who have two new ships...

LD Lines is only a means of booking with Transmanche.

Whilst not as luxurious as Brittany ships, they are new, clean, comfortable and can satisfy all your basic requirements on the 4 and 5 hour crossings. The cabins are clean and comfortable and much cheaper than Brittany cabins.

Reading Nick's post above, it seems his bad experiences were on an LD ship and not Transmanche. I have to admit though, they do sound horrendous but, up to now, all my crossings with Transmanche have been excellent and incident free with polite, helpful crews!  

And finally, as regards LD Lines administration (from a booking perspective) I find their staff to be very helpful and efficient.

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Sorry Mel, I don't understand your message. You seem to think I've misunderstood something.  I understand perfectly that you are referring to Transmanche and not to the particular route I enquired about.  I read both yours and Nick's comments with great interest.  However, I am not interested in going to Newhaven, because I am travelling on to Birmingham. Both Transmanche and LD lines have their own websites, and I have looked at both of these.  Nick's very negative comments about LD lines have put me off the Le

Harve - Portmouth route they offer, and therefore I am going to look

again at Brittany Ferries. Thank you very much for your input.

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[quote user="Mel "]

LD Lines is only a means of booking with Transmanche.

[/quote]

Not quite true - since around April this year LD Lines has been responsible for running the whole ferry service on behalf of Transmanche, which is a consortium of local councils and similar interests. LD Lines won the contract (and associated subsidy) in competition with Veolia, the current name of the company that was formerly known to English rail travellers as Connex.

The booking for both Transmanche and LD Lines is actually handled by a company called aferry.to, part of the 2morrow Group, which also includes HD Ferries (St Malo/Channel Islands) and the company that handles LD Lines' operation at Portsmouth. The port operations at both Dieppe and Newhaven remain under the control of Transmanche.

 

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Tourangelle,

                   Your question has thrown up many differing opinions based on personal experience on LD. I think you should try LD at least once and make your own assessment. Our experiences, so far, have been good regarding cleanliness, timekeeping, staff attitudes and seating arrangements. The food is not to my taste. We now picnic on board! The prices are low and we do not expect BF standards.

We have used LD for several return trips (Le Havre-Portsmouth) because it is a shorter car journey for us and that it is cheaper than BF. The outward, overnight or daytime, trips are with BF because we can book a high quality cabin whereas LD rarely have any cabin accommodation available at peak times.

     It would take only one minor disaster to change our view, but we are fickle just like everyone else.

                                      Try LD.                   Alistair

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Over the weekend, LD Lines' parent company ordered a new ship designed specifically for the Le Havre/Portsmouth route, with an option on a second (see separate topic). The only difficulty is that this is unlikely to be completed for at least two years, more likely three or four. At least it shows a commitment to the service, and a desire to improve things for passengers. I don't think I am alone in finding the Norman Spirit a very uncomfortable and quite unsuitable ship for the route - though it was the only one available for charter at the beginning of the service.
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We tried LD Lines for the first time in the last couple of weeks.

I found it OK for the price paid.

We used the sleeper seats on the outward overnight trip and personally I found them awful.  As a seat it is great, as a bed no way.

Having said that, the better half was OK and most of the other people using them were happy enough.

I would definitley use them again but would try to get a cabin for the overnight trip.

Brian      

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I travelled on LD lines at the end of April. My car was broken into on the car deck during the voyage and my GPS laptop and camera were all stolen. LD lines refuse to accept any responsibility for the theft and indeed their comment on the phone to my wife was " how do we know that the damage was not done before boarding and the stolen items were not in the car in the first place". Given that we are instructed to turn off car alarms and only employees of LD are allowed on the car deck to me it is very obvious who is responsible for the damage to and theft from my car. LD lines customer service is appalling and i discourage all our visitors and friends from using this service. my insurance company are chasing the LD lines legal department so far without any success.

jim smiley

Rock on Brittany ferries or any other company who dont burgle your car!!

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This is  worrying turn of events, especially as I was telling hubby he was being paranoid by removing anything of like value from the car and taking it to our cabin - and we always go BF!   As you say, IF nobody is allowed down on the vehicle decks (aside from those passengers checking animals I guess) well it does leave a limited number of culprits, then of course even amongst those people with legitimate access they must be pretty aware of who did this deed.  Somebody will know who was loitering about on the decks for no good reason.

Of course had the damage been done before you boarded, it is safe to say that you and the hoardes of other people waiting in the queues would have noticed someone breaking into the car and rummaging about searching for goodies to pinch.   Don't you also think that IF an LD employee had spotted another passenger breaking into the car then they would have taken great delight in reporting them to the Deck Offficers?   Its all to convenient.  Furthermore, are there not cameras on all the car decks keeping watch for such occurences, just recording in the event of something like this happenning?

I reckon LD's insurance company are being well, "Insurance Companies" and trying to wriggle out of their responsibilities to your damaged vehicle and stolen goods.   They are doing their utmost to avoid paying you a penny in compo for your lost items and damaged car - minimising their losses at your expense - and all because of some greedy so-and-so who wanted your GPS etc.

I wish you luck in getting what is rightfully yours!   [:@]

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Without wanting to cross post, I'll refer you to my comments on LD on this thread..here

I would use LD again, but only if they were significantly cheaper than BF and only if I upgraded to Club/Sleeper class on each journey because otherwise there is nowhere quiet to sit and rest.  As for the food - I've bought myself a small cool bag just in case I ever have to use LD again!

Matt

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