Ferries....

Doran

Doran

Doran

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Joined
19 Apr 2008
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SE London
Does anyone use these anymore?

I'm going on the overnight to Hook in the Netherlands from Harwich. Its a bargain; including a cabin for the night and train from London to harwich and from Hook to Amsterdam is just £48.

Havnen't been on a ferry for over a decade. I am actually a bit nervous!
 
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Didn't you see from my post that I got a 'stupidly long night-haul'....

My view was that overnight, time is dead, so quicker than 3 hours in the day. Plus, I tend to get seasick quite easily and understand this is less of an issue when you are alseep.

The particular boat closes it doors at 11.30, where it stays for an hour and a half to allow everyone to get to sleep, and then it leaves at about 1 ish, and arrives in The Netherlands at 7.45am..
 
Booking a cabin is compulsory now, at least on the Stena Lines, so no worries there!

the price I got is standard, and not subject to less tourists at the moment.

I think its jsut because going to Netherlands is cheap; I looked at the cost of the ferries to France and they are really expensive!
 
Concorde Rules said:
Went across to France from Portsmouth on one at night.

Was so stormy I couldn't sleep so I went up on deck, sat in an area of warmth and sat there for hours. Was so peaceful after you knock out the sound of the engines, NOBODY about and can't see a think. T'was qualtity!!
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I'm going to find it hard not to do that, I think. Must be quite cool at night - I suppose at sea you can see quite a lot because it is otherwise so dark...

Whats annoying is that it doesn't leave the harbour till 1am, so if you do want to stay up, you've got to wait till then, and then get up really early!
 
I've actually just realised why I haven't been on a boat for so long. I almost have a phobia of them, lol.

The more I think about it the more I think I will be scared boarding the boat at night and sailing off into the darkness.

I just worry something bad will happen; I have had it ever since I had a serious car crash about two years ago where, in the night, I crashed on the motorway at about 90mph.

Anyone else have travelling fears? Any books i can read to help?

Thanks
 
Energize said:
Hence the lifeboats. Unless a bomb explodes taking out half the ship and leaving it looking like the titanic or a wave 50m high capsizes it, there will be plenty of time to get onto the lifeboats in the very unlikely event of an emergency.
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Not necessarily.

The Ro-Ro ferries don't have a brilliant safety record.

If for example, the doors are not properly sealed, water rushes in at such a pace it can roll the whole boat in less than 90 seconds as it did at the Zebrugger disaster. It was a similar problem for the Estonia ferry disaster, too, and 800 died in the middle of the night as a result.

I think now boats have bulkheads, which means that the water only goes in a specific part and they also have sensors telling them whether the doors are in fact closed. They also have better procedures for announcing an emergency, which is half the problem with Estonia as people weren't really told until it was too late. But I still worry a little bit, irrationally, of course.

The other risk is of collision; in the Channel there are about 2 incidents a year, mainly between commercial boats, but I do not know what would happen if there was a an incident involving a ferry...
 
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