Ferry tips - Plymouth to Santander

[Berin]

Top tip- make sure you know how a ratchet strap works, I’ve helped people unstrap their bikes several times as they had not used ratchet straps before.

Also, keep your passport handy as unlike Le Shuttle you have to clear customs and immigration in Spain.

 

[zerax9]

Top tip- make sure you know how a ratchet strap works, I’ve helped people unstrap their bikes several times as they had not used ratchet straps before.

Although I do get a perverse pleasure in watching someone try to work out how to undo them... before I step over to offer some assistance and, for a brief moment, become their hero !

 

[jefformston]

For those that have done the Plymouth to Santander route what have you learned? Is it worth booking the ferry meals? Grab food on the way to the port? How many sea sickness tablets should you take? What are those wee gems that will make the circa 24hr voyage that little bit more enjoyable?

Motive: trying to make this an experience which will not put off the wide!

Thanks in advance

Evening meal is ok, breakfast so so. Take a bottle of wine and some nibbles for the day time. Sit back and relax.

 

[Captain jack]

You can start by thanking your lucky stars you are a proper ship and not the eco bollocks out of Portsmouth, taking longer and costing more. Then eat the very nice French cuisine offered in the cafeteria, buy one glass of wine, get a bottle from duty free and top up as you go.

 

[glenn2926]

Top tip- make sure you know how a ratchet strap works, I’ve helped people unstrap their bikes several times as they had not used ratchet straps before.

Also, keep your passport handy as unlike Le Shuttle you have to clear customs and immigration in Spain.

Ha ha, that brought back a memory. A mate rang me whilst I was at work one day.
He was on the old Hull-Zeebrugge ferry and they had run out of ratchet straps so gave him a length of rope.
I had to talk him through tying a truckers hitch. It must have worked cos he didn’t say his bike had fallen over.

 

[stickywicket]

Buy your spirits in duty free and either take the mixers on or just buy coke or whatever from the bar. They dont seem to bother if you drink them in the bar. Trust me, you will need to be hammered to get past "Mr. Bubbles" act

 

[Doc]

Buy your spirits in duty free and either take the mixers on or just buy coke or whatever from the bar. They dont seem to bother if you drink them in the bar. Trust me, you will need to be hammered to get past "Mr. Bubbles" act

Can't be any worse than the acts they put on for the Hull to Rotterdam.

 

[Georgeeboi]

There are some great tips on here. I've been a few times and always bought a bottle of wine from the restaurant...never thought of buying from duty-free and drinking it in the lounge. You live and learn.

Sent from my SM-F936B using Tapatalk

 

[Si Yates]

Take some patience pills, your need then for the shambolic UK Border Force passport control. It's much easier by small boat with no passport

 

[Northern jock]

I have a padlock and cable around the carrier and i attach my helmet to the seat, buckle put through a strap to keep it in place. As said above, the less you carry to your cabin the better.
Also, the less you take, the less you have to pack when you return to your bike. You want to be the smug one, ready to go while others are getting stressed and sweaty trying to carry too much, pack stuff, unstrap their bike, find keys, etc. And that’s if they remembered which stair to go down.
A few beers helps the caberet go down, especially the magician when a pissed crowd is shouting “it’s in your pocket!”.
And, as always, when you find your cabin, most likely down in the confusing rabbit warren of endless corridors and doors, work out and remember the quickest way back on deck (escape route), even walk it a couple of times, you have time. In the event of an alarm going off there won’t be a lovely cabin attendant helping you, just a mad scrum.

 

[Berin]

Take some patience pills, your need then for the shambolic UK Border Force passport control. It's much easier by small boat with no passport

True. It’s outsourced to Serco or some such. Last time they pulled both Mrs Berin and I over and looked through all our luggage and tank bags, they found a Leatherman on my toolkit and made a massive fuss about it while next to us was a camper van with a whole block of knives clearly visible in the window.
And it was helmets off, even though they were flips.

What a fuss to leave your own country.

 

[Tinytim]

Have your bike keys on a lanyard 'round your neck. (Which I 99% of the time do).

