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Sun holiday review thread
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Cheapest way would be to drive to Dover, get the Dover-Calais ferry and drive through France, Belgium, Holland.
It’s all nice straightforward motorway driving and going in that direction through France you will avoid any toll motorways.
Personally I prefer to do Eurotunnel rather than ferry as it’s a shorter crossing and not that much more expensive than the ferry, depending on when you go and how far in advance you book.
The other options are ferries direct to Holland - either Hull to Rotterdam (overnight only) or Harwich to Hook (daytime or overnight crossings).
Dover-Calais or Eurotunnel are charged per car, the crossings direct to Holland so you would need to consider paying for cabins which are charged per person (mandatory on overnight crossings, optional on daytime crossings).
For the park itself the charges work very much in the same way as the Butlins ones you’ve booked previously, cost per person then service charges on top. There are no entertainment passes to budget for although you have to pay for the water park (at a discounted rate). The advantage with booking a European break is you can book 7 nights rather than having to just book 4 or 3 nights.
Agree with Bazzy B here. It's a pretty easy drive to Duinrell from either Calais or Dunkirk - and the sailing is only 1.5 or 2 hours.
Previously it's sometimes cheaper to book the ferry via the Sun when you book your holiday, definitely worth checking out. Otherwise, it's worth signing up for newsletter alerts from DFDS and P&O as they run special offers throughout the year and book as early as you can once a special offer comes through (15% or 20% off quite regularly). So far, I've never paid more than £90 for a return trip for a car and 4 passengers, even on a Saturday in peak season - which works out cheaper than buying their annual pass. If you're not using a discount code then you can use cashback sites of course.
Strangely, sometimes it works out cheaper to book a single night's accommodation with another company, especially if out of season/towards end August (I've used both Eurocamp and Alfresco) and then book your ferry through them - average return I've paid doing it this way has been about £50.
You can use Tesco clubcard vouchers for the Eurotunnel (3 times their value), which a friend of mine does, but I don't use Tesco enough so no good for me.