Has anybody taken the ferry from Dover to Calais without a car? We will be visiting Canterbury before going to Paris. We are considering the ferry rather than going back to London and taking the Eurostar.
The ferry seems to be geared towards passengers with cars. How difficult would it to be to take a train to Dover and then a ferry to France and then a train to Paris.?
Posted by
Lake District, England
10990 posts
It is possible but not easy. P and O are the only company to take foot passengers, and then only on the 0945, 1340 and 1640 sailings.
The 1640 has no same day connection to Paris.
At Calais you have to take the Baladin bus from the port to the station.
At Dover you HAVE to check in 90 minutes before sailing for French border formalities, so 0815 and 1210.
The first train from Canterbury arrives at Dover at 0707, then a bus to the port at 0720 from the station.
But if the train is late you are then scrambling for a taxi.
There is a bus every 20 minutes from Canterbury, the first is at 0655, arrives Dover Pencester Road at 0731, then taxi or a speed walk down the sea front.
The 1340 ferry gets you into Paris at 1908 if the connections work, more likely 2121.
So yes you can do it, but I wouldn't want to be on the early ferry in case of unforeseen events and the second ferry is a full day.
Posted by
Germany
31 posts
Hi Jane, it's very doable by ferry and train, and I have also done it myself! For the boat from Dover to Calais we used ferry hopper's blog to decide on the ferry we would take (because we also had our dog with us), here. Then from Calais we just took the train (less than 3 hours) to Paris-Nord (this is from the SNCF site, a random date just to show you what we did). If you wish, you could split it in 2 days, but I thinks it can be done in 1 day as well (depends on where you need to be in Paris). I hope that helps :)