Portsmouth to Santander- NEW Brittany Ferry- The Santona
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- It's our first time on the 30 hour ferry crossing to Santander at the start of our European roadtrip in our VW campervan. We are so lucky to be booked on the newest ferry in the Brittany Ferries fleet- The Santona.
Having just early retired, we know we have to do the crossing on a strict budget. See how we get on in the 2 night and 1 day crossing of the infamous Bay of Biscay to start our Spanish adventures.
We are Richard and Jackie and we live in the UK. Our plans for early requirement include relocating to the Yorkshire Dales, developing our forever home and travelling the UK, Europe and eventually the world in our VW campervan Nelson.
You will soon realise that we are complete TH-cam beginners with all the challenges of creating and publishing videos ahead of us, not to mention uploading when on the road.
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Many thanks,
Richard & Jackie
The ferry trip looked great despite bing bong ha!, the UK roads getting to the ferry are always a nightmare, so glad the sun is shining looking forward to all updates on trip x x x keep safe enjoy it all x x x
The ferry was fab, a proper mini cruise 🚢
I know you will enjoy it. Take ccare and stay safe
Thankyou
Personally I think it's good that a French company with French crew offer 'English Breakfast' in the first place. The continental offerings have always been very good whenever I've sailed with them. The Spanish crossings are expensive, but the fact that there is no competition on these routes (P&O pulled out many years ago) perhaps indicates that it's not easy to make it profitable.
Thanks for the vid, we are probably booking this ferry for our motorcycle tour next year. It's not cheap for two motorcycles and one cabin!
As we're not yet retired, it saves the time (and expense of riding through France) Did you try the C-Club?
No it certainly wasn’t cheap but we decided worth it to save such a long drive. Next year we will sail back too and spend the whole time exploring northern Spain 🇪🇸
I will be taking this ferry crossing to Spain a week tomorrow. Could you please answer a couple of questions for me. What fresh foods did you manage to take in your campervan fridge? I know certain things aren’t allowed. Also, I will be travelling alone with my dog and of course he’s only allowed on the deck for dogs. Are there any take away foods on board?
Hi
We only took some picnic foods for the ferry in our fridge as we followed the EU guidance ( I get really worried about border control) there was a more canteen like restaurant on board but we didn’t use any of them so not really sure, sorry 😬 we did decide that in future the food was not as extortionate as we thought it might be and would eat one of the meals on board. It was a great experience snd luckily the weather helped!!
We recently did this trip. Not cheap by any means and it seems BF are all about the money. We found the food quality poor and the "English breakfast " was very poor. No micro wave to warm the the food up as by the time you have queued to pay it will not be hot. Returned on the Pont Aven at least that boat had a micro wave to reheat the breakfast. BTW the bacon is simply not cooked enough, looks like it is boiled, maybe that's how the French cook bacon. Next time we are taking our own food to avoid the rip off price and poor quality food.
we took our own food as we didn’t know what to expect and we were travelling on a budget. We did really enjoy the experience though (sunny calm weather definitely helps 🤣) and will use this route again next year. Hope you had a great trip once you landed x
Hi both
We're in the research stage of campervan buying and are now on to the research stage of toilets 😮
Out of interest what do you do re toilets in your van. Are you portapoti, composting toilet or are you always on-site ablution people?
Thanks 👍
Good question. We don’t have a toilet in the van so we are generally more careful where we stay - campsites, close to public loos or pubs. I do have an emergency bucket in the van which I have only needed a couple of times in 6 years 🤣 in France it is more tricky in the aires as they don’t generally have facilities
So what is the cheapest you can do the ferry without the cabin?
Hi not really sure as there are so many permutations. You would have to check on Brittany ferry website 🚐 ⛴️