We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Cross Channel Ferries from Portsmouth
shermans
Posts: 8 Forumite
I am new to your site and would like to make you aware of a money saving suggestion for travellers to France using the Western Channel crossings. I have an axe to grind because I use the ferries once per month. Brittany Ferries has had a TOTAL monopoly and a typical summer return fare for a family plus car is close to £600. That is until a new ferry company called LD Lines arrived on the scene promising "no frills airline" type ferry fares from Portsmouth to Le Havre. My last two trips have cost me just £75 return against the winter scheduled price on Brittany Ferries (a company subsidised by the French government) of £450. I am anxious that this new service should prosper and therefore am trying to promote it. I promise you I have no financial interest of any sort in it - except as a customer benefiting from lower prices. I have been writing to everyone I know to promote this service and someone suggested I should post a message here. Here is the letter which I have been sending out :
"I am writing to everyone I know who has a French property or travels to France for holidays. I hope you will excuse me for forwarding a copy of a letter which I have received from the Managing Director of the new Portsmouth to Le Havre ferry, and which is self explanatory. I have no financial or other interest in LD Lines, but I do want them to succeed and to offer serious competition to Brittany Ferries because I am a regular traveller. Therefore, the more I can do to promote their new service, the better it will be for all of us who cross the Channel. Please help to spread the word by recommending LD Lines to your guests and friends !
As a matter of information, the LD Lines Norman Spirit was built in 1992 and started life at the Prints Filip in the service of RTM on the Zeebrugge route. She was then sold to Stena Lines but was eventually laid up in 1998 until P&O bought them. She then went into service with P&O as a freight ship only, and then in 2003 as the Aquitaine on the Dover Calais route still, until taken out of service last year when P&O restructured their operations, closed down the Portsmouth route and sold several ships. She was again mothballed until bought by LD Lines and put into service on the Le Havre route in October last year. I have crossed on this new service several times since it started in October. At first, it was a bit "spit and sawdust", but over the last few months, they have replaced all the seats, redecorated throughout and laid new carpets. It is now perfectly comfortable and clean and is fitted with stabilisers. The crew is mainly Italian / Portuguese. In December there was a problem with the Seafarers' Union in Le Havre by whom she was unfortunately blockaded for 11 hours, which caused a lot of inconvenience to passengers. They were demanding that the ship fly under the French or British flag instead of the Italian flag. LD Lines finally agreed but this will cost them £1 million per annum in extra costs. Since then, there has been no further trouble.
As far as fares are concerned, my last two RETURN tickets (I travel once a month at least) cost £75.00 compared to £240.00 with Brittany Ferries even after my Property Owners' discount. I doubt if LD Lines can maintain such low prices, but even if they were to increase them eventually to twice the price of Dover / Boulogne, for instance, it would still be good value as the sea crossing from Portsmouth is double that from Dover. They are committed to low cost fares like the no frills airlines.
I hope you do not mind me writing but it is in everyone's interests to ensure that there is continued competition on the Western Channel.
Regards
N. Sherman
Original Message
From: Pierre Gehanne
Sent: 28 February 2006 13:28
To: N. Sherman
Subject: Réf. : Norman Spirit
Dear Mr. Sherman,
Although my english is far from being perfect, I will try to write you in English (I am certain that you could easily understand my french writing, but let's take it as a matter of courtesy).
First of all I would like, on behalf of all the members of the LD Lines team, to very sincerely thank you for this so kind and interesting letter which indeed was a very pleasant one to receive.
I can see from your letter that you are a long time experienced user of various ferries companies, and your complement and suggestions are indeed very valuable to us.
As you may know, LD Lines is a company owned by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, a french shipowner (nobody is perfect), but we have been also and we still are a British shipowner under the name of Buries Marks (although we have no ship in this particular company right now). For your own guidance we intend to have the red ensign flying again on the Norman Spirit in the coming months. We also operate a ferry line, in joint venture with Grimaldi, between Toulon and Civitavecchia (Rome) under the GLD Lines logo.
When P&O decided to give up with the Portsmouth - Le Havre service, Brittany Ferries claimed they would take care of this link but they finally decided not to do so (I assume that they were perfectly happy to avoid any competition with their Portsmouth-Ouistreham service...). At the request of the Le Havre city and port authorities, we decided to study the feasibility and the viability of the project (P&O was loosing more than 5 millions pounds on this specific line) and we finally decided to go ahead on the basis of a different concept offering lower prices with as much quality as possible, as we believed, rightly or wrongly that the Britttany Ferries business model (mini cruise consept with high prices) was obsolete.
