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No SailRail beyond April?
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I think it may take March to finish before they load May and June. Stena Line only offer it 3 weeks out by phone, but they do check the train times for you.
Personally I don't think it's really advantageous to book too far out. If you're thinking about the Dublin Swift ferry then I'd only book it a few days in advance looking at the wave height forecast. It's easily cancelled if the waves are too high.
Personally I don't think it's really advantageous to book too far out. If you're thinking about the Dublin Swift ferry then I'd only book it a few days in advance looking at the wave height forecast. It's easily cancelled if the waves are too high.
It looks like Stena Line are charging more for afternoon sailings (some Estrid crossings are completely sold out this week) and they've bumped up the prices for sail and rail offerings too.
Irish Ferries don't seem to be offering Sail and Rail as an option for their afternoon sailing at all on the Oscar Wilde in April.
It Might be worth seeing if you can book Sail and Rail with Irish Rail in person or over the phone.
I used to prefer Stena Line, but their ships are significantly smaller in terms of carrying passengers compared to the Ulysses and Oscar Wilde. Their Stena Plus Lounge is way inferior to Club Class while offering it at inflated prices (€30 versus €21). You pay more to get substantially less.
After being turned away from the Nordica last March (having booked) due to having no room, the Ulysses was packed, but Club Class was available, it was quiet and the included offerings were comprehensive.
Irish Ferries don't seem to be offering Sail and Rail as an option for their afternoon sailing at all on the Oscar Wilde in April.
It Might be worth seeing if you can book Sail and Rail with Irish Rail in person or over the phone.
I used to prefer Stena Line, but their ships are significantly smaller in terms of carrying passengers compared to the Ulysses and Oscar Wilde. Their Stena Plus Lounge is way inferior to Club Class while offering it at inflated prices (€30 versus €21). You pay more to get substantially less.
After being turned away from the Nordica last March (having booked) due to having no room, the Ulysses was packed, but Club Class was available, it was quiet and the included offerings were comprehensive.
poffle
Member
Irish Ferries didn't offer SailRail on the afternoon sailing from Dublin as they were operated by a freight only ferry.
They've recently moved the. Oscar Wilde on to that slot. But it has also been moved off it to cover other routes during failures. They are using the Oscar Wilde as a factor in starting the Dublin Swift sailings later this year but as you say they are not offering SailRail on the Oscar Wilde on their website.
The Dublin Swift does offer SailRail.
Also as regards the original post it appears that there is moving 6 week window for SailRail tickets available for purchase.
Yes, the Epsilon has been returned. The only curious thing is that the Oscar Wilde is taking foot passengers on the Holyhead afternoon sailing (but still not offering sail and rail).
I can see them phasing out the Dublin Swift completely in the next year or so. This will probably be done after they get a suitable replacement for the Oscar Wilde on the Rosslare route. With the Oscar Wilde on the Holyhead route, they have the ability to offer a faster sailing time than typical conventional ferries. A sub-three hour crossing should be possible (maybe 2 hours 55/ 2 hours 50).
It's 2 hours 15 minutes on the Dublin Swift - but you have the penalty of it consuming a lot of fuel with little to no freight (the real money-maker), it's subject to frequent weather cancellations, only runs in the summer and unless the conditions are close to perfect, a fast craft crossing is going to be uncomfortable for some passengers (I suspect many taking a fast craft ferry for the first time would wing it and wouldn't bother taking any medication).
The Ulysses and Oscar Wilde together gives you capacity for over 4,000 passengers, nearly 6.5km of lane meters, stabilsation for passenger comfort, a negligible risk of cancellations and a better passenger experience with more facilitities over the Dublin Swift.
I can see them phasing out the Dublin Swift completely in the next year or so. This will probably be done after they get a suitable replacement for the Oscar Wilde on the Rosslare route. With the Oscar Wilde on the Holyhead route, they have the ability to offer a faster sailing time than typical conventional ferries. A sub-three hour crossing should be possible (maybe 2 hours 55/ 2 hours 50).
