D
Donald Dub
After a fantastic two weeks of touring France in the Cali we returned to Ouistreham for our return ferry on Sunday morning (19th July). Our experience on the ‘Normandie’ to Portsmouth was truly horrific.
The 45 minute checkin has now been extended to 90 minutes, but the reason for this was unclear on arrival. We boarded at the same time, the same speed and the same format as usual so don’t break your backs trying to get there too early folks. Beware the new blue stickers that they now place on the windscreen (in the drivers line of sight in my instance). They are not easy peel and are a devil to remove. The staff at the terminal in Caen were and absolute delight and the French customs official had us laughing at his jokes as he checked our passports.
All the jollity changed the moment we got on the ferry. The charmless staff were barking out orders from afar. We were not allowed to lower our van windows to talk to the ‘customer service’ woman (who signalled she wanted to speak to us) until all our masks were in place. She told us we could only remove our masks in our cabin and we must remain in our cabin ‘at all times‘. I asked if we could remove our masks if we went for a meal or a drink and she just shrugged her shoulders. We then bumped into an elderly British couple we had met at a campsite and as we talked a Brittany Ferries employee interrupted our conversation. At full shout he instructed her to put a muzzle on the dog she had with her. As she was explaining to the employee that the muzzle was in fact on and in place (you couldn’t see it because of the curly fur around it’s face) he shouted that he was ’not interested in her excuses‘ and she must put the muzzle on the dog immediately. It was a truly awful boarding experience.
All services on board were closed except for the restaurant which opened from midday to 1pm (we had planned having breakfast on board but that was not an option) and the bar was also open briefly. When the restaurant did open, the food was absolutely disgusting to the point of being inedible slop and, just to make all the mask wearing completely pointless, the cups and crockery were all dirty. Old lipstick and the remains of someone else’s dinner underneath your dinner is never that appealing.
Later I decided to go to the bar for a soft drink. I was the only person in the entire room save for one couple that had chosen to brave it out and and sit in the bar and consume the drink they’d purchased, against all the advice from the staff. As I approached the bar I inadvertently walked the wrong way alongside the temporary stretch-belt barrier. The bar women shouted at me and genuinely expected me to walk back and around the barrier and enter from the correct way even though she was 5m away and the brave couple were 20m away. I refused to do so and stood my ground. She raised her arms as if her entire world had ended right then and she reluctantly served me. The male partner of said brave coupled piped up from across the room and said ‘She was the same with us mate. She’s a Rottweiler’.
Our crossing from Hull to Rotterdam on P&O Ferries two week previously had been a fantastic experience. Everything was open as normal and the staff were truly fabulous. Brittany Ferries on the other hand have been going down hill for years and I think it will be curtains for them soon. They were only 1/4 full at most in my opinion with very little freight traffic. This is the last time I will ever use them.
My advice is that if you do have tickets booked with BF then take your own packed lunch/breakfast/dinner and drinks on board to consume in your cabin. If you are lucky enough to not have yet booked then choose an alternative option for the time being. Clearly Brittany Ferries want to keep all customers confined in their cabins for as long as possible as paying customers are simply a massive inconvenience to them.
The 45 minute checkin has now been extended to 90 minutes, but the reason for this was unclear on arrival. We boarded at the same time, the same speed and the same format as usual so don’t break your backs trying to get there too early folks. Beware the new blue stickers that they now place on the windscreen (in the drivers line of sight in my instance). They are not easy peel and are a devil to remove. The staff at the terminal in Caen were and absolute delight and the French customs official had us laughing at his jokes as he checked our passports.
All the jollity changed the moment we got on the ferry. The charmless staff were barking out orders from afar. We were not allowed to lower our van windows to talk to the ‘customer service’ woman (who signalled she wanted to speak to us) until all our masks were in place. She told us we could only remove our masks in our cabin and we must remain in our cabin ‘at all times‘. I asked if we could remove our masks if we went for a meal or a drink and she just shrugged her shoulders. We then bumped into an elderly British couple we had met at a campsite and as we talked a Brittany Ferries employee interrupted our conversation. At full shout he instructed her to put a muzzle on the dog she had with her. As she was explaining to the employee that the muzzle was in fact on and in place (you couldn’t see it because of the curly fur around it’s face) he shouted that he was ’not interested in her excuses‘ and she must put the muzzle on the dog immediately. It was a truly awful boarding experience.
All services on board were closed except for the restaurant which opened from midday to 1pm (we had planned having breakfast on board but that was not an option) and the bar was also open briefly. When the restaurant did open, the food was absolutely disgusting to the point of being inedible slop and, just to make all the mask wearing completely pointless, the cups and crockery were all dirty. Old lipstick and the remains of someone else’s dinner underneath your dinner is never that appealing.
Later I decided to go to the bar for a soft drink. I was the only person in the entire room save for one couple that had chosen to brave it out and and sit in the bar and consume the drink they’d purchased, against all the advice from the staff. As I approached the bar I inadvertently walked the wrong way alongside the temporary stretch-belt barrier. The bar women shouted at me and genuinely expected me to walk back and around the barrier and enter from the correct way even though she was 5m away and the brave couple were 20m away. I refused to do so and stood my ground. She raised her arms as if her entire world had ended right then and she reluctantly served me. The male partner of said brave coupled piped up from across the room and said ‘She was the same with us mate. She’s a Rottweiler’.
Our crossing from Hull to Rotterdam on P&O Ferries two week previously had been a fantastic experience. Everything was open as normal and the staff were truly fabulous. Brittany Ferries on the other hand have been going down hill for years and I think it will be curtains for them soon. They were only 1/4 full at most in my opinion with very little freight traffic. This is the last time I will ever use them.
My advice is that if you do have tickets booked with BF then take your own packed lunch/breakfast/dinner and drinks on board to consume in your cabin. If you are lucky enough to not have yet booked then choose an alternative option for the time being. Clearly Brittany Ferries want to keep all customers confined in their cabins for as long as possible as paying customers are simply a massive inconvenience to them.