Here we are at Ferry Terminal No 1 in Dublin Port, and this is where you would get your ferry, through Irish Ferries to travel to Cherbourg in France. You can also sail to Holyhead from here.
A lot of work goes into these videos. You can now buy me a pint as a means of appreciation for my work on Naked Ireland, no obligation, obviously - only if you can afford it... I appreciate it. Cheers.
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You can see the WB Yeats label hanging from my mirror, as I sit in the queue to board. So you might be thinking that I’m sailing on the WB Yeats again. You may also remember that I made a very favourable video praising Irish Ferries on their service between Cherbourg and Dublin on the WB Yeats a few months back?
• Irish Ferries, the nic...
I’m afraid I’ll have to take it all back - please stay tunned to find out why.
I’m back travelling with them again, but alas apparently not on the WB Yeats, but on a P&O ship. So why, if I booked Irish Ferries, specifically because I enjoyed the crossing on the WB Yeats, would I be sailing on a P&O ship? Good question, it appears the two companies are one and the same, and the least said about P&O’s recent employment relations scandal, the better:
www.bbc.com/news/business-607...
When we finally start boardingboard, (we were originally supposed to sail at 6.30. It’s now exactly 9.05.), remember, we should have sailed over 2 and a half hours ago. Now I know what you’re thinking, that sometimes ferries naturally run late due to weather, and this is the winter after all. But in fact the weather is great. They are also obliged to contact us within a half an hour of the sail time to inform us of any delay, which I’m sorry to say they missed by a couple of minutes. However, that was the only contact they made with us. The message also said that we’d now be sailing at 8pm, but obviously that was over an hour ago.
To add insult to injury a young guy came round the queue of cars handing out vouchers for a cup of tea, or coffee or a soft drink! I mean, they should be providing us with a meal - people have been travelling here from all over Ireland and perhaps haven’t eaten since breakfast - remember you have to be in the queue 2 hours before ‘they say’ you’re going to sail. The last thing we need is a three-hour delay on top of a 2 hour wait.
Cynically, the next day, they invited us up to the café for some chips right at the end of our voyage, after we’d spent a fortune in their restaurant instead of offering something on boarding, when we needed it. But, of course, the worst kind of delays are the ones where you just don’t know what’s happening, where a company hasn’t even the respect for its customers to communicate with them when things are going wrong!
Now again, you might be thinking that I’m being a bit hard on Irish Ferries. We’ll what if I told you that on my way to Ireland from France just 3 weeks ago, exactly the same thing happened! You make your own mind up if this is a good way to do business.
So here we go, finally up onto the ferry. What a tiring day this has been. I still held out some hope, even at this late stage that there might be some compensation by way of a free meal when I got on board, but no, in fact on this boat it costs €25 for a meal. You have to buy a voucher if you want to eat, and there’s no cheaper option!
The other thing is that getting parked on this boat is always a faff. It’s not just a case of stopping and putting your handbrake on as on the WB Yeats. Here there’s always reversing into certain positions. In fact, on the trip over we had to drive off again as the took us into the wrong part of the ship. Worrying!
The cabins are very austere and there’s no TV like there is on the Yeats. It’s just sub-standard. And yet we paid around €200 for this cabin. You’d get a great Hotel room for that! The whole return trip (which was disastrous in both directions) cost €870 - a scandal.
The restaurant is more of a canteen with its Formica tables. There’s a small bar, not like the various large lounge areas of the WB Yeats. And then we see a reception with no one manning it! I wouldn’t want to face customers if I were them either.
And we started to sail finally 3 hours late.
Breakfast the next morning was €20 per person, which is more expensive than you’d pay in a very good hotel. There was plenty of it but it was nothing special, cheap orange juice in a plastic cup and an uneatable pain au chocolate. Possibly the worst I’ve tasted.
Of course, the romance of breakfasting with a view of the sea would be a bonus. Until you see the state of windows through which you must enjoy this natural spectacle. Out on deck I hoped their lifeboats are in better shape than their windows!
All bad things must come to an end, and so we finally, and thankfully, roll off this excuse for a passenger ferry and head on our onward journey into France.