Time to wave goodbye to NorfolkLine

NorfolkLine Ferries

It won't be all that long now before NorfolkLine's name disappears from the cross channel Dover/Dunkerque ferry service, to be replaced by DFDS.

In December 2009 the Danish shipping company DFDS agreed conditions by which they would purchase Norfolkline from A. P. Møller - Mærsk for a "mere" for €346 million.
The transaction was subsequently approved by the EU in June and the purchase of Norfolkline completed in July this year.

Norfolk Line have now just posted news of one of the first visible signs of that purchase with the first vessel the Maersk Exporter which runs the Belfast – Heysham service has been renamed ‘Scotia Seaways’ and completely repainted and branded in DFDS blue and white.

Depending on how many Euro's DFDS have in their "painting budget", expect to see similar announcements for the remaining ferries on the Irish Sea and the English Channel.

I quite liked Norfolk Line ferries, the boats were very modern and clean, they offered free wifi on board, and the crossing price (depending on when you wanted to travel) could be very very reasonable - I travelled over once for just €29 one way.
On the downside though Dunkerque is yet another half an hour up the autoroute from our holiday Gite and the ferryport facilities in Dunkerque were "simple" to say the least. Hope they can keep the good things I liked and improve on the less good things .... mind you I doubt that they can do anything about the position of Dunkerque ferry port!

Getting across the channel is getting easier for some, but not for others

I recently read an article that NorfolkLine Ferries (who operate a 2 hour crossing service from Dover to Dunkerque) have agreed to accept Paypal as a payment mechanism for online ticket reservations.

And looking today on the NorfolkLine website looks like they've already got it up and working, and from a consumer perspective it looks to be a great option.

If you pay by Electron or Solo cards, they're free; by debit card there's a £1 card handling charge, by credit card the charge rises to £4; and for American Express it's a mighty £6 surcharge.

By comparison therefore Paypal looks to be a no-brainer choice as there's no payment handling fee from NorfolkLine and you can fund your Paypal purchase using a credit card registered to your Paypal account which also doesn't cost you.

See the original Trading Markets announcement for the full press release.


At the other end of the spectrum I was amused by the story I read on people.co.uk of a Pensioner who was caught smuggling £56,550 out of the UK - in his underpants!.

Apparently he was stopped at Dover ferryport by customs officers and a sniffer dog discovered the cash in his crotch !

The whole story sounds a bit bizarre to me but according to the news item it's suspected that he's smuggled some £3.7 million overseas since April 2005.

Sailing to France - and found free wifi on board!

NorfolkLine

I'm currently sitting in the lounge on board a Norfolk Line ferry sailing across to France to start our 3 week holiday. The kids are off watching a magic show, Liz is fretting about the dog being all alone in the car, and I've been left to guard the luggage.

The Dover coastline has just about disappeared in the sea mist and so to my surprise I've found out that Norfolk Line have free wi-fi onboard their ferry. The download speed isn't fantastically quick and is certainly nowhere near fast enough to watch a movie over (according to a quick test I did with the BBC iplayer speed test it's rated as 73kbps download speed and between 36 and 148kbps streaming speed - i.e. similar speed to a modem), but the signal strength is good and at least it's completely free.

(As a slight technical aside it appears that Norfolk Line must route their ferry internet connection through Denmark because when I searched with Google I was presented with google.dk as the default homepage!)

Compare this to Brittany Ferries who just 2 weeks ago announced that internet access is now available across all Brittany Ferries services to France and Spain ... but that you had to "purchase access time from the information desk onboard".
No details of actual prices are on their website - but it ain't free.

Happy happy holidays !!

Norfolkline midweek summer sailing discount offer ... and a gite offer from ourselves as well

NorfolkLine

Just a quick mention that NorfolkLine have a special offer on right now that closes this Friday of midweek crossings on their Dover/Dunkerque route from just £24 each way .... and if you book by 24th July and quote offer code 'WSS' then you'll save £10 off the midweek return crossing price.

Bookings are being taken online or over the phone by calling 0844 847 5030.

I couldn't of course go without mentioning that we've still got good holiday Gite availability for September and October 2009 and the weather is still really warm plus of course the peak-season rush will be over once the kids are back at school.

We're more than happy to take midweek or variable length bookings and if you mention this Blog entry then I'll even knock a 20% discount off the normal rental price.

Cut price ferry tickets to France

As I blogged back in November, December and earlier this month, following the demise of SpeedFerries I'm having to look for other travel options to enjoy a holiday in our French Holiday Home.

For once we've got ourselves organised this year and have booked ourselves in for a two week stay at Easter and then a three week August summer holiday. In 2008 what with moving house and a difficult project at work we only went over to the Gite as a family once, at Easter, so it'll be lovely to take more time off and relax a bit more.

For Easter I've booked an outward crossing with Condor Ferries from Poole to St Malo which gives us a few hours stop-off enroute in Jersey (which I've never been to), and then a quick hour-and-a-bit drive at the other side from St Malo to the Gite. We're returning back through Dieppe with LD Lines, so it's a bit of a longer drive, but it's some £70 cheaper and is overall probably slightly quicker too.

I've been trying to decide which route to take for August and as we intend to take our dog Dexter with us, and as Liz gets really stressed out with the thought of him "all alone" in the car, it's better if we take one of the shorter crossings.

As luck would have it I've received a couple of emails special offers in the last few days so the choice (and cost) has been made a bit easier.

First arriving in my mailbox was LD Lines who are promoting their new Dover Boulogne route with single journey crossings costing from just £24. I noticed that that the email was sent to the email address I've used previously for SpeedFerries, and in the LD Lines email they explained that they've bought up the SpeedFerries customer contact list from the company administrators.

LDLines have also managed to bring the start of their new Dover/Boulogne service forward, originally it was due to commence in July 2009, now it starts on 12th February.

For the three week period I wanted in August the cost of a Saturday to Saturday return crossing came in with LDLines at £79. To this I'll have to pay roughly £40 of fuel and £15 of tolls each way, so at £189 total cost it still compares extremely favourably with the £400-500 cost that I'd have to pay with Brittany Ferries for the shorter western channel routes. Don't get me wrong, the BF boats are lovely, spacious, and with good onboard facilities, and the shorter drive is nice too, but it's still an awfully large price premium to pay.

Next I took a look at the same August dates with Norfolk Line from Dover to Dunkerque.

Depending on what time of day I travel at single tickets range from £17.50 (for a silly o'clock in the morning) through £29 and up to a maximum of £42. In the past I've noticed a slight saving by buying two single tickets with NL as the return sailing from France is priced in Euros (and the prices can vary during the day), so maybe I can save a few quid, but as it's another half hour drive up the coastal motorway to Dunkerque there's probably not much difference in cost overall when compared to LDLines.

And then I received an email from Ferrycheap.com. Just for good measure I received the email twice, one that was sent direct to me from FerryCheap, and one that was sent through the email address I've used with SpeedFerries (so looks like Ferrycheap have also bought up the SpeedFerries customer contact database).

FerryCheap are running a NorfolkLine special offer of a car with 4 passengers on their Dover-Dunkirk route for any date up to 17th December 2009.

There's just two different ticket prices:
  High Season (3rd-19th April and 17th July-6th September) - £29 each way
OR
  Low Season (any other dates) - £19 each way

And all tickets are fully flexible with no amendment fees so you can change your booking any time you want - as long as there's space on the boat of course!

Only other condition of this special offer is that you must book your crossings by 18 February 2009.

So we'll be NorfolkLining it in August methinks.