Ferry travel to France

[mjr]

pssst Scandinavia / Baltic sea, Greek islands & former Yugoslavia, all quite keen on ferries....

Quite a lot in the Netherlands and Belgium, where bikes are unsurprisingly expected and accommodated. Not all ferries are international. If you've ever enjoyed carrying your bike down a flight of steps and lifting it over the side of an English ferry, imagine this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwdQ-jacaMo

 

[Dogtrousers]

Quite a lot in the Netherlands and Belgium, where bikes are unsurprisingly expected and accommodated. Not all ferries are international. If you've ever enjoyed carrying your bike down a flight of steps and lifting it over the side of an English ferry, imagine this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwdQ-jacaMo

The little boat that putt-putts across the Thames between Gravesend and Tilbury happily takes bikes.

 

[mjr]

The little boat that putt-putts across the Thames between Gravesend and Tilbury happily takes bikes.

With boarding ramps and a big level area where you can leave bikes or stand with them, it's very much part of the exception in England, along with a few near Southampton, not the rule. Mostly, if it's not a car ferry, level boarding isn't happening.

 

[KnittyNorah]

With boarding ramps and a big level area where you can leave bikes or stand with them, it's very much part of the exception in England, along with a few near Southampton, not the rule. Mostly, if it's not a car ferry, level boarding isn't happening.

The Fleetwood to Knott End ferry takes bikes; its a simple wheel-them-onboard, and off again, operation. Timetables change daily though, because they depend on the tides - dredging of the river is badly needed and hasn't been done. Hence there are only certain stages of the tide that the ferry can operate. Can't imagine the Dutch putting up with that nonsense ...

 

[grldtnr]

Quite a lot in the Netherlands and Belgium, where bikes are unsurprisingly expected and accommodated. Not all ferries are international. If you've ever enjoyed carrying your bike down a flight of steps and lifting it over the side of an English ferry, imagine this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwdQ-jacaMo

And by & large Dutch river ferried are free,and frequent, an integrated transport system of excellence, the Dutchies can show us a few lessons.
And I don't think it's largely a matter of the country being flat, they have strong winds to contend with, for a small country, they seem to spend a higher GDP on public transport,

 

[grldtnr]

At least that's was fairly polite, I once asked a question, and got the reply, 'Ask me left one!' ,what ? I replied, ' Ask me left bollock, yer fecker!' was the reply!!!!

Hobbes, have you ever used the expression? Have to say when I heard that, I did have to have a titter, tho' being from the pale I didn't have a clue!

 

[classic33]

And by & large Dutch river ferried are free,and frequent, an integrated transport system of excellence, the Dutchies can show us a few lessons.
And I don't think it's largely a matter of the country being flat, they have strong winds to contend with, for a small country, they seem to spend a higher GDP on public transport,

How much do they pay for international travel by ferries?

 

[Chislenko]

I'm just glad I put in the edit about islands otherwise people would have been quoting examples of ferries with gay abandon 😌

 

[scragend]

Irish ferries, Dublin Ferry port.
One loading ramp up the other down. Both are steeper than they appear in that picture.
(photo snipped)
They prefer you to go on first and be first off. The engines running on the car decks not being good for your lungs.

I've never done it (yet) - I'm sure a number of you have - but I did read that DFDS on arrival at Dunkerque let cyclists off first, and you have about a five minute head start to get out of the port before the lorries catch you up. Look forward to trying it one day!

Regarding bookings - a couple of friends and I recently tried to book for the three of us and our bikes from Newcastle to IJmuiden and back on DFDS. The web site seemed not to let us book more than one bike between us and said we had to phone, but we found out that if you go through the booking to the summary page, and then click "edit", you could change the number of bikes. Whether that's by accident or design I don't know.

 

[classic33]

I've never done it (yet) - I'm sure a number of you have - but I did read that DFDS on arrival at Dunkerque let cyclists off first, and you have about a five minute head start to get out of the port before the lorries catch you up. Look forward to trying it one day!

Regarding bookings - a couple of friends and I recently tried to book for the three of us and our bikes from Newcastle to IJmuiden and back on DFDS. The web site seemed not to let us book more than one bike between us and said we had to phone, but we found out that if you go through the booking to the summary page, and then click "edit", you could change the number of bikes. Whether that's by accident or design I don't know.

That last point could be worth looking at for @Cathryn

 

[matticus]

I'm just glad I put in the edit about islands otherwise people would have been quoting examples of ferries with gay abandon 😌

"The best way to find true facts on the internet, is to first post something you know is wrong."
[unknown author]

 

[Julia9054]

I've never done it (yet) - I'm sure a number of you have - but I did read that DFDS on arrival at Dunkerque let cyclists off first, and you have about a five minute head start to get out of the port before the lorries catch you up. Look forward to trying it one day!

This is true! And then get completely lost trying to find a way that doesn’t funnel you onto a motorway!

 

[Cathryn]

That last point could be worth looking at for @Cathryn

Thanks for tagging me. I tried again but still couldn't make it work. Going to call them tomorrow.

 

[mjr]

This is true! And then get completely lost trying to find a way that doesn’t funnel you onto a motorway!

Leave the cycle way and exit through the left gate, turning left at the first roundabout, right at the next, then take a short (50m) gravel ramp right down onto back lanes to Loon Plage, but even if you miss that ramp, you end up at Mardyck instead of the autoroute feeder roundabout.

It would be simpler if the port finished the damn cycle way so it connected to, well, anything, but they told me in 2019 that they won't in the foreseeable.

 

[matticus]

We did Dunkerque before breakfast - the autoroutey way was fine (apart from that brief burst of passing HGVs! - but we soon had the road to ourselves again).
mjr's route looks a lot nicer, but we got to the town-centre pretty quickly and painlessly anyway. Midday might have been different!