Copied from email friend sent.
We paid £266 for the car and trailer including a 4 berth inside cabin for the sailing from Santander at 2230 on Sunday 15 June 2014 arriving in Poole at 2330 on Monday 16 June 2014. We thought that the sailing compared very favourably with the Brittany Ferries sailing that we used on Easter Sunday 20 April from Portsmouth to Bilbao at £444.
The beauty of the sailing late Sunday evening sailing is that we drove from El Portus (550 miles) in one - and of course there were very few trucks and generally light traffic. It was a toll free route and we negotiated round Madrid with no problems.
We had plenty of time having left El Portus at 0938 and towards the end we set the cruise control as low as 55mph. After a stop some 50 miles short of Santander we arrived at the port just before 2100 to find that loading had started. We were on board by 2130 along with our cool box (plugged it in once in the cabin), rucksack of wine and beer, and plenty of books. The crossing was very smooth (lucky again). As we had taken all our own food we cannot comment on the quality of the food in the 1 restaurant on the Norman Austurias.
We would definetly use this sailing again at the sort of price we paid. For us the key was the timing.......a sailing much earlier in the day would necessitate an overnight stay somewhere and would make us think twice.
We paid £266 for the car and trailer including a 4 berth inside cabin for the sailing from Santander at 2230 on Sunday 15 June 2014 arriving in Poole at 2330 on Monday 16 June 2014. We thought that the sailing compared very favourably with the Brittany Ferries sailing that we used on Easter Sunday 20 April from Portsmouth to Bilbao at £444.
The beauty of the sailing late Sunday evening sailing is that we drove from El Portus (550 miles) in one - and of course there were very few trucks and generally light traffic. It was a toll free route and we negotiated round Madrid with no problems.
We had plenty of time having left El Portus at 0938 and towards the end we set the cruise control as low as 55mph. After a stop some 50 miles short of Santander we arrived at the port just before 2100 to find that loading had started. We were on board by 2130 along with our cool box (plugged it in once in the cabin), rucksack of wine and beer, and plenty of books. The crossing was very smooth (lucky again). As we had taken all our own food we cannot comment on the quality of the food in the 1 restaurant on the Norman Austurias.
We would definetly use this sailing again at the sort of price we paid. For us the key was the timing.......a sailing much earlier in the day would necessitate an overnight stay somewhere and would make us think twice.