Ferries to Spain

Hi all,

I'm currently planning my next winter tour of Spain/Portugal and would like to know if anyone can tell me of their experiences of the ferries to Santander/Bilbao.

Choices seem to be Brittany Ferries or LD lines (DFDS).

Some people say that the LD lines ferries and the BF economie services are on smaller, less stable ferries. They don't seem to be that much cheaper either.

Cabins are very expensive. How comfortable are the lounge seats?

Do the cabins have electrical sockets? French/English?

All comments, suggestions and tips welcome.

Explorette, we travel to Spain quite often and use Brittany ferries and as we are club members we get a discount on the fares which guests can use to also get a discount, if and when you decide travel with Brittany ferries you can use the club members discount by applying for Guest discount using the Code No. S0016R in the "guest of member box" discount will be applied at the final total.

We normally only sail into Santander as it is a 24hr crossing and then go straight to Cabarceno Aire near the zoo in the village, only a 20 minute drive from the port, nice little village with a couple of decent restaurants and a couple of bars also a zoo, Free parking out of high season, fresh water available and grey/black water dump.

We always have a cabin so cannot give any info on the suitability of the lounge seating but I would imagine they would suffice for such a short crossing, we have not yet used the  "economie services" but from info received they are very basic and for a little extra one can have some comfort on the other ships available.

You will need a French adaptor for the sockets for charging you electrical equipment.

Thanks for your advice regarding the ferries and your kind offer to use your BF guest discount.

I've been told that the Pont Aven is the best ferry as it is the largest and most comfortable. Think I'll go for a cabin (a gal needs a bit of luxury occasionally).

Not sure what's going on with the ferry timetable at the moment but it seems to change every time I go on the website. Actually phoned them up and was reassured that I'm not going mad and that they are rearranging the sailing dates and vessels. Is that normal?

I stayed at Cabarceno Park last year. Felt right at home sleeping next to the elephants as I've spent a lot of time in Africa over the last 15 years. It really is a fantastic spot and, as you say, the local village restaurants are very good.

Thanks again for your help.

We are going first time for us on the Santander ferry. We booked an outside cabin as we didn't fancy sitting in a recliner all night, did that on a plane once not too comfortable.
we booked with cc&c club same price was able to use my tesco cc card, got my tesco points and 7% off our return.
 Return ferries timetable not available till end July or August for 2015 so had to register to get a return for April.