ferry to france - can you help a novice?

[alondonmum]

We're abandoning flights this year and doing the ferry to france thing for the first time. What sort of accommodation/seating is best travelling with kids? If it's a short journey, can you just pick up general seats on the ship somewhere? Are cabins really necessary? Also, where is the best website for cheap prices or are they all the same - I'm feeling totally bogged down by cheapferries.com / aferryto.com etc etc.
Any old hand tips welcome!! Thanks

If you are doing a long crossing do it overnight and book a cabin rather than just the reclining seats.

If its a short crossing you can just wander around and find seats anywhere (various viewing decks, restaurants/bars etc) you won't need a cabin.

How old are your children?

saying that, we're gong by Eurotunnel at Easter as I'm not a huge fan of ferries

First decide if you want a short crossing (dover-calais) or a longer crossing (often referred to as western channel crossings - portsmouth, poole, plymouth to le havre, caen, cherbourg, st malo,roscoff) Depends where you live in UK, your french destination, whether your prefer hours driving or hours on ferry.

Short crossing, sit where you like. Longer crossing generally daytime is sit where you like, overnight crossing you get a cabin or recliing chair.

We went from Portsmouth to Caen last year with Brittany Ferries - took about 6-7 hours I think. Our DSs were 1 and 3, and we got a cabin even though it was a day crossing. We were pretty glad of it, especially at nap times (for adults and kids!) - the rest of the ferry can be a bit frantic. There was a small soft play/kids' area, which was great, but wouldn't have kept them occupied for the whole journey.

Thanks for this! Any tips on cheapest websites to use? Or is it like the carhire scenario where 100 different websites all have the same prices when it comes down to it??

where are you travelling from/to

I presume dover?

I mean we use Brittany Ferries a lot but not much use if you are coimng from Dover (they are poole/portsmouth)

get seats in the posh lounge is my only advice

the main bit is hellish

If you are doing the short crossing and are reasonably confident that none of you get very seasick, I can recommend Speedferries. They operate two seacats from Dover to Boulogne, are very cheap, friendly and, thus far, reliable (have used them three times in two years, off-peak and peak).

You can probably forget about even getting a cabin on the Western routes for most crossings this summer, especially Fri-Sun, if you are travelling in the school holidays Demand exceeds supply which is partly why those routes are also extremely expensive.

Our dcs love the seacat (ds is old enough to read and relish Speedferries rather frank ad campaign about the other ferry companies being pirates...) even though dd needs a travel sickness pill in choppy weather.

We've just booked through ferrysavers.co.uk. They have all the crossings to france from all companies (I think).
We've used them in the past and had no problems.