Norfolk Line Ferries

...this is how I found Norfolk Line.

It happens that my mum went to University and is quite empathetic when it comes to the fact that you are mostly penniless. Every year myself and my fiance are invited on holiday with them, except this year something happened; their 25th Wedding Anniversary, and a romantic trip to Italy. Admittedly having being given a tent by my Grandad last year I had this vision that we would just take off into ...
...site with a banner advertising Norfolk Line. I had a vague recollection of traveling with this company when I was younger and could remember that it wasn't the most high class of ferries but what can you expect for the price of the crossings (starting from £19 single). Amazingly I could travel on the days that I wanted for just £19 per crossing for 2 people & the car, as long as we traveled at 2am. Our sleep was a sacrifice we were willing to make ... more

Being a student and living with your partner all at the same time can end up being quite difficult. You feel like you should be doing the student thing; out drinking, kissing random men in nightclubs, sleeping on your friends floor. Yet at the same time there is this feeling that you should be doing couply things too; going out for posh meals together, going on trips, going on holiday! The strange thing about doing both is that the other always suffers, you can't go out too much and leave your other half at home and you can't afford the luxuries of meals and holidays, and this is how I found Norfolk Line.

It happens that my mum went to University and is quite empathetic when it comes to the fact that you are mostly penniless. Every year myself and my fiance are invited on holiday with them, except this year something happened; their 25th Wedding Anniversary, and a romantic trip to Italy. Admittedly having being given a tent by my Grandad last year I had this vision that we would just take off into the sunset with a few pot noodles, a tent and a car full of petrol but when Summer came I came to the terrible realization that I had no money, no car full of petrol and no pot noodles. Worse - I'd only ever been in the tent for one night last summer, it rained the whole time and I ended up cold wet and miserable and hading home at 8 in the morning. I was certainly sure that we wouldn't be heading off on holiday in England at least.

Sorry for going on a bit there, but if you've read my reviews before you'll know that I always like to make my experience of a product personal. One day I was sitting on the settee in our front room typing away when a banner flashed up on a web page for P&O ferries, "From £38", I'm one of these suckers who always believes that I'll get the minimum £38 somehow, when in reality very rarely can you find a price that cheap. After hours of trying I banged my laptop down on the table and stormed off to do something else, it was then that I realized that somewhere somehow we had to have a holiday. So when I returned to my laptop an hour later I began considering the budget airline, but this too had it's own problems; flying would mean taxi's to and from the airport, plus how would we travel to a campsite when we got wherever we were going and since both me and my fiance are 20 years old renting a car is both very difficult and very expensive as many firms prefer those over 25. I'm sure that the fares that I was given were cheap, working out about £80 each, but there were too many complications.

After typing in "Cheap ferry" into Google and having no luck, I finally came across a site with a banner advertising Norfolk Line. I had a vague recollection of traveling with this company when I was younger and could remember that it wasn't the most high class of ferries but what can you expect for the price of the crossings (starting from £19 single). Amazingly I could travel on the days that I wanted for just £19 per crossing for 2 people & the car, as long as we traveled at 2am. Our sleep was a sacrifice we were willing to make on these two days for a holiday.

Now enough of the personal on to the facts:
Norfolk Line does 6 crossings:
Liverpool - Belfast
Belfast - Liverpool
Liverpool - Dublin
Dublin - Liverpool
Dover - Dunkerque
Dunkerque - Dover

This review is about the Dover - Dunkerque, Dunkerque - Dover crossing and although I am sure that the same standards will apply for the other crossings I cannot guarantee it.

We traveled there at the end of July and back at the beginning of September, I thought this might be important as it is towards the end of the holiday season and the prices may be a reflection of this.

The crossing between Dover and Dunkerque takes approximately 2 hours and the ferry begins boarding about half an hour before the crossing begins giving you plenty of time to settle down. Norfolk Line ask for you to get to the port no more than 2 hours before your crossing and no less that 1.

If you are crossing the channel you can expect to cross in style, on board one of Norfolk Line's award winning ferries. These are both stylish and comfortable with an array of things to do. There is a play area for children, a lounge bar, a resteraunt, a shop (which is cheap for alcohol and cigarettes - taking advantage of France's lower duties), there are also Wi-fi areas, and an on-board cinema (although I'm not sure whether our ship had one and if so if it was open). As I am very travel sick unfortunately I didn't have much time to appreciate the fact that at 2 in the morning everything was open! The whole ferry was very nicely decorated, modern, had a very clean feel about it. I think that when we stepped into the lounge bar both myself and my fiance stood there for about 5 minutes with our mouths open thinking "wow!". What's more; the prices on board are very reasonable, while on board we bough a large coke from the bar which cost us £2.40 but was a very good size, perhaps this is a little more costly than in your local bar but I still feel that it's very reasonable for on board a ferry. Another thing is just how accommodating everything is, the shop allows you to pay for items in either Pounds or Euro's or both! For example if you were paying for a book that cost 7Euro or £5, you could pay £2.50 and 3.50E. On top of that the staff didn't mind people putting their feet up on the sofa's in the bar (which are very comfortable) and falling asleep. I know this goes for most ferries, however I often feel that people often feel looked down upon for doing this (at least I do), these ferries and their staff were most welcoming.

There is only one little complaint I have with the ferry and that was the attitude of some of the staff when returning back to your cars. As with most ferries there are several different doors; Red, Blue, Green etc and you need to find the right colour, which can be a little confusing when you've just woken up after 1hr30 asleep in the bar. When looking for our door along with quite a few other people I found that certain staff were extremely unhelpful, one French man followed us about shouting "Please leave this area now!" and "Please go back to your cars now!" which I felt it was quite clear we were all trying to do, but I do understand that it must be difficult when people take ages about it; although may I add we weren't and we had left to find our door as soon as the captain had announced we had reached Dunkerque.
Apart from this one small thing I had no problems whatsoever with the ferry or it's staff and all instructions were quite straightforward.

