patontheback

Hi all

Can any one tell me what the sea crossing is like
From Portsmouth to Bilbao early December as my sea legs
Are not very good

Cheers

Retired in Euskadi

The Bay of Biscay can be so variable.
Try looking at the BBC website below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast_a...pping_forecast

Dick Dasterdly

How long is a piece of string?
You pays your money and takes your chances.

I have had some smooth as silk crossings in December.
The roughest I had was coming up to Mid-Summer.

Best bet for you is check out the forecast and book just a few days or week max in advance, but I realise this is not always possible for a number of reasons.

battlezone123

We have had really smooth crossings in December. But we have also had very rough crossings which took an extra 10 hours - and this was in September.

patontheback

Wow an extra 10 hours I don't think I would enjoy that!!!

MikeJ

The BF Portsmouth-Bilboa ferry stops at Roscoff after crossing the channel to change crews, it then hugs the French coast for most of the rest of the journey so doesn't actually cross the Bay of Biscay per se. We've only been on the Cap Finistere on that route and it's pretty well stabilised.

We once had a rough crossing across the BofB from St Nazaire to Gijon on the LD Lines ferry which is not a large boat and it was quite bearable as long as you didn't walk about too much.

Domino

I wish I could tell you.
Had a berth booked for mid-Dec 2011, but a little gale blew up and they cancelled at the last minute so came over on the Chunnel and drove.
And to be honest, I spent all my time driving through France as if I was in a boat, the wipers were on full for alot of the journey.
It only cleared up when I got to the Spanish boarder and as I got to Santander it had turned into a nice sunny day.

I hope you make it OK
kind regards

Mitzyboy

We've used that route a number of times in December and have not had a problem with rough seas, but of course it's possible we have been lucky. The Brittany Ferry ships are far better than the old P&O one with much more space on and off deck imho. Only down side imho is that the main restaurant is a la carte, theres not a snack bar restaurant other than the food market

Someone said the Brittany Ferry stops in Roskoff? I have to admit, the times we have been on it, that's never happened

EsuriJohn

We have had three rough crossings from Portsmouth to Spain. The worst in march 2009 and second worst in jan 2009 on the old P&O Pride of Bilbao they were bad enough to almost put KATH of the route altogether. We then transferred to Brittany and Pont Avon a bigger better stabilised ship and the next crossing Portsmouth / Santander was the thirds worst. Since then we have done many trips on Pont and Cap Finisterre and they have been fine almost better each time but that may be due to better stabilisation (the Cap in my view is the best) and the new routes closer to France . This has come about with a change in French Maritime rules that allow the right ship with a specially certified Captain to sail inside some offshore French Islands so that they hug the French coast. We now favour the Cap for the stabilisers and it finishes most crossings in Bilbao so it can stay well away from the worst of the storms that come in from the Atlantic to the Bay of Biscay where it is very deep.

Of course our last crossing should have been just that with the stopover in Rosscof but they were on strike so we had Ld Lines from Portsmouth Le Harve land bridge to St Nazaire then Ld Lines to Gijon. Both legs were fine in early October.

EsuriJohn

Cap does that on the Sunday evening crossing so you are on board for two nights doubles the chance of rough weather!

Dick Dasterdly

The Pont was taken back into the docks for modifications within a year or two of being built due to it's instability, even in a calm sea.

It may be better now, but I don't think it's brilliant and as mentioned the Cap seems about the best regarding stability.

patontheback

Thanks for the information I don't know if I would be
Better off coming through the tunnel I don't think there is
Much differents in price. What do you think?
Cheers

EsuriJohn

When we first drove down we used to use the tunnel and drive all the way. On one occasion we left MK at 04.45 and drove all the way to Irun arriving about 18.00 having driven the last 300km from Bordeaux in atrocious weather. The next day we did Irun to Ayamonte in about 12 hrs. It took me about 3 days to recover. The majority of the driving was done by my youngest son who also was washed out by the journey but not as bad as me.

When Kath and I did the long drive we settled into a pattern of leave MK at 06.00, 08.30 train then drive to Poiters overnight in a hotel alongside the motorway second day to Burgos hotel overnight alongside the motorway then last day to Ayamonte.

We did the sums and replacing the train and diesel & tolls and one overnight with the ferry made sense in cost terms. Despite Kath being a very poor sailor with those couple of exceptions I have mentioned we have had good trips and arrive much less worn.

angiescarr

I can't guess what the weather will be like but I do have one piece of advice. Do NOT fill your stomach with water (or beer) before of during the crossing. We made that mistake on a north sea crossing once and regretted it. We've never had that problem since because we keep the stomach empty. A little whiskey goes a long way as well on an empty stomach too! Cheap...and cheerful!

patontheback

This is turning into a tuff one at least I am leaving the
Car in Spain so I can fly back. I must say the drive
From the tunnel sounds a very hard slog I don't want it to turn into a 3 day journey. I think I would do 1 night in a hotel as I have to drive to Tarragona.
Do you know if the road side hotels have 24 hour check in?
Cheers