Planning a Euro mini-road trip. Any tips greatly appreciated!

pjvenner

Two people in a car travelling from Yorkshire between 24th December 2010 and 9 Jan 2011.

We want to visit Amsterdam and Paris as a minimum, spreading the trip over 4 or 5 days. We want to be home for Christmas day & New year's eve/day so that gives us 2 time windows.

My plan so far involves driving to Newcastle (about 110 miles) and taking an overnight ferry to Rotterdam with no extras for £139 (the cheapest meal option adds £21... That's 10 Spam n Egg butties, so we'll be taking sarnies!).

From there we plan to drive to Paris visiting Brussels & Luxembourg en-route, and on the last day taking a ferry from Calais to Dover, then fighting over who drives home

What I'd like to know is:

• Cheap B&B on the continental leg
• Is taking a ferry 'oop north' cheaper than driving south for the 1st leg (to Amsterdam)?
• How do I find cheap ferry crossings? I'm sure I've seen Newcastle-Rotterdam advertised for around £30 but I can't find it anywhere online.

As mentioned in the header, any advice is greatly appreciated. Please help.

PS: I highly recommend the DFDS website if you're travelling one of their routes. The booking process shows you a breakdown of the price & wether each component would be cheaper (or dearer) than 1 or 2 days either way. That should be mandatory on all travel sites!

wealdroam

Have you considered the ports of Hull and/or Harwich to Holland?

EycplUK

pjvenner wrote: »

Two people in a car travelling from Yorkshire between 24th December 2010 and 9 Jan 2011.

We want to visit Amsterdam and Paris as a minimum, spreading the trip over 4 or 5 days. We want to be home for Christmas day & New year's eve/day so that gives us 2 time windows.

My plan so far involves driving to Newcastle (about 110 miles) and taking an overnight ferry to Rotterdam with no extras for £139 (the cheapest meal option adds £21... That's 10 Spam n Egg butties, so we'll be taking sarnies!).

From there we plan to drive to Paris visiting Brussels & Luxembourg en-route, and on the last day taking a ferry from Calais to Dover, then fighting over who drives home

What I'd like to know is:

• Cheap B&B on the continental leg
• Is taking a ferry 'oop north' cheaper than driving south for the 1st leg (to Amsterdam)?
• How do I find cheap ferry crossings? I'm sure I've seen Newcastle-Rotterdam advertised for around £30 but I can't find it anywhere online.

As mentioned in the header, any advice is greatly appreciated. Please help.

PS: I highly recommend the DFDS website if you're travelling one of their routes. The booking process shows you a breakdown of the price & wether each component would be cheaper (or dearer) than 1 or 2 days either way. That should be mandatory on all travel sites!

• Cheap B&B on the continental leg Sorry there is not much chance of a "Cheap" B & B in Europe Cheap usually equates to Hostel style accomadation , when you know where you want to stay find the Tourist office website , usually B&B on them but not cheap !
• Is taking a ferry 'oop north' cheaper than driving south for the 1st leg (to Amsterdam)? do this trip often and find doing the calais leg first and the home leg to hull is preffered , overnight drive down to dover then either calais or dunkirk crossing , roads are quiet and easy drive mostly all motorway ! then we get ferry to Hull back which means a shorter drive home when you may be tired from your holiday !
• How do I find cheap ferry crossings? I'm sure I've seen Newcastle-Rotterdam advertised for around £30 but I can't find it anywhere online. we often use Norfolkline ferries which have just been taken over by DFDS , you may find they are running a combined fare at a special rate to consolidate the joing up of the services !
• Otherwise use P&O , you can combine a Dover/calais with a Rotterdam/Zeebrugge crossing , not too bad on prices but best price is on a 5 day ticket but thats a return on same route !
• Hope that helps , need any more info please ask !
• CB