Share your tips for family holidays by ferry - £200 voucher to be won

[CeriMumsnet]

For parents there are lots of benefits of going on holiday by ferry - the ease of driving straight from your door to your destination, the lack of luggage restrictions, the space and facilities onboard, not to mention the excitement of the crossing! Any travel with children takes preparation though, so we’d like you to share your top tips and recommendations for making ferry travel with children a breeze.

● Post your tips in the thread below to be entered into a prize draw
● One lucky MNer will win a £200 voucher for a store of their choice.

Here’s what Brittany Ferries has to say:

“Brittany Ferries is an award winning Ferry Travel and holiday company who are experts in Western Europe, and winners of the Best Travel Company for Family Holidays at the 2022 British Travel Awards, voted by consumers. We offer a choice of routes from UK and Ireland to France and Spain that save you miles of driving, avoids airport queues and delays, and offers award winning on board service with space and comfort, ensuring you are on holiday from the moment you drive aboard. ”

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ
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We love traveling by ferry, it's definitely part of the holiday, getting on board signals the start of the adventure!

My best tip is to book a cabin and take hot choc in a flask and some biscuits! we make a long drawn out affair of showers, getting pjs on, snuggling in bed with a warm drink and snack - by the time all the safety announcements are done (and they are loud, too loud to sleep through!!!!) We're all ready for bed!

We kip through the night sailing and wake up full of beans in another country!

Night ferry is so much easier if travel with kids. Plus sticker books, colouring . We love I spy and the alphabet game too.

Plenty of screen time and snacks.

I'd like to add - book your top box when you book early. We just tried adding ours to our booking for July and it was going to add £300 to the price. Needlesstosay, top box is staying home.

Oh and don't take anti-sickness pills if you have to drive on the other side! 😴

A photo treasure hunt passes the time. Can they take photos of items beginning with each letter of the alphabet? Can they take photos of red things? Obviously they have to be old enough to walk around safely.

Packing cubes and spare clothes galore!

keep as relazxed as you can. as soon as the kids see you clenched up when you drive down to "the queues" they react accordingly. so the line can be people watching. time to play i spy. talk a bit about the sea or the journey. if its a long queue the excitement of getting out the car might be an idea to stretch the legs.
see everything as a segment. dont worry.
see it as an adventure. from getting on board. then going up to the main ship. most of the time can be spent wisely be just exploring the ship from one end to the other. make it adventorous, exciting, stop to see out. save that mmoment you go out on deck so it keeps them excited and more on their best behaviour so they can go outside. take pictures. just sit. let them sit with the wind in their hair and just able to be in their own heads a bit,letting their imagination run onboard a ship.
take snacks but if you can let them buy one thing to add to the fun.
go to the toilet before the very end to avoid the queues!
take a extra jacket for when you will mostly always need a pillow or cover for one of them.

Download they favourite movies and programmes on a tablet before you go, again try - if you can book a cabin for a quiet place and a base on board, make a list of 'essentials' a few weeks before you go, just to make sure you don't forget anything which will make your crossing a trauma over medicine/toy/charger you've left behind.

I would avoid the France crossings - and use the ones to Holland - I get too stressed in case the French border control take industrial action at short notice. Nothing worse than being in a everlasting queue with tired children and a grumpy partner

Ferry holidays were a firm favourite with our DC & overnight crossings the pinnacle for them!! I used to pack a little backpack for each of them when they were little with a book, colouring etc. Always had games with us too so lots of cards, pass the pigs etc. They are now 21 & 18, still love looking back on those holidays. We're in Brittany now having come over on the overnight crossing from Plymouth. It's so good.

We have been on so many family holidays by ferry its hard to know where to start.

Travelling to Spain on Brittany Ferries - this is a great option not only for holidays in Spain but Portugal and the south of France.

If children's entertainment on the ferry is a top priority book Pont Aven which is on the Plymouth to Santander route and has a stage with all day entertainment (magicians etc), a small pool, a cinema and a good choice of restaurants/cafes. The kids meals in the restaurant are very reasonably priced and my two used to like the Brittany Ferries goody bag they were given at the end.

The new ships Galicia/Salamanca and Santona sail from Portsmouth to Bilbao/Santander and are quicker to board. The crossing is longer but I see that as a plus as we count it as a mini cruise experience. The timings mean you usually arrive in Spain at breakfast time. only one of these ships has a cinema but they all have TV and films in the cabins so your kids can watch Disney films etc. They also have the entertainment programme but no pool. The catering options are not as extensive as on Pont Aven but if travelling with older teens it is worth paying for the club lounge which is a nice place to while away the day with food and drink provided as part of the package. There is a mini outdoor gym on the top deck. As well as the entertainment laid on by Brittany Ferries the bay of biscay is perfect for dolphin spotting.