It was not easy to find a vessel within the time constraints (we did not wish any disruption of the service) and therefore we had to invest a lot of money (in excess of 40 million euros) to purchase the only ship available i.e. the Norman Spirit, who was not exactly fitted for a 5/6 hours journey but rather for a Dover Calais crossing, and we had to fit the vessel with confortable reclinable seats and other improvements in the accomodations which you were kind enough to notice.
So, the choice of Le Havre was an opportunity and the customers were existing for both passengers and freigth. In any case, Brittany Ferries would not have allowed us to use Cherbourg or Ouistreham (they even tried to prevent us from calling to Portsmouth! We were not afraid of the trade union of the dockers at Le Havre and we have no problem at all with them. Actually the main concern was the the seafarers' unions of Brittany Ferries and Seafrance who decided to prevent us from using the Italian Flag on the line (although BAI was using Bahamas flag on one their ship and Transmanche was also using the italian flag on Dieppe-Newhaven). Their moto was "rather no ferry in Le Havre than an Italian flag". It seems that the fact that we are a fully privately owned Company (still 100% owned by the Louis-Dreyfus family) and that we were not subsidized at all, was certainly definitely playing against us....(c'est la France...).
Anyway, thanks to you and many other customers who have been helping us (and we definitely need the help of our British friends), this venture is going the right way and we are now close to beak even and indeed we are proud of this achievement.
We shall certainly follow your suggestion and we are not going to spend huge amount of money which would in turn be reflected into the fares and we shall from now on limit our investments to be able to maintain reasonnable and competitive fares (let's hope the oil prices don't go up any further) which we believe is the key to the success. But it is clear that we have to fight, because other french companies like Seafrance or Brittany Ferries are praying to see us out of the business. However we are still studying to add about 20 four beds cabins (including two for disabled people) to the ship in order to provide better accomodation to some of our customers who are requesting cabins on the Portsmouth-Le Havre leg. Then, if the things are going the right way, we shall study the possibility to put a second vessel (a smaller one) on the line to provide more flexibility to our customers, as far as time schedule is concerned.
The main problem actually (apart from oil prices), is the amount of various taxes on passengers, cars and freight, which we are paying to Portsmouth and Le havre. To give you an example we have to pay, for each passenger 3 euros in Le havre and 2.32 Euros in Portsmouth, for each car we have to pay respectively 5 and 3.89 Euros (not to mention the port dues, and various other taxes which are coming on top...).
We have decided to follow your suggestion and we shall put in place a suitable advance purchase scheme with 10 return tickets for regular passengers and we are presently studying the possibility to open an internet forum for our customers. Another development we have in mind is, once a month, to have a "tombola" where the past month customers could earn some purchase vouchers or something similar.
Your views are certainly very much appreciated and if you have some ideas or critics please be kind enough to let us know.
Thanks again for your letter which I did convey to the LD Lines team members (all of them have devoted a lot of time and efforts to have this line running).
Best personal regards
Pierre Géhanne
President
LD Lines
https://www.ldlines.com
"I am writing to everyone I know who has a French property or travels to France for holidays. I hope you will excuse me for forwarding a copy of a letter which I have received from the Managing Director of the new Portsmouth to Le Havre ferry, and which is self explanatory. I have no financial or other interest in LD Lines, but I do want them to succeed and to offer serious competition to Brittany Ferries because I am a regular traveller. Therefore, the more I can do to promote their new service, the better it will be for all of us who cross the Channel. Please help to spread the word by recommending LD Lines to your guests and friends !
As a matter of information, the LD Lines Norman Spirit was built in 1992 and started life at the Prints Filip in the service of RTM on the Zeebrugge route. She was then sold to Stena Lines but was eventually laid up in 1998 until P&O bought them. She then went into service with P&O as a freight ship only, and then in 2003 as the Aquitaine on the Dover Calais route still, until taken out of service last year when P&O restructured their operations, closed down the Portsmouth route and sold several ships. She was again mothballed until bought by LD Lines and put into service on the Le Havre route in October last year. I have crossed on this new service several times since it started in October. At first, it was a bit "spit and sawdust", but over the last few months, they have replaced all the seats, redecorated throughout and laid new carpets. It is now perfectly comfortable and clean and is fitted with stabilisers. The crew is mainly Italian / Portuguese. In December there was a problem with the Seafarers' Union in Le Havre by whom she was unfortunately blockaded for 11 hours, which caused a lot of inconvenience to passengers. They were demanding that the ship fly under the French or British flag instead of the Italian flag. LD Lines finally agreed but this will cost them £1 million per annum in extra costs. Since then, there has been no further trouble.
