In the P&O yearly report I received yesterday they stated that they are to discontinue the Portsmouth Le Havre ferry service in November.Anybody who might have been thinking of using this service will have to look for an alternative.Apparently they are loosing money bigtime on all cross channel services although the number of travellers as a whole has increased.
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Proposal to sell the route to Brittany Ferries was stymied on competition grounds. So now there's no Le havre route and still no competition fo Brittany Ferries onthe Western Channell.
According to one of the shipping mags there are plans by local/regional French administration to bankroll a new operator in same sort of way as was done on Dieppe-Newhaven. Don't know if anything will come of it though.
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Le Havre is one of the least usefully sited French ports that offers no advatages over any others. Its usefull for only a small part of France that is not better served by other ports
(Caen for instance)
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Doesn't address the lack of competition in the western channel though. Agree that Cherbourg and Caen are a better bet than smelly old Le Havre.
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I've only used Porsmouth Le-Havre twice; the second and most recent was for a Loire valley motorbike trip, but the first was for a stag do! Living in Portsmouth at the time, the groom decided (correctly in my opinion) that a duty free floating night club complete with live music, followed by a day in France before repeating (pun intended!) on the way home was a better better than a few hours in "Joanna's".
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The Portsmouth / Caen night ferry is full of blokes (and gals) doing this.
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I think RF is right. It was a good route before BF introduced the Caen service. We used it ex Southampton inthe 70's, both Normandy Ferries and Townsend Thoresen. Caen has better motorway access. There's an analogy between Le Havre and Boulogne. It will need an new operator with a unique selling point (as Speedferries have) to bring any prospect of recovery.
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I used the Le Havre-Portsmouth-Le Havre a couple of weeks ago, partly (ok, mainly) because P & O seems to be almost giving crossings away at the moment and Brittany wanted over 500 quid.
Nothing has changed though. Le Havre is still inconvenient unless you are going straight to Paris and P & O still leaves late and arrives at the other end even later. When Brittany leaves late they tend to make up time en route but P & O seems to have the British rail operators' mentality - if you're running a bit late then don't even bother to try, just make an announcement and say you're 'sorry'. The food on P & O was still rubbish too. I felt quite envious when we were in Portsmouth, sitting in the run down bar of the Pride of Le Havre, with a Portugese waiter who didn't seem to understand English or French, and I looked over at the next berth where Brittany's Mont St Michel was preparing to leave for Caen and people were lounging under parasols on the bar terrace, no doubt waiting for the piano player to strike up. It's a shame Brittany will have no competition in future on the Western Channel, so prices will rocket even higher and Ryanair will pick up even more trade, but P & O just hasn't tried hard enough...
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Last P & O sailing from Portsmouth to Le Havre is 30th September 2005, according to a circular I had this last week.
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I used the Le Havre-Portsmouth-Le Havre a couple of weeks ago, partly (ok, mainly) because P & O seems to be almost giving crossings away at the moment and Brittany wanted over 500 quid.
I absolutely agree, although I paid full wack £500 to take my car over back in the middle of August.
P&O boats are run-down, the staff have a demoralised attitude, the boats leave late and arrive late, and the food and service is carp.
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Living within reasonable distance from Dover, (ie, equidistant between Dover/Portsmouth) I am still happy to drive from Calais down to Bretagne. It's a good motorway, plenty of decent stopping places and a chance to drive over the pretty spectacular Pont de Normande. I have even sailed to Dunquerque to do the same drive when I couldn't get a Dover/Calais ferry. I also happen to like a big boys breakfast in Langans on P&O to set me up for the journey. Crisp white napery, waiters done up like penguins in the black suits and white shirts, then a relax in the "£10 a pop lounge" away from all the mulleted dads, tattoo'd wives and their offspring necking drinks as fast as they can. Snob? Moi?
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Langan's? Oh yes, I remember, that's what they used to just call 'the restaurant'?
Thank heavens no one will ever call me a snob for declining to pay 13 quid for a breakfast.
Maybe the waiters done up like penguins and the rest of it is just what is driving P and O off the western channel.
If that's what you think a channel crossing should be about, then enjoy it while you can...
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well...I include the short ferry journey as PART of the holiday. They do say "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive". I enjoy a damn good breakfast in civilised surroundings. If it was crap I wouldn't pay the money. I like the idea that P&O is offering a choice, after all, airlines do it too at a premium. I ain't too keen on a lounge stinking of beer and fags with loads of kids running around. Sets me up nice and calm and in the holiday mood for a decent french motorway drive.
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Best ferry food by miles is on Norfolk Line, Dover to Dunkerque.
Crossing was a bit long and port layout and signage at Dunkerque positively awful - but it was cheap for the car + caravan.
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Well, I live in the north (no, not the bit around Manchester - the real north of England, Cumbria) and I gave up driving all those hours south to get to France a few years back. I now take an easy drive to Hull and then P&O to Zeebrugge or Rotterdam (if bound for Holland/Germany etc.) A reasonably decent meal, a good sleep in a cabin, a shower and a full breakfast sets me up for the drive ahead. Expensive? Well at least I don't have pay for all that petrol or for any extra accommodation.
... and since I can pay for the whole thing with Tesco vouchers redeemed at 4x their face value - I'm a happy camper! :-)
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As a P&O stock holder the hull rotterdam is still over priced and the food is a discrace ,the breakfasts used to be something to look forward to but now it is slop.The cabins cost £80 each way plus the car and passengers,you still buy a lot of petrol for that.Leaving from Bradford it is far quicker to and cheaper (more tiring I agree)to drive to Dover and get a cheap crossing as I do this at least 5 times a year the savings are quite large.In fact I go out of my way never to use P&O ,Norfolk line is the cheapest,Seacat is the best or if there is an offer on the tunnel takes some beating.
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In the P&O yearly report I received yesterday they stated that they are to discontinue the Portsmouth Le Havre ferry service in November.Anybody who might have been thinking of using this service will have to look for an alternative.Apparently they are loosing money bigtime on all cross channel services although the number of travellers as a whole has increased.
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I noticed this when I travelled back from Le Havre in the middle of August. It now seems that there is a complete monopoly situation for travel from the south coast to France with Brittany Ferries. I think it is a very poor show on the part of P&O ferries who are discontinuiong the routes because their profit margin has dropped below about 90% !! I think the transport regulator should step in and tell P&O that they cannot 'cherry pick' routes in this way. In the telecomms business it is like this if you apply for a national license to provide services by and large.
For a lot of people Dover is just not convenient and also lands in the wrong part of France too. But it seems that Brittany Ferries can now name their price for the Portsmouth crossing !!
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IIRC Brittany Ferries was set up by the local French farmers due to the existing fares at the time being uncompetitive. Presumably there is nothing stopping the people who are inconvenienced doing the same thing - I think it use to be called capitalism.
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The problem for P&O is that they are not making any money on any cross channel car ferries according to their balance sheet.
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