Brittany Ferries - the best way to get to France (Brittany Ferries)

Member Name: Mioliere

Product:	Brittany Ferries
Date:	01/08/08 (140 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Many, great service, excellent boat, good value for money

Disadvantages: None

We travel to France two or three times a year; sometimes we fly but generally we sail with Brittany Ferries.

We are fortunate in that we live just twenty minutes away from the Port of Portsmouth and around forty minutes from Poole Harbour, so the ferry is an easily accessible way for us to travel. Portsmouth is our usual choice of departure point.

The whole Brittany Ferries experience is consistently good from the moment you book until the moment you alight from the boat at your foreign destination.

We book online and their booking procedure is very simple and very efficient. Within forty-eight hours of booking your e-ticket is emailed to you. You can print off as many as you wish so I always print one for each passenger in my party and one to be left with a friend in the UK, just in case the unexpected happens and we need to retrieve the details.

We are members of Brittany Ferries Property Owner's Club (we have a house in France that we are slowly but surely renovating, as a holiday home for now but, eventually, with a view to retiring there). The Club membership gives us a discount of around one third off the normal price; also we can let others have our Club membership number and they can use this to get around 25% off their ticket prices. Club membership costs in the region of £85 per year which is worth it if you make two or more trips a year. The ferry prices vary with the seasons; at its cheapest we can book for one car and two passengers, off peak, for around £150 but this can increase quite dramatically for the high peak summer season, costing over £300.

On the day of sailing you need to be at the port 45 minutes prior to departure (which is a lot better than the three hour check-in demanded at main airports nowadays). The terminal is well signposted so you know exactly which boarding queue to join. You hand your ticket and passports to the steward in the booking kiosk who registers you as a passenger, hands you back your documents together with a leaflet containing information about the particular boat you will be sailing on, the in-house magazine and a boarding ticket which must be hung from your rear-view mirror so that the boarding crew can identify you and direct you to the relevant part of the queue for boarding. You are guided into the garage of the boat by stewards in high-visibility vests and, immediately, a very smart, friendly and polite stewardess will hand you a ticket which tells you which deck you have parked on and which stairway will lead you back to it when the boat has reached its destination. It would be very easy to get lost without this ticket!

Once on board, if you have booked a cabin, you will be able to go straight there and leave your belongings. Some of the cabins are very basic with just a couple of narrow bunks and a very tiny but functional bathroom; the more expensive Commodore cabins are much more luxurious.

A typical sailing from Portsmouth to, say, Caen in France, will take around five and a half hours. I generally find the journey very relaxing although we have sailed in very stormy conditions which is not quite so relaxing!

On board you can sit in one of the bar areas and enjoy either alcoholic drinks or tea and coffee. There is a simple snack bar and two restaurants - one with waitress service and the other which is self-service. We usually dine in the latter and, for under £6, we can enjoy an excellent meal from the varied menu. I can recommend all the meals because I have tried them all!

On fine days you can stroll the decks where you will find plenty of places to sit and relax. Inside the boat there are reclining lounges, some with cinemas for which you can buy tickets to that day's screening; others simply have reclining chairs for those who fancy a nap away from the bustle of the main decks.


There is a play area for children, some arcade machines and on each sailing there is usually a magic show. There is a main shopping kiosk where you can purchase newspapers and books - in French and English - and toys and souvenirs. There is also a duty-free shop where you can purchase the usual items such as perfume and cosmetics, gift items, tobacco products and alcohol.

The French staff are extremely smart, unfailingly polite and always happy to help.

The tannoy system keeps you up to date with the estimated time of arrival and the departing procedure is as smooth as the one for boarding.

All in all, I thoroughly recommend sailing with Brittany Ferries.

Summary: Highly recommended for an effortless relaxing trip abroad