We have also done most of the routes to France eg. Portsmouth Caen and St Malo and Poole Cherbourg. Portsmouth St Malo tends to be the most popular crossing and you can travel out overnight and back by day. The outward crossing is long enough for a decent nights sleep. On the return day crossing they used to put on a pantomime pre covid..if that's not yet back there will be plenty of other entertainment for the children.

Whilst it is worth having a few things like puzzle and colouring books we have always found that the children have never had time to look at them as they have been so busy with the organised on board activities or looking at other ships passing, wandering round the shop etc.

My main tip would be to plan the journey so that you don't have a long drive in France on a Saturday in the school summer holidays as I think boredom/frustration is more likely to set in if you were to get stuck in a long traffic jam in hot weather on the onward journey in France. The good thing about travelling from Portsmouth, Poole or Plymouth is that these ports tend not to get as congested as Eurotunnel or Dover and Calais on peak weekends.

If you are driving abroad for the first time make sure your car is equipped with the required safety equipment and you adjust your headlights before driving off the ferry and don't forget to upgrade your car insurance for the length of time you are driving in the EU. The telepeage tag is worth having for French tolls and some cities require a critair certificate re: pollution.

Delete if this isn’t allowed because I am hijacking the thread but does anyone have any tips for taking a dog on the ferry? It’s my first time taking a dog with me.
I would appreciate some advice please 😊

Get your child to bring/save some of their pocket money/birthday money to buy an overpriced toy at the duty free shop. İt will give you something to do and they'll be excited by the new toy and be able to immerse themselves longer. Bring drinking water on board and snacks on board as it's overpriced and you don't want to drink their tap water. As a foot passenger I'd also make sure you jump out of the little boarding bus at the wait to get on the ferry and go to the shops, as it's a much longer wait than anticipated, sitting on a static bus.
Overall, İ think it's much more enjoyable than flying with a little one!

I am right now on a Brittany Ferry. Cabin is essential, and not very expensive on a day time crossing. My child is older now and self-entertaining, but when younger, liked something to listen to, something to watch, colouring, playing with favourite soft toys and a big scarf to make them (toys, not child!) a slide/parachute/bridge from the top bunk.

Don’t let them see anything about the Titanic beforehand. When I took my son on a ferry trip he was scared because he had seen some clips on YouTube. Fine when he got on but was quite apprehensive at first.

if you can, pay to be able to go into the lounge where you get a choice of buffet items and drinks and nice seats. We did this one way and my son thought he was so posh, even drank his milk with his little finger poking out.

Get a cabin if it is overnight but be prepared for them wanting to explore beforehand.

Pack snacks and activities for before you get the ferry because you may be delayed and sometimes the only place available for refreshments is a place more suitable for freight-truckers with very little entertainment and choice of food.

agree on a day cabin for day sailings - they are much cheaper.

However on the cabin with enough beds matter, next time I'd be sorely tempted to book an entirely separate one for my kids. Not sure about Brittany Ferries but on Stena you can specify the exact cabin for a small charge so that you can guaranteed be next door!

We often ferry to Ireland/NI. I agree that a cabin is essential but it’s often better to go overnight so they aren’t bored. I find they normally sleep well with the motion of the ship.

So glad I saw this thread, we're going on our first big ferry trip later this week so the tips are very useful!

My 2 are a bit old for sticker books so I shall be buying them a new reading book each, taking our trusty pack of cards, lots of snacks and some sea sickness tablets!!

Take snacks and activities (books, ipad etc) for the queuing. And we had fun teaching the children a little french - the effect was to charm the staff at french customs!

Book a cabin, plan your trip well in advance with what you need in day luggage and what can be packed in the suitcase, check for cancellations and changes in timetables. If you are doing the trip for the first time - plan your drive to get there and if you can - do a dry run of the trip - a missed slot is a spoiled holiday

A timetable of when you need to set off, a list of what you need to pack, a fully charged powerbank, and book a cabin early for a base to just unwind and not have the hustle and bustle of the journey. You can arrive fresher and rested .

Get your laptop out and plan - what time you need. to get to your destination, which crossing is best for you time and distance wise, decide what route you are going to take and if you want to be in the holiday country in the morning - book an overnighter. Make it part of your holiday, book a cabin, eat out, watch a movie - go to soft play - make memories (and take sickness tablets if you get an upper window cabin)

Our top tip is to have a relaxed start to your holiday and take the ferry to Santander to save a long tiring drive down through France.

For our four legged friend, our top tip is to book early to secure a dog friendly family cabin.

Take lots to occupy them, activity books, stickers, a pack of wipes, some boiled sweets, bottles of water, maybe sick bags!