ozgirl

Hi friends,
I am looking for some advice concerning Guernsey please…
We will be staying in a gitę in the vicinity of St Malo and wish to visit Guernsey after completion of our gitę stay.

The gitę I would like to book is a Friday to Friday stay. Our check out date would be April 26. From what I can see of 2023, it appears at this time of the year the ferry to Guernsey goes only Saturday or Sunday? Condor won’t release 2024 timetable until end September 🥴

IF that’s the normal scenario I don’t know whether to change to another gitę that has Saturday check out or to maybe do a single (Friday) night in hotel near ferry departure?

We will also have a rental car which I am undecided about taking with us. Is there safe parking near ferry departure?

Lastly, would three nights be sufficient? We are interested in scenery, photography, military history but mainly going as I have discovered I have a family connection with the Island 😊

Thanks for any thoughts/suggestions!

Jean

I think April is early for ferry service between France and the Channel Islands, so Sat./Sun. only could be typical. There are also ferries from Dielette (direct) and via Jersey from Granville and Cateret. I don't know if you have to change ferries at Jersey.

manche-iles.com/en

If you think you'll visit the U.K. or Ireland in the future, you can fly direct to Guernsey from several U.K. cities and Dublin.

Three nights is only two full days. If you have specific ancestry things you want to track down, that could take some time. We've only stayed with friends (locals) who drove us around and acted as tour guides. I don't know how much time that familiarity saved us, but we stayed 4 nights on our first visit and felt like we had a good tour. Our second trip (3 nights) was mostly to visit the friends and included a day trip to Herm.

bilboburgler

St Malo walled town has a massive underground (undertown) car park with entrances just to the south of the walls. The port departure for the ferry is a spit and a toss a bit further south.

Condor is a private NZ company that changes its routes and timings a bit but not much, so for planning purposes you can work to the 23 timetable.

Car hire, it might be possible to return the car locally and hire it or another on your return.

kerouac

I've taken the ferry from Jersey to Saint Malo but not Guernsey. I think the Jersey service runs more often. Naturally, there are major risks of cancellation due to the weather in April

ozgirl

Thanks all.
Ive decided to go with the Friday gite and stay near ferry departure Friday night, don't want to be super stressed Saturday morning although looks like Condor leave midday ish ??? Hard to find a retrospective timetable for April.
kerouac I hadn't even thought about possibility of cancellation! Will have to factor that possibility in to any hotel bookings I make. We will have a lease car (for a lcouple of months) so won't be returning it here but have since discovered that since Brexit lease cars can't be taken to the UK so that resolves what to do with the car.
Any recommendations for hotels on Guernsey and /or St Malo near ferry?

KayF

It's been a while but we liked our stay at Hotel Le Nautilus. Inside the walls of St Malo, from memory about 15 min walk from the ferry. We caught the ferry from Portsmouth, UK, so not sure if that's the same port. Loved St Malo.