A ferry happy holidaying experience on the boat to France
NO luggage limits, a comfy bed and plenty space to wander around — a few of the highlights of taking the ferry to go on holidays.
As a family we’ve clocked up eight summer trips to France on the ferry so we’ve got the planning and packing down fairly handy now.
The ferry leaves Ringaskiddy in Cork on a Saturday afternoon — for a weekly crossing. You arrive in Roscoff in north France the following morning around 6.30am. Return journeys leave France around 9pm on Friday evening and get to Cork on Saturday morning.
Friends and colleagues have often asked some pretty odd questions about taking the ferry so I’ll try to cover a few recurrent ones.
No, you don’t sit in your car for the journey. The cars are parked literally bumper to bumper in the lower decks and actually cannot be accessed for the duration of the journey so bring up your phone or book with you when you board. You can leave the bikes, boogieboards and all the other gear in the car.
There are cabins on board — these typically contain two or four-berth bunks. And there’s a knack to fitting a party of five into these. The top two bunks are embedded in the ceiling to give headroom during the day and are pulled down at night. So what we’ve found works is to use the upper mattresses on the floor to create a ‘double bed’ for three small children — giving the adults the lower level bunks. Each cabin has a small toilet and shower — it’s basic but absolutely clean and useable.
There’s plenty to do on board so you might not spend too much time in the bunk room anyway.
There are several bars and restaurants onboard and range from a cafeteria/buffet- style one to a fancy á-la-carte one with smoked salmon and langoustines, as well as a good wine selection.
One of the restaurants links to a small soft-play area for younger children so a good few parents station themselves there for a few hours. Older children are typically keen to get into the gaming area or the cinema.
There are plenty of high chairs and a microwave as well so parents of smaller kids can heat up meals.
There will probably be hundreds of wildly excited children on board and every one of them knows that normal bedtime rules don’t apply at sea so forget a romantic drink in a cosy bar. But there are many parents only too delighted to enjoy a beer together knowing that they have no driving to do until at least the next day. Think holidaycamp bar complete with a balloon sculptor or magician and you’re on the right track.
IT IS possible to get away from the bustle if you head to the spa treatment room for example — and there are always plenty of people getting the haircut or nail polish they didn’t have time for before leaving.
There is free wi-fi on board and a shop as well. Pets can be brought on board the ferry too but not around the general area of the ship. Pet owners have a bit of organising to do beforehand due to EU regulations on pet passports but once onboard the dogs go up to the dog deck.
You will feel a bit of a swell when the boat hits the open water but as someone who can feel seasick on a swing, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how gentle it is. Out of 16 crossings, we’ve only had one bad one. It was a return journey so I didn’t really have a choice about getting on board.
There was a storm in France and I expressed some reservation about taking to the ocean. My husband used words like ‘thermals’ and ‘isobars’ etc to reassure me that storms on land don’t travel out to sea. As the waves splashed onto the windows and he saw the accusatory look on my green face, he laughed that he had to say that to get me on board. There was nothing for it but to send my husband and kids to the balloon magician and take to my bunk with a book.
The ferry still arrived on time the next morning. In fact it always has — and there’s no Ryanair-style trumpet fanfare played either.
You have to ‘build’ your own fare so don’t get too excited when you visit the website and see tickets for as little as €100. That’s the cost of a single person, one-way. You have to add in the cost of a car — more for a bigger car.
Then you pay to add a roof box or bike carrier. A cabin with a port-hole-style window is dearer than one without. And obviously, it’s cheaper to travel out of peak season.
Once we got locked into travelling in school holidays it rose to around €1,500 for a family of five with a seven-seater car and five bicycles and a roof box.
You ‘lose’ a night abroad — but kids typically go with the attitude that the holiday starts the moment they get out of the car onboard so maybe we should follow their lead.
Some of the on-board snacks, breakfast cereals and treats are pricey but it’s easy enough to pack your own.
You can bring as much luggage as your car can hold — wetsuits, bikes, laptop, books, lego — it all goes on holidays with us. And you can bring plenty wine home too.
There are always dozens of Irish-reg cars at the wine merchants and at the French sports goods stores on the last day of holidays. One canny traveller hits the wine merchants on the first day and buys a selection of wines to be sampled throughout their hols — they then pick up good-value cases of their favourites on the way home.
For more information, go to www.brittanyferries.ie
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