Adventure Bike Rider Forum

I've just priced up a trip across to Europe and back.
My preferred route is Hull-Zeebrugge because it's 200 miles closer to home than Folkestone for the Tunnel.
Early October, Transit Custom van, me, wife and dog.
£868 for the Hull ferry and £190 for the Tunnel.
Nearly £700 more expensive for the ferry!
Look's like its the long drag down south again for us, I just can't justify the expense, even with an overnight in a decent hotel thrown in and the extra fuel it's much cheaper by Tunnel.
Edit.....
I just checked the same crossings for a bike.....
£325 Hull ferry £72 Tunnel.
Which would mean I'd defiantly do the Hull ferry if I was travelling by bike, which is what I always do.
£250 more is just about worth the extra convenience of the ferry and the savings on fuel and hotel costs.

It depends where you're aiming for in Europe but have you looked at the price of using the Harwich - Hoek ferry instead of Hull - Amsterdam? It'll be a lot cheaper and even though the A14 around Cambridge is crap it's not as grim as driving around the M25.

You can always stop off half way at mine Steve , Wife and dog welcome , loads of room. (thumbs)

AndyB wrote:It depends where you're aiming for in Europe but have you looked at the price of using the Harwich - Hoek ferry instead of Hull - Amsterdam? It'll be a lot cheaper and even though the A14 around Cambridge is crap it's not as grim as driving around the M25.

I'm heading out East, so Zeebrugge is slightly better.
I've done the Harwich ferry before.....it's slightly......only slightly, better as a journey, but the Tunnel is still a couple of hundred quid cheaper and it's much more flexible with it's time slots.
If I'm heading South I may as well spend another hour on the road, save the money and take the tunnel.

diggermanbob wrote:You can always stop off half way at mine Steve , Wife and dog welcome , loads of room. (thumbs)

Cheers Bob!
All three of us are house trained!

Just give me a shout if it's any good for you , we have a large very friendly golden retriever who loves everyone , including other dogs !!!

if its a straight hop over, tunnel every time, even the claustrophobic jan likes it

steve

I use the tunnel if we're going to France or Belgium but only because it's the quickest way over and we usually go over late in the evening or early in the morning so the queues normally aren't too bad. Coming home we usually aim to be on a 2pm train and I doubt if I've ever gone from riding over the elevated approach to parking for a coffee at the terminal in under an hour.

The main reason I prefer not to use the tunnel isn't the queues at Calais, it's the fact that probably every 4th or 5th time we use it there's a delay and that can be anything from 30 minutes to 5 hours. I've even sat on the bike and booked a ferry crossing using my phone when I was stopped in a queue while still on the motorway approaching the tunnel at Calais because it was scorching hot and I knew it'd be hours before I even got to the check in.

I still use the tunnel but I'm never full of confidence about it.

Have you tried ,looking at Newcastle Holland ferry, I'm off to Spain next month I'm going via Ireland, a great price and saving miles on on m6 m40 . Al (thumbs)

You can hit it lucky sometimes with the ferries, when I booked our car on the Portsmouth-Bilbao ferry sailing either side were nearly £150 more expensive, I think it was because of the extra time with a crew change over but it was a nice boat and a good crossing.

Also came back on the Dunkirk ferry, much nicer process than Calais and cheaper than the tunnel (Or it was when we checked) no queues or traffic to deal with.

Still had to deal with the greater london car park though, god knows why people put up with that!

Steve