Ferry to Northern Ireland

In article <[email hidden]>, Jo
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I am planning to do a short tour of the Antrim Coast sometime in the spring.
I would really rather go by ferry. I thought that would be easy, but it
seems the available ferries either don't carry cycle or foot passengers, or
are priced as if you are taking a car. Any ideas?

Phone the Ferry operators and ask them?

Rob Morley said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Jo
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I am planning to do a short tour of the Antrim Coast sometime in the spring.
I would really rather go by ferry. I thought that would be easy, but it
seems the available ferries either don't carry cycle or foot passengers, or
are priced as if you are taking a car. Any ideas?

Phone the Ferry operators and ask them?

A phone grandad? What's that?

Jo said:

I am planning to do a short tour of the Antrim Coast sometime in the
spring. I would really rather go by ferry. I thought that would be
easy, but it seems the available ferries either don't carry cycle or
foot passengers, or are priced as if you are taking a car. Any
ideas?

Possibly because cycles are carried free?

http://www.nimountainbiking.com/travel_transport.cfm

--

Geoff

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:25:49 GMT

Jo said:

I am planning to do a short tour of the Antrim Coast sometime in the
spring. I would really rather go by ferry. I thought that would be
easy, but it seems the available ferries either don't carry cycle or
foot passengers, or are priced as if you are taking a car. Any ideas?

I had a somewhat similar problem booking travel to .nl last year.
I eventually found what I wanted (train+ferry) from the excellent
rail travel site, http://www.seat61.com/

Anecdote at http://bahumbug.wordpress.com/2007/03/31/non-air-travel/

(BTW, that route has become luxury travel at an economy price.
They were revamping it and replacing the older boats with two
huge and very nice ones at the time of that blog entry. For
my experience, see blog entries for April/May).

[1] That's changed now:-)

--
not me guv

In article <[email hidden]>, marc
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Rob Morley said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Jo
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I am planning to do a short tour of the Antrim Coast sometime in the spring.
I would really rather go by ferry. I thought that would be easy, but it
seems the available ferries either don't carry cycle or foot passengers, or
are priced as if you are taking a car. Any ideas?

Phone the Ferry operators and ask them?

A phone grandad? What's that?

A thing for txt msgng apparently.

GeoffC said:

Jo said:

I am planning to do a short tour of the Antrim Coast sometime in the
spring. I would really rather go by ferry. I thought that would be
easy, but it seems the available ferries either don't carry cycle or
foot passengers, or are priced as if you are taking a car. Any
ideas?

Possibly because cycles are carried free?

http://www.nimountainbiking.com/travel_transport.cfm

To the OP ... from the Stena website, foot passengers are accommodated.
From the website above, it seems that foot passengers can carry bikes free.

You don't give any indication of a preferred departure point. Stena do
Stranraer - Belfast. P&O do Troon - Larne. There's Fleetwood to ???

For the Antrim coast, Larne would get you twenty miles closer (to the
Antrim coast) than would Belfast; and those 20 miles would be no great
cycling loss.

Last year I travelled (by car) Belfast - Stranraer and return. Two
points: (i) they requested that I arrive at least one and a half hours
before sailing time --- in fact half an hour would have been adequate,
and on the return queueing up 1.5 hours early only caused hassle and we
had to queue up twice; (ii) there's a Seacat and a slower ferry --- if
you've booked a ferry and you arrive before a Seacat is to sail, ask
nicely and you'll get upgraded to Seacat for no extra charge. I didn't
see any bikes on those sailings, so I cannot confirm the carriage of bikes.

Again regarding Stena, it seemed to me that sailings are unlikely to be
full (that was in early July), so if you wanted to travel based on a
decent weather forecast, you could book at short notice; I'm a fair
weather cyclist 🙁

Best regards,

Jon C.

Jonathan Campbell said:

Again regarding Stena, it seemed to me that sailings are unlikely to be
full (that was in early July),

A couple of years ago I returned from a tour in Ireland on the Belfast
- Stranraer ferry 8am sailing. I hadn't booked and found out at the
terminal that it was the day of a Rangers v Celtic match in Glasgow.
The ferry was fully booked including passenger spaces. Enough people
that had booked didn't turn up that I still got on though.

So I would say the only dates bookings are required are either Old
Firm games or the 11th of July going to Belfast (the big Orange walk
in Belfast is on the 12th) or the friday before the 12th of July from
Belfast to Stranraer (northern Irish Orangemen going to the big walk
in Glasgow which is the Saturday before the 12th).

Even on these dates you are likely to get on with no shows but a
booking might be advisable if you were connecting with transport
elsewhere.

Iain

Jo

I did the Antrim Coast and its a great ride.

In 2005 I went across to Belfast but could find no direct trips from England
taking cycles. I believe you can from Stranrar to Larne.

To get to Belfast you can go from Liverpool on the Isle of Man ferry. You
get a 1/2 day stop in Douglas and I used it to cycle up the coast and have a
look at the Laskey Big Wheel.

Then back to Douglas for the Belfast ferry arriving at about midnight.

Let me know if you find any better routes as I'm planning to get across for
the CTC AGM in belfast in March.

Best regards

Rod

"Jo" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I am planning to do a short tour of the Antrim Coast sometime in the
spring.
I would really rather go by ferry. I thought that would be easy, but it
seems the available ferries either don't carry cycle or foot passengers,
or
are priced as if you are taking a car. Any ideas?

Rod King said:

Jo

I did the Antrim Coast and its a great ride.

In 2005 I went across to Belfast but could find no direct trips from
England taking cycles. I believe you can from Stranrar to Larne.

Stranraer is not in England either.