This saves any blind panic and fumbling through pockets over and over when you're down in the car deck sweating like a pig. It also ensures that you don't accidentally let them slip out of your pocket when you're sat upstairs in the lounge waiting for the announcement to make your way down. I would imagine that it can be very stressful if this happens and you're searching through your pockets on the car deck to no avail, then you have to run back up 9 flights of stairs, (worse if you've got a bad knee), find reception and then embarrassingly kiss the Phillipine bloke when he hands you your keys that someone kindly handed in, before running back down the stairs, stopping halfway because of your palpitations and possible impending heart attack, finally arriving on the deck to find everyone gone and you're last to be let into the UK a couple of hours later. Don't ask me how I fekkin know.

 

[Ectopic]

You can start by thanking your lucky stars you are a proper ship and not the eco bollocks out of Portsmouth, taking longer and costing more. Then eat the very nice French cuisine offered in the cafeteria, buy one glass of wine, get a bottle from duty free and top up as you go.

Much nicer boats from Portsmouth now!

 

[Ectopic]

True. It’s outsourced to Serco or some such. Last time they pulled both Mrs Berin and I over and looked through all our luggage and tank bags, they found a Leatherman on my toolkit and made a massive fuss about it while next to us was a camper van with a whole block of knives clearly visible in the window.
And it was helmets off, even though they were flips.

What a fuss to leave your own country.

FFS, Border Force do NOT outsource any of their functions. It is the port and the carrier between them who employ Serco (and others) to do these checks. UKBF rarely do any outbound checks.

I believe the post above was referring to the queues in Portsmouth when you disembark on your homeward journey. There are queues. Deal with it. You happily turn up and queue 2 hrs before your ferry leaves because that's what the ferry company says. Same as people wait for an hour for their luggage to appear at an airport. But queue for 20 minute at Border Control and it's the end of the f*****g world, apparently.

 

[Wapping]

But queue for 20 minute at Border Control and it's the end of the f*****g world, apparently.

I travelled last week from France, to Belgium, back into France (briefly) then back into Belgium, then into Luxembourg and ultimately into Germany. All in a day, in my car, without one delay or passport check and with no hint of control from ‘The Man’ or ‘Them’. I could have driven to Finland or Portugal or Italy thereafter; again with no hindrance. What makes the UK so special that we have to justify entry and exit to some bored government employee?

Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.

 

[Berin]

FFS, Border Force do NOT outsource any of their functions. It is the port and the carrier between them who employ Serco (and others) to do these checks. UKBF rarely do any outbound checks.

I believe the post above was referring to the queues in Portsmouth when you disembark on your homeward journey. There are queues. Deal with it. You happily turn up and queue 2 hrs before your ferry leaves because that's what the ferry company says. Same as people wait for an hour for their luggage to appear at an airport. But queue for 20 minute at Border Control and it's the end of the f*****g world, apparently.

Seems a very angry post.

Maybe you don’t travel much, and your comprehension skills certainly aren’t good, but I didn’t say it was Border Force, however it really doesn’t matter - clueless idiots with Serco jackets on make a series of stupid checks, for leaving the country, for some reason- not for getting back in, as I stated above, and the at the passport check on exit they required helmets to be removed. Not the case on entry into Spain, where they were fine with using the flip.

I don’t turn 2 hrs before for a ferry, I turn up an hour before, since the check in time is 45 minutes, and as to my perception of queueing, well, no one likes it, but it’s a fact of life. It’s just annoying when the queue is made worse by inefficiencies.

But anyway, please do feel free to have another pointless rant, it’s quite funny.

 

[Ectopic]

I travelled last week from France, to Belgium, back into France (briefly) then back into Belgium, then into Luxembourg and ultimately into Germany. All in a day, in my car, without one delay or passport check and with no hint of control from ‘The Man’ or ‘Them’. I could have driven to Finland or Portugal or Italy thereafter; again with no hindrance. What makes the UK so special that we have to justify entry and exit to some bored government employee?

Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.

I'll be putting your name back on the list!

Those countries have chosen to delegate entry checks to each other, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I'm pleased we never joined the Schengen arrangement (though we have a similar idea with the Common Travel Area ).

