Best ferry across the North Sea

[Snow and Rocks]

We need to drive to Holland in mid July and looking at what the best route is at the moment.

Leaving from Northern Scotland in the Hilux and need to be there for lunchtime on a Friday. I did it once before by driving down and then taking the overnight Stena Harwich to Hoek boat which was quite pleasant and obviously saved a hotel. It is obviously quite a long way from Aberdeenshire to Harwich though.

Any other options people would recommend? I assume there aren't the same issues as at airports at the moment.

Edited by Snow and Rocks on Wednesday 8th June 14:54

[Dog Star]

I’ve used P&O Hull ferries for years, however I used DFDS Newcastle to Amsterdam a couple of months ago. The boat, the staff, the service and especially the restaurants and food were very very nice, so I’m converted.

From Hull or Newcastle you won’t find any issues really; there’s only one boat a day, the queues can only be a finite length ie a boat full.

I really recommend the DFDS crossing.

[Alorotom]

Newcastle to Amsterdam might work for you - its overnight too?

[Jamescrs]

I've done Hull to Rotterdam with P&O a couple of times now which is an overnight getting into Rotterdam at around 8am if memory serves me right, may be too far for you to drive down though?

I can definitely recommend P&O overnight, had a great crossing both directions every time.

[RizzoTheRat]

I did Hull-Rotterdam last week. Was slightly concerned after all the P&O debacle but the staff were lovely. Sails about 8:30 I think but you can board from mid afternoon so we'd had a couple of beers and were half way through dinner when it sailed. It's a bit of early start in the morning as they wake you up an hour and half before it docks in an attempt to sell you breakfast (they succeed), and I think it docked around 8am local time (so wakeup call was around 6am UK time). Took probably about 30 minutes from being called to the car to clearing passports but that's luck of the draw as to where you're parked. It was about an hour getting out at Hull going the other way. No queues getting on as it was spread out through the afternoon.

A colleague who's done both reckons the Hull ferry is much nicer than the Newcastle one, but I'm a bit uncomfortable about the way P&O have treated thier staff and would probably have gone with the Newcastle one if we hadn't already booked P&O.

Harwich is about 5 hours during the day or longer overnight, and sails a lot later, so you basically board and go to bed and get woken up far too early, but Hoek Van Holland is on the North East side of the Maas so if you're heading East it's a good half an hour less driving than getting out of the Hull-Rotterdam ferry which lands the other side of the river.

We've also done Dover-Dunkirk several times, couple of hours on the ferry and then, then about 3.5 hour drive the The Hague or 4 to Amsterdam

[MarkJS]

I’ve done DFDS from North Shields to Amsterdam and it was excellent.

[Snow and Rocks]

Thanks everyone, it sounds like they're all going to be good enough.

The Newcastle route would obviously be the closest but is ~£500 more expensive for the dates that we need so i think it'll have to be Hull despite the bad taste i have about P&O at the moment.

Harwich is cheaper still and was great last time but is just too far South i think.