Portsmouth - Caen

[CCLCECSC]

Booked on 8am sailing.
Live in Midlands.
Would you stay over in Portsmouth night before or just leave 2am to travel down?
2hr drive once in France and 6hr crossing.

We live closer than you (SW London) and always stay the night before at the Premier Inn in Horndean. It's about 15 mins to the port in the morning, and an easy drive. The pub on site is nice enough, and there are other local restaurants and takeaways. I'm not keen on central Portsmouth, although the Premier Inn there is very close to the port.

We live about an hour and a half away so always drive down on the morning. The alternative to staying over for you would be booking a cabin on the ferry so you can get a few hours sleep before your fairly short drive to your French accommodation. We always book one anyway as we like the privacy, having somewhere to leave stuff and have a nap if I'm tired or the crossing is a bit lively.

We always take an overnight sailing. It departs about 11pm and arrives about 6am (alarms about 5.15am). It means we can arrive at our destination at a reasonable time. When we had beloved DDog he was able to stay in the car on this short crossing, the longer ones they have to go in a kennels area which he would have hated.

We always get this ferry. We live an hour and a half away so leave about 5am and then we drive a few hours away the other end. We always get a cabin for the day which are about 45 quid and take it in turns to rest while the other one does the soft play!

If you were up from 2am you would probably need to sleep most of the journey which is possible if you don't have small dc in tow. So I think it's doable with a cabin. It would be a long day's travelling though.

I've done the 2am start never again! I book the overnight crossing now

We've done this crossing a number of times from N Worcs. It's 150 miles and takes us 2hr 20 mins. We've never stayed over.