There are a few things I would like to mention for anyone traveling with the Norfolk Line. The first is about the port in Dunkerque; as we found out the hard way the car ferry at Dunkerque (which is mainly a freight port) isn't actually in Dunkerque, don't follow any signs to "Port Est" even though that is where Norfolk Line says the ferry is. Follow their very good instructions and you will be fine, only follow signs for "Car Ferry" otherwise you will spend an hour driving up and down Dunkerque city center without a clue where you are. The car ferry is actually closer to a place called "Loon Plage" so save yourself hours of hassle and just read the instructions from Norfolk Line in the first place.
I'd also like to say don't worry about getting there too early, I was a little bit panicked when we got to Dunkerque ferry port at 11.20 instead of 12 (the maximum 2 hours before) but the staff were very kind and they actually put us on the 12 o'clock crossing rather than the 2 o'clock, meaning we arrived back in Sheffield at 5 rather than 7 (which did make a big difference, believe me!).

About the booking system
====================
I'd also like to mention about the online booking and quote system which having been on so many air travel and ferry company websites I found very useful. In fact I'd like to say that the whole website was laid out in a way that was very simple to use without being too boring.
I'm going to take you through how to get a quote on a ferry as I feel that this will further demonstrate just how easy it is. Firstly you go to the following website:
http://www.norfolkline-ferries.co.uk/EN/
On the main page you will see that there is a "book online" box, simply enter the following information:
- One way? (A tick box, is it a one way crossing or a return? Tick the box if you only want a one way crossing, I haven't ticked the box)
- Select Your route (Choose from the 6 routes, listed above I've chosen Dover to Dunkerque)
- Dates you would like to travel (Enter your travel dates here, these can be altered when the prices come up in order to get the best value for money. If you have ticked "One way" then only the "Departure" date is visible if you have not both the departure and return dates are visible and need to be entered, remember these can be changed at a later point, I have entered 10.11.2007 returning 17.11.2007)
-Number of passengers, Adults, Children, Infants 0-3 (I have entered 2 Adults)
- Select your Vehicle type (From the following options; Car up to 2.4m height (I have selected this), car with caravan or trailer, motorhome or van, motorcycle, motorhome with caravan or trailer, motorcycle with car or trailer, bicycle (one only))
- Length up to (how long is the car, I have left the default value of 5 meters but this can be changed)
-Offer Code (If you have an offer code you can enter it here, I don't)

And that's all the information you need to put in initially, so let me just confirm what I have entered:
Route : Dover to Dunkerque - Return
Dates of Travel:
-Departure: 10.11.2007
-Return: 17.11.2007
Number of Passengers:
-Adults: 2
-Children: 0
-Infants (0-3): 0
Vehicle Type: Car - Up to 2.4m Height
Vehicle Length: Up to 5 Meters
Continue

Norfolk Line now brings back all crossings for those two particular days, in list boxes next to each other. They use the following colour code:
Yellow - Lowest Fare
Light Blue - Low Fare
Dark Blue - Mid Fare
White - Peak Fare

Norfolk Line automatically selects midday crossings which as you can imagine are peak fare, in this case £39.00 there and £34.00 back, which Norfolk Line add up at the bottom of the page for you, £73.00. You also have the choice of whether you want the standard fare, which is refundable (in this case £93.00) or the offer fare, none refundable (but only £73.00).

Here is the full list of prices Norfolk line has returned for the two crossings:
November 10th (departure):
(Date - Time - Price)
10/11/2007-02:00-£ 19.00
10/11/2007-04:00-£ 24.00
10/11/2007-06:00-£ 39.00
10/11/2007-08:00-£ 39.00
10/11/2007-10:00-£ 39.00
10/11/2007-12:00-£ 29.00
10/11/2007-14:00-£ 29.00
10/11/2007-16:00-£ 24.00
10/11/2007-18:00-£ 24.00
10/11/2007-22:00-£ 19.00

At the bottom of this list there are two buttons "earlier" and "later" and using these you can alter the date of travel.

Here is the full list of prices Norfolk line has returned for the two crossings:
November 17th (return):
(Date - Time - Price)
17/11/2007-02:01-£ 19.00
17/11/2007-04:01-£ 19.00
17/11/2007-06:01-£ 19.00
17/11/2007-08:01-£ 24.00
17/11/2007-10:01-£ 34.00
17/11/2007-12:01-£ 34.00
17/11/2007-14:01-£ 34.00
17/11/2007-16:01-£ 34.00
17/11/2007-20:01-£ 29.00

This list also has 2 buttons "earlier" and "later" so that the date can be altered at any time.

What I think is fantastic about these fares is that both the 10th and the 17th of November are actually Saturdays! And what's more, the fares reflect this! Had I chosen to return on a wednesday, for example November 14th, the list would look even better:
Date Time Fare
14/11/2007 02:01 £ 19.00
14/11/2007 04:01 £ 19.00
14/11/2007 06:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 08:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 10:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 12:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 14:01 £ 29.00
14/11/2007 16:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 18:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 20:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 22:01 £ 24.00
14/11/2007 23:58 £ 19.00

The only thing about Norfolk Line that makes me just that little bit annoyed is that they prove just how much cheaper other companies could be doing this for!

I hope you enjoyed the review and please leave me a comment. Thanks for reading! 

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