A ferry to the isle of white

letsbehonest

Just booked a short break holiday of 4 days in a caravan on the I.O.W.£334. the car Ferry return fare £76, this must be the most expensive piece of water to cross in the world. Is it no wonder we go abroad for our holiday's

fluffnutter

Aah, that's because you should have bought tickets for the Isle of Wight, not the Isle of White. HTH

More seriously for a moment... The Solent is the most expensive piece of water to cross in the world (allegedly). The Isle of Wight's great though, and it would have been a lot cheaper had you not taken the car.

warehouse

If you have Tesco vouchers then you can use these to cross with Wightlink. My parents live over there and we use this method every time we visit.

Otherwise early morning/late evening crossing are much cheaper.

irishjohn

Have you looked at the price of a car ferry from Northern Ireland to Scotland? 12 miles apart at their nearest point.

wary

We have a holiday booked on the beautiful tropical island of Wight in July. Haven’t booked ferry yet but IIRC, we’ll be paying in the order of £135 for a car & 4 passengers.

As a general word of warning, when booking a cottage for example, they may well tell you that they get considerable ferry discounts (which is true), and you’ll get it cheaper if you book through them (which is not necessarily true). For our July visit, the cottage owner quoted us more than we’d pay booking ourselves. Many years ago, to cut the story short, we got heavily ripped off that way. To avoid this, tell them to put the quote in writing and that they’ll need your written confirmation of your acceptance, so they don’t just go ahead and book it. I think some rely on you to take in good faith that they’ll split the discount with you, but may in fact charge you more.

bcl999

The Isle of White? Is this where all the Afrikaaners ended up then?

fluffnutter

wary wrote: »

We have a holiday booked on the beautiful tropical island of Wight in July. Haven’t booked ferry yet but IIRC, we’ll be paying in the order of £135 for a car & 4 passengers.

As a general word of warning, when booking a cottage for example, they may well tell you that they get considerable ferry discounts (which is true), and you’ll get it cheaper if you book through them (which is not necessarily true). For our July visit, the cottage owner quoted us more than we’d pay booking ourselves. Many years ago, to cut the story short, we got heavily ripped off that way. To avoid this, tell them to put the quote in writing and that they’ll need your written confirmation of your acceptance, so they don’t just go ahead and book it. I think some rely on you to take in good faith that they’ll split the discount with you, but may in fact charge you more.

'Tropical'?? Someone's having a laugh with that description. It's only 3 miles south of Portsmouth.

biscit

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to be reasonable and politlely offer a little balance to the debate.

I do cross channel ferries frequently and £76 return would be the cheapest we get it for. Also went to Jersey from Northern France- we left our car in St Malo and hired one on Jersey for the short time we were there because the difference between the foot passenger fare and the with a car fare was greater than the cost of hiring a car.

The difference between long distance rail journeys across Europe, and those on car trains is significant, lugging round a heavy metal box on wheels as luggage is not a cheap thing to do. I would imagine that loading and unloading is not an insignificant part of the cost of travelling by ferry.

So in all I have to disagree, and say I feel the price in the opening post does not seem excessive.

fluffnutter

biscit wrote: »

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to be reasonable and politlely offer a little balance to the debate.

I do cross channel ferries frequently and £76 return would be the cheapest we get it for. Also went to Jersey from Northern France- we left our car in St Malo and hired one on Jersey for the short time we were there because the difference between the foot passenger fare and the with a car fare was greater than the cost of hiring a car.

The difference between long distance rail journeys across Europe, and those on car trains is significant, lugging round a heavy metal box on wheels as luggage is not a cheap thing to do. I would imagine that loading and unloading is not an insignificant part of the cost of travelling by ferry.

So in all I have to disagree, and say I feel the price in the opening post does not seem excessive.

I don't disagree with you, biscit; I think £76 to visit the Smile of Wight is money well spent.

It might rankle some though that it's nearly 100 miles from Pompey to Cherbourg whereas it's less than 10 from Pompey to Fishbourne! Therefore, it terms of price per mile, crossing The Solent can seem expensive.

If you didn't need the car, you could always try swimming it I guess

PasturesNew

letsbehonest wrote: »

Just booked a short break holiday of 4 days in a caravan on the I.O.W.£334. the car Ferry return fare £76, this must be the most expensive piece of water to cross in the world. Is it no wonder we go abroad for our holiday's

It's over £30 per person to get to the Scilly Isles - and you can't take your car by any means. 26 miles, 3 hours.

pinkteapot

It's about £50 each way for a car and £15 each way per person to get to the Orkney Islands. And that's the cheap ferry route, assuming you drive to the tip of Scotland and take the shortest crossing (90 minutes).

On the plus side there's a chance you'll see killer whales from the ferry, which is unlikely in the Solent.