Channel Crossing
 

<BR>My husband and I are going to London in April. We are interested in taking a ferry rather than the Chunnel as we travel on to Paris. I would be interested in any information anyone could share with me regarding their experience.

I've done the ferry overnight; my sister has done it during the day. There's the 8 hour ferry and then there's the 3 hour or so hovercraft. You must get to the coast of England which takes over an hour (Portsmouth or Dover are the two ports I've used) then you land in Calais or Caen (there may be other ports, too, I think Cherbourg is one) then you have to catch a train to Paris which takes another hour or so. You might want to layover on one side of La Manche or the other and spend some time visiting Dover or Portsmouth or Caen (jumping off place for the Normandy beaches) or Calais, or whichever port you leave or arrive. If you're going to spend the time using the ferry i/o the Chunnel, add value by visiting one of the ports and/or surrounds. If you take the overnight ferry, rent a cabin; they are comfortable and you can get a pretty good night's sleep (Brittany and P&O are the two ferry companies I know; there are a couple of others as well)

The shortest crossings are between Dover and Calais, this takes about one hour, companies who operate this route include Hoverspeed and Seafrance. The longer routes mentioned in the previous post from Portsmouth are run by P&O European ferries to Cherbourg and Le Havre and by Brittany ferries to Caen and St. Malo. The day crossing to say, Le Havre takes about five hours the night one somewhat longer. All these companies have web sites if you need any more information.

I took the ferry from Dover to Calais, and back again. It took an hour and it was P&O. I wish we had of had time to see the castle in Dover. The ferry was nice and big. Had enough to do in it. Has a duty free shop too. I must say I didn't like Calais too much. It was pretty but we missed the last train and had to stay there overnight. On the way back we missed the train AGAIN and had to sleep on the sidewalk outside the train station because you couldn't of rented a doghouse if ya tried!! Hope this helped.

My wife and I took the hovercraft (catamaran) Seacat from Folkstone to Boulogne in October. It was 55min. across the channel in some of roughest water. It travelled very smooth. We paid for the 5 day APEX which cost $139.00 round trip with our rental car. We paid for the crossing online through their website. It's the only way to cross, it's a first class operation, nothing like those lousy ferries tossing you around. <BR> <BR>