We are going to London and France in late 2015. The plan is Eurostar through Paris then train to Bayeux. Should we instead consider going via a ferry? Considering price, comfort, convenience, travel time, experience value.
Any tips would be appreciated.
We considered this for this year. Decided against it as: needed to add a transfer to and one night's lodging in Portsmouth in order to easily catch ferry; additional transportation factors on arrival by ferry to get to Bayeux; possibility of ferry line being down due to weather or other issues (this happened to us in Saint John, New Brunswick, found out night before we were driving up from the US that the ferry we had booked was cancelled for the week due to damage and we had to rearrange plans on the fly). Eurostar and then the train to Bayeux is simpler, quicker in the total time involved, and much less costly in advance. 10:24 Eurostar = 17:15 in Bayeux, which is actually under 6 hours due to the time zone shift, and getting advance tickets about 33 GBP plus 15 euro per.
We did the ferry from Cherbourg to Portsmouth after a Bayeux tour. In hindsight, we'd have been better off returning on Eurostar. Because ...we couldn't find a taxi from the Cherbourg train station to ferry landing and ended up having to walk to make sailing time, I get very seasick and did, there really wasn't anything to see while sailing, it was dark when we got to Portsmouth so there was no sightseeing there, we had to take a cab from ferry terminal to hotel as there were no trains to London that time of night. If you were planning to stay in Portsmouth for a day or two, that might be a different story.
We did the trip in September and took the hydrofoil ferry. I'm not sure that runs all year or everyday.
Late in the year is when the weather in the Channel is worst.
It might be a mill pond when you go, it might not. It all depends on what awful weather is sent across the North Atlantic from the United States 3 days earlier.
There are two routes by ferry to consider, the long crossing from Portsmouth to Caen then train from there (the same train from Paris as you would get connecting with the Eurostar, just almost at its end) and the short crossing from Dover to Calais. That crossing is only around 90 minutes in good weather but about 3 hours when all is considered. You have to take the train from London to Dover and walk or get a taxi to the ferry terminal. Foot passengers are only allowed on the P&O boats from Dover and have to hang around quite a while until they are taken on the boat. Similar at the other end, and the Calais train station is quite a long way from the port. Then train to Paris and cross Paris and pick up the same train again to Bayeux.
Eurostar under the tunnel is so much faster and easier and often cheaper if you get tickets well ahead. It is reliable too and not affected by weather until real big storms stop everything.
price Eurostar, comfort Eurostar by a lot, convenience Eurostar by a mile, travel time Eurostar by a country mile, experience value don't know what that is. Seeing the White Cliffs through a rainstorm or fog?.
Listen to Nigel JD. He absolutely knows of what he speaks!!!
Thanks everyone! Sounds like we should stick to our original plan to go through Paris.