As far as fares are concerned, my last two RETURN tickets (I travel once a month at least) cost £75.00 compared to £240.00 with Brittany Ferries even after my Property Owners' discount. I doubt if LD Lines can maintain such low prices, but even if they were to increase them eventually to twice the price of Dover / Boulogne, for instance, it would still be good value as the sea crossing from Portsmouth is double that from Dover. They are committed to low cost fares like the no frills airlines.
I hope you do not mind me writing but it is in everyone's interests to ensure that there is continued competition on the Western Channel.
Regards
N. Sherman
Original Message
From: Pierre Gehanne
Sent: 28 February 2006 13:28
To: N. Sherman
Subject: Réf. : Norman Spirit
Dear Mr. Sherman,
Although my english is far from being perfect, I will try to write you in English (I am certain that you could easily understand my french writing, but let's take it as a matter of courtesy).
First of all I would like, on behalf of all the members of the LD Lines team, to very sincerely thank you for this so kind and interesting letter which indeed was a very pleasant one to receive.
I can see from your letter that you are a long time experienced user of various ferries companies, and your complement and suggestions are indeed very valuable to us.
As you may know, LD Lines is a company owned by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, a french shipowner (nobody is perfect), but we have been also and we still are a British shipowner under the name of Buries Marks (although we have no ship in this particular company right now). For your own guidance we intend to have the red ensign flying again on the Norman Spirit in the coming months. We also operate a ferry line, in joint venture with Grimaldi, between Toulon and Civitavecchia (Rome) under the GLD Lines logo.
When P&O decided to give up with the Portsmouth - Le Havre service, Brittany Ferries claimed they would take care of this link but they finally decided not to do so (I assume that they were perfectly happy to avoid any competition with their Portsmouth-Ouistreham service...). At the request of the Le Havre city and port authorities, we decided to study the feasibility and the viability of the project (P&O was loosing more than 5 millions pounds on this specific line) and we finally decided to go ahead on the basis of a different concept offering lower prices with as much quality as possible, as we believed, rightly or wrongly that the Britttany Ferries business model (mini cruise consept with high prices) was obsolete.
It was not easy to find a vessel within the time constraints (we did not wish any disruption of the service) and therefore we had to invest a lot of money (in excess of 40 million euros) to purchase the only ship available i.e. the Norman Spirit, who was not exactly fitted for a 5/6 hours journey but rather for a Dover Calais crossing, and we had to fit the vessel with confortable reclinable seats and other improvements in the accomodations which you were kind enough to notice.
So, the choice of Le Havre was an opportunity and the customers were existing for both passengers and freigth. In any case, Brittany Ferries would not have allowed us to use Cherbourg or Ouistreham (they even tried to prevent us from calling to Portsmouth! We were not afraid of the trade union of the dockers at Le Havre and we have no problem at all with them. Actually the main concern was the the seafarers' unions of Brittany Ferries and Seafrance who decided to prevent us from using the Italian Flag on the line (although BAI was using Bahamas flag on one their ship and Transmanche was also using the italian flag on Dieppe-Newhaven). Their moto was "rather no ferry in Le Havre than an Italian flag". It seems that the fact that we are a fully privately owned Company (still 100% owned by the Louis-Dreyfus family) and that we were not subsidized at all, was certainly definitely playing against us....(c'est la France...).
Anyway, thanks to you and many other customers who have been helping us (and we definitely need the help of our British friends), this venture is going the right way and we are now close to beak even and indeed we are proud of this achievement.
We shall certainly follow your suggestion and we are not going to spend huge amount of money which would in turn be reflected into the fares and we shall from now on limit our investments to be able to maintain reasonnable and competitive fares (let's hope the oil prices don't go up any further) which we believe is the key to the success. But it is clear that we have to fight, because other french companies like Seafrance or Brittany Ferries are praying to see us out of the business. However we are still studying to add about 20 four beds cabins (including two for disabled people) to the ship in order to provide better accomodation to some of our customers who are requesting cabins on the Portsmouth-Le Havre leg. Then, if the things are going the right way, we shall study the possibility to put a second vessel (a smaller one) on the line to provide more flexibility to our customers, as far as time schedule is concerned.