We've had this discussion before. I'll paraphrase it:

You: Why should I have to show my passport? Lots of other countries manage, blah blah blah...
Me: Do you think we should have no border controls at all?
You: No, but British citizens shouldn't have to be checked at British border.
Me: Should we have an honesty box policy? Let travellers decide themselves whether they should have their passport checked, or just wander through unchecked?
You: no but British citizens (it may have also been EU citizens at that time) shouldn't need the same level of checks.
Me: How could we check that they are Brit/EU citizens?
You: they could just have their passports checked at the border.

 

[Ectopic]

First relevant post: ....the shambolic UK Border Force passport control.

Your post: True. It’s outsourced to Serco or some such. Last time they pulled both Mrs Berin and I over...

I think it's a reasonable assumption that you were referring to UK Border Force duties that you believed had been outsourced, don't you? And you then have the nerve to say it's my comprehension skills aren't good! Like many many people you seem to be unable to distinguish between the various responsibilities at the border.

I agree the security checks at the ports aren't particularly effective, being (a) random and (b) ignoring the knives that might be in caravans, motorhomes, trucks and so on. Personally I'd like to see the checks being much more intense, but you need to raise your concerns with the port operators and carriers rather than trying to blame UKBF. I do recall some passengers running amok on some planes a few years ago, which brought about the desire to search all air passengers for knives. I don't think it's a huge leap of logic to extend the same checks to ferry passengers.

Whether the Spanish border control ask you to remove your helmet or not is irrelevant. The reality is they may just have been ticking boxes and see people presenting themselves as UK holiday makers as low risk - in my view you can't you can't always do proper recognition checks with a helmet on. I'd have no hesitation in removing my helmet if asked, and have no hesitation asking a biker to remove helmet if I couldn't be sure they were the person in the passport.

If you were asked by UKBF to remove your helmet as you left the country, you were very unlucky. Outbound passport checks by UKBF are a very rare occurrence indeed. You may well have been asked by the carrier to remove your helmet so they can fulfil their obligations to check identities of travellers. Personally I'm glad they did. But again, if you think that's ridiculous you need to take it up with the carrier.

 

[Wapping]

You: Why should I have to show my passport? Lots of other countries manage, blah blah blah...
Me: Do you think we should have no border controls at all?
You: No, but British citizens shouldn't have to be checked at British border.
Me: Should we have an honesty box policy? Let travellers decide themselves whether they should have their passport checked, or just wander through unchecked?
You: no but British citizens (it may have also been EU citizens at that time) shouldn't need the same level of checks.
Me: How could we check that they are Brit/EU citizens?
You: they could just have their passports checked at the border.

Me: I think we should have the same open border, as enjoyed by the 450,000,000 souls who reside, just across the water from us, such as I enjoyed but a week ago, as I roared through France, Benenlux and Germany, without due let or hindrance….. or whatever it was our passports used to say.

In case of any doubt, that does not and should not be read as a wish to accommodate, encourage or condone illegal migration. Those apprehended either on entry or later should face the full penalty of the law and imprisonment until such time as they can be returned.



PS The tea huts were particularly slow on Tuesday morning on my return to our green and pleasant.. The Border Farce woman who addressed me was particularly miserable, despite my cheery greeting. This was in contrast to the chirpy French officer, though his happiness might of course been amplified by my leaving the French nation to get on with their shopping for bread, a national pastime in which they excel.

 

[Northern jock]

Me: I think we should have the same open border, as enjoyed by the 450,000,000 souls who reside, just across the water from us, such as I enjoyed but a week ago, as I roared through France, Benenlux and Germany, without due let or hindrance….. or whatever it was our passports used to say.

In case of any doubt, that does not and should not be read as a wish to accommodate, encourage or condone illegal migration. Those apprehended either on entry or later should face the full penalty of the law and imprisonment until such time as they can be returned.



PS The tea huts were particularly slow on Tuesday morning on my return to our green and pleasant.. The woman who addressed me was particularly miserable, despite my cheery greeting. This was in contrast to the chirpy French officer, though his happiness might of course been amplified by my leaving the French nation to get on with their shopping for bread, a national pastime in which they excel.

Not just bread, the French consider wine to be so much more than just a breakfast drink