Travelling to Northern Ireland by ferry

[Magicalwoodlands]

Is there a slightly less expensive way of doing this, does anyone know?

If there is, I've never managed to find it. We do Holyhead to Dublin a few times a year and both Stena and Irish Ferries tend to have similar prices (although we prefer the Stena boats for the play areas etc). I don't know if other routes might be cheaper but none of them are feasible for us.

The slow / early or elate ferries are cheaper - Dublin Holyhead also the cheapest route . You can get frequent.traveller do ours or use Tesco tokens?

Flights are def cheaper but that obvious does not help if you want to take a car.

Getting to Ireland or NI off expensive. We'd love to go for a touring holiday in the car, but the cost is prohibitive.
I think flying and hiring a car might be marginally cheaper, but not when you factor in driving to and from the airport and parking your car at the airport.

Yes, this is the issue. For two of us it is £215 for flights there and £330 for the ferry. But when you factor in hire car and car seat and we’d need to take a buggy too so not just hand luggage it costs the same!

Are there any discount codes for Stena, does anyone know? I think we must be the only people not very near a Tesco, we have a Morrisons very close and Sainsburys and Asda but I only go to Tesco once in a blue moon!

When you say the ferry and flight are about the same price, are you accounting for petrol to get to and from the ferry? Obviously it depends where you live, but when I factor that in, then flying is by far the cheapest option for me. If we need to take the car/ferry we use the Stranraer to Larne or Befast route.

Unfortnately there just isn't a cheap way to get to NI.

Fly and hire a car, OP..!

We do the drive a couple of times a year to do longer holidays with family, and it’s a pain
The roads to Holyhead and Stranraer are both mostly single carriageway lorry routes, so you mostly crawl along at 40mph behind a fleet of HGVs

Neither Irish ferries nor Stena use particularly modern boats on that route so the cabins are pretty bleak, and there isn’t much else to do on board

We got lucky one Christmas when they used a boat normally on the Ireland to France route, and it had a cinema and soft play area but I haven’t seen it since..!

Getting on and off the boat can take an age, and even if it doesn’t, it’s still a really slow journey

We only drive when we have to go with our dogs, and I really dread it

Flying is so much easier, quicker and less stressful, and you can take a buggy and car seat for free as part of the child ticket

You don’t have to pay for a buggy on Easyjet. You can take a buggy and car seat for free, or you certainly used to. Outside of the baggage allowance.

Presumably you need the car with you? We do Belfast Birkenhead as a foot passenger regularly. However there are no deals on atm. We do day there, night back and get a cabin. There are no rail and sail deals on either ATM, but you can sometimes get good deals on Stena line website for rail &sail or for sailing & hotel.

Well, the airport and port are similar distances to be honest. And the cost of the hire car is a lot for a week. We are going with a baby so need a fair amount of paraphernalia, it’s just expensive both ways.

@Planesmistakenforstars

When you say the ferry and flight are about the same price, are you accounting for petrol to get to and from the ferry? Obviously it depends where you live, but when I factor that in, then flying is by far the cheapest option for me. If we need to take the car/ferry we use the Stranraer to Larne or Befast route.

Unfortnately there just isn't a cheap way to get to NI.

For us, flying used to work out cheaper taking into account petrol to the ferry (about 4 hours away), the price of airport parking etc, but the cost of car hire on the other side seems to have jumped up dramatically, so flying is now more expensive.

Even though the ferry takes a lot longer, I find it easier as you don't have to worry about packing and baggage allowance, you can bring food/drinks more easily, you can just throw the lot in the car, plus I hate the whole car hire palaver as it always seems to take ages and requires dragging suitcases and car seat all the way over to the car hire place.