The main problem actually (apart from oil prices), is the amount of various taxes on passengers, cars and freight, which we are paying to Portsmouth and Le havre. To give you an example we have to pay, for each passenger 3 euros in Le havre and 2.32 Euros in Portsmouth, for each car we have to pay respectively 5 and 3.89 Euros (not to mention the port dues, and various other taxes which are coming on top...).
We have decided to follow your suggestion and we shall put in place a suitable advance purchase scheme with 10 return tickets for regular passengers and we are presently studying the possibility to open an internet forum for our customers. Another development we have in mind is, once a month, to have a "tombola" where the past month customers could earn some purchase vouchers or something similar.
Your views are certainly very much appreciated and if you have some ideas or critics please be kind enough to let us know.
Thanks again for your letter which I did convey to the LD Lines team members (all of them have devoted a lot of time and efforts to have this line running).
Best personal regards
Pierre Géhanne
President
LD Lines
https://www.ldlines.com
0
Comments
-
You had me at £75 return.0
-
You had me at £75 return.
Sorry, I don't understand your comment. Actually, my last trip for 15 days for up to five people plus car cost £71 RETURN and my next trip for 18 days cost me £74 RETURN for up to five people plus car. You can check these prices on their website.0 -
Thanks for the information, just in time for a August booking that I thought I might have to make with Brittany Ferries
What is the Club lounge like ?0 -
applehead wrote:What is the Club lounge like ?
They have two Club lounges which were the first parts of the ship to be upgraded from the original "stowaway class" ! One lounge is just large reclining seats with pleanty of space and nicely furnished, intended for snoozing. The other lounge is the business, with free newspapers, free coffee and actually more luxurious than either of the P&O or BF versions.
The shopping area is disappointing but only because it is all brand new and not properly stocked yet. The restaurants and bars are all nice and have been also re-furbished except for a couple of them, and the food is better than BF, where the quality of the food deteriorated as fast as the prices increased after P&O ceased operations, leaving them with a monopoly !
The cabins are also of a good standard and the a/c is not as noisy as BF.
The main lounge has been refitted with new reclining chairs throughout, which are much more comfortable than BF. I always said that BF must have bought their reclining seats second hand from Sabena (of Such A Bloody Experience Never Again fame ) - even the Mont St Michel and Pont Aven had the same dreadful seats as the old Barfleur and Normandie.
The LD Lines ship is probably now just as comfortable as any of the BF ships but having seen her in her raw spit-and-sawdust state back in October, the first impression lingers. The ship does not have the "first class hotel ostentation" that you get on the Pont Aven or Mont St Michel, with lots of glass and marble. I am also an ardent fan of Speedferries from Dover to Boulogne, but their Fastcraft is very much more tired than the LD Lines ship was, and LD Lines is certainly much better than the old P&O Pride of Le Havre or Pride of Cherbourg.
Hope that answers the question.
Hope that helps.0 -
Just to clarify then, if I book 2 club seats, rather than 2 standard seats,have I a choice of both club lounge's ?
Also some further information, as I am not sure of the car registration for August, rang them and they can put tba on the booking if you book by phone, where as if you book online the car registration/details are binding non changeble.
Same price phone or online0 -
I have not actually bothered with the Club lounge because the main lounge is quite comfortable enough but of course, August will be peak season and therefore no doubt better to reserve in Club. However, I have a ship's brochure which shows two Club Class reclining seat lounges (Tweed and Velvet) on Deck 8 and the Cotton Club on Deck 9, which is the lounge with Wi-Fi internet and newspapers etc. It says that if you travel Club Class or have a cabin, you can use the Cotton Club.
On the matter of the car registration, I really cannot imagine that it would be a problem if you turned up with a different car providing it was less than 5 m long or 1.83 m high, simply because the check-in person cannot see your number plate from the booth ! However, I am going to collect any feedback I get and in a few days, I will send it to the President as he invited me to do. I really cannot believe it would be an issue, and I am always changing cars with the other operators without a problem.0 -
Read the info for LD Lines and I have made a booking in June for £80 inc car and 4 people - svd alot of money - THANKS :j :j0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 352K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.5K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 454.2K Spending & Discounts
- 245K Work, Benefits & Business
- 600.6K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177.4K Life & Family
- 258.8K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards