It's the start of a holiday weekend. Luckily it’s only Monday that is the holiday but still I am worried that we will be burdened down the traffic trying to get to Portsmouth to get to the ferry. As such, for once, I have managed to convince my husband to leave work early so we have about 5 hours to drive about 1 ½ hours to the ferry terminal. We have everything ready to go as we have to take blankets and sheets and towels and cleaning products and such. I am taking drinks too and we’re taking a few things for food but will mainly buy there.
I am ready to go by 2 p.m. so load up the car and head to hubby's work. He won’t leave until 3 though so I move over to let him drive. I figure since I have to drive everywhere in France, it’s only fair that he drive to Portsmouth. Not sure he agrees but he is doing it. We get as far as Farnham and run into packed traffic plus we miss the roundabout because it’s got odd lanes so we have to go ½ mile down to the next one and back and that costs us a good 20 minutes. I’m hoping that it isn’t this way for the rest of the ride and luckily it isn’t. whew. We actually make fairly good time and don’t get into a lot of traffic until we get into Portsmouth when we almost take the wrong exit but manage to squeak into the correct lane to get to the port. So our 1 and 1/2 hour ride for which we had budgeted 5 hours took about 2 hours. You just never know! Everyone we talked to though said we were smart and if we had left as much as 1/2 hour later, it might have indeed taken us 5 hours to get there!
Once at the port, we are directed to the St. Malo ferry lines. There are already people there in line, two lines, maybe about 15 cars in each line already including people with campers they are pulling. So we were not the only people afraid of holiday traffic! Not sure when we will check in but doesn’t take too long before our line is moving and we get our hang tag for our windshield and two keys to our cabin. We are then directed to get into the ferry line but there is no one there doing the directing so we just get into a lane with cars in it already. Then we are welcome to exit the car and go to the terminal building.
Not really much in the terminal building but a small shop for snacks and such and we get drinks then a Costa coffee that is selling sandwiches and such. We walk out onto the overlook where we can see the ferries. There are a couple of Condor ferries at docks but no Brittany ferries so ours isn’t even here yet. There isn't really much to see except a port and it is windy and there are several children whose parents must feel that since it is a holiday weekend, they can run wild and scream as much as they want. Headache starting, so we go back inside and look at the ferry display and wait for announcements.
We think we hear a voice saying to please return to your car. It’s a PA system which hubby hates and which are always hard to understand but I go to the toilet and then we walk back to our car. Not there very long before the line next to us starts moving. Our line still has some absent drivers so most of us move over to the moving line. We move forward until we are at the front and waiting to go into the customs shed. Cars are in there and some have the trunks/boots open and others with the bonnet/hood open and one officer is sweeping a mirror under a car.
It is our turn and we drive to the front of the shed and give him our booking paper and our passports. He has us get out of the car and he looks in the back seats and under the seats then looks in the trunk. He has me get back in the car and has hubby open the hood. He just shines his flashlight all around and seems satisfied. Can't imagine what they are looking for under the hood/bonnet but they must have some experience with people trying to smuggle. So we are let go to get into another line for the wait for the ferry. At least there are a lot of people here to direct us and tell us which line. Now we wait but before too long we see our ferry arrive at the dock.
It is still a good ½ hour or more before cars start getting onto the ferry. Many car lines and a few truck and camper lines have gone on board. We are next to a line of parked semi-trailers and there is one empty space next to us. A big truck comes roaring up with a trailer and backs it into the space. He has to maneuver his truck next to us and comes within a few inches of hitting our car. He is quite a big thing to see out of our window as we are sitting there. All we can see is the grill of his engine. I think we were close to abandoning the car because he was getting so close and they wasn't anyway we could move the car. Luckily that was probably the scariest part of our trip.
Finally we are moving onto the ferry. We are climbing up onto a ramp which is over several levels of cars. We are guided to the far side and stopped with a good half car length between us and the car in front of us but there is barely any room on either sides of the cars so this length puts our car doors where we can just barely open them and squeeze out. A lady comes by and hands us a card that says what deck our car is parked. Helpful to have as we saw several people with it later, searching for their cars. We didn’t lose ours.
We get our overnight bags and the camera bag and head for the upstairs. We’re on level three and our cabin is level 6 and the restaurant is level 7. We wait for the elevator and find our room. One of the keys doesn’t work but the other one opens the door. We drop our bags, look out the porthole, and then go upstairs to the restaurant. There are already people in there seated but not too many. We get a table and a menu. It is a buffet with starters and salads and desserts but you pick your main dish that they bring to the table. I choose risotto and hubby picks quail. We get a small carafe of wine as well and some tap water.
So we go to the buffet and load up on yummy stuff of which it is mainly shrimp and langoustines, a relative of lobsters, but both are whole so you don’t get a lot of meat in them. Our mains come and I have a small round circle of risotto with a thin glass of sauce to pour over it. Quite yummy. Then we get a selection of desserts later. The desserts were probably the least tasty of them all. SO sad to have the dessert be the worst course of the meal.
By the time we have our mains; the boat has started moving and glides out of the Portsmouth harbor, past its huge sailboat sculpture tower and out into the channel. Supposedly the crossing will take about 9 hours. We walk around a tiny bit after dinner but can’t really find a door to go out on the deck. We had seen people out there as we were eating. Think the door was through the bar. There was a nice sunset as we left the harbor. The ferry offers different things to do like duty free shopping and movies and think there were other things for kids but not really interested in any of that. So we are off to Brittany for the week. going to have a lovely time, I'm sure and the crossing is quite smooth so a good start.
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