It's 2 hours 15 minutes on the Dublin Swift - but you have the penalty of it consuming a lot of fuel with little to no freight (the real money-maker), it's subject to frequent weather cancellations, only runs in the summer and unless the conditions are close to perfect, a fast craft crossing is going to be uncomfortable for some passengers (I suspect many taking a fast craft ferry for the first time would wing it and wouldn't bother taking any medication).
The Ulysses and Oscar Wilde together gives you capacity for over 4,000 passengers, nearly 6.5km of lane meters, stabilsation for passenger comfort, a negligible risk of cancellations and a better passenger experience with more facilitities over the Dublin Swift.
Trainbike46
Established Member
I'm assuming you're talking about Dublin-Holyhead?
I've recently experienced the Belfast-Liverpool route selling out for the first time (I ended up booking a flexible ticket on a different crossing), which surprised me as I've never seen that before!
It appears as though crossing by ferry is getting more popular, at least on some routes
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Yes, in relation to the OP asking about sail and rail on the route.
The Ulysses was wedged when I was unexpectedly on it last month. It was just fortunate that I arrived with just enough time to make it. I got on the 14:10 Holyhead to Dublin sailing by the hair on my chin. I don't know what would have happened if it had departed. I'm not sure they would have allowed me on the 14:45 Nordica even though I had booked it. They obviously oversold it that day.
I'd have always thought that the Belfast to Liverpool crossing would be popular. It's very convenient for a night crossing and you have just enough time to get a somewhat proper sleep. Plus there's actually a decent city at the end of the journey, unlike Holyhead. Though it's a shame there's no Sail and Rail offering.
Stena Line's afternoon sailing from Dublin to Holyhead is now sold out everyday this week except Friday, where the non-flexi foot passenger fare has been bumped up to cost €59.
That's mad for this time of year.
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Flying Snail
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They aren't showing as sold out for cars though, they keep separate allocations with priority to the higher yield freight and passenger cars.
I wouldn't reccomend it but I suspect that if you showed up you would probably be accommodated, it certainly was the practice in the past that extra foot passengers could be booked in by taking from available car allocation at the ticket desk.
Despite being much bigger ships than their predecessors on Holyhead and Liverpool routes the Stena e-flexers have a relatively low max passenger count at 925, considerably less than the Superfast X.
Hopefully the lack of Sailrail on the Oscar Wilde day sailings is temporary, she has the highest passenger capacity on the route and there is no good reason to take foot passengers but not sailrail. Sadly it seems they do not intend to take any foot passengers on the 20.15 from Holyhead or 02.00 from Dublin.
Oscar Wilde is, as it was always intended to be, the permanent ship for the second Holyhead rotation. If the current rumours about Irish Ferries buying the Spirit Of Britain from P&O are true they will soon be able to move one of their current Dover-Calais ferries to the Rosslare - Pembroke route so at least they have some sort of reasonable passenger capacity returned to both Irish sea routes.
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I see you're right about the cars.
I definitely wouldn't chance it without a ticket. I was kicked off their Holyhead to Dublin sailing as a foot passenger after having booked it a few weeks in advance. They were transferring passengers onto the Ulysses as they had over-booked the sailing. Only the Stena Adventurer has a reasonable passenger capacity for a busy crossing at 1,500 and none of its crossings are sold out for foot passengers.
I'm not a fan of the e-flexers at all. I think they are poorly made. There's far too much engine vibration on the Estrid particularly in the delux cabins. It's extremely poor for such a new vessel. The WB Yeats was built roughly around the same time and you'd barely know you're moving in comparison.
Yes, the 02:00 sailing could be a good one. It may even be possible to make the 05:48 Holyhead to Euston train. I've found it's not possible on the 02:15 Dublin to Holyhead Stena sailings that I've previously taken. In theory you should be able to board much earlier too via the gangway instead of having to be bussed on at the last minute. You could be in your cabin before 01:00 as opposed to 02:00 - which does make quite a difference on a short crossing.
Even if you could take the 20:15 Holyhead to Dublin sailing as a foot passsenger there's no bus to bring you out of the terminal at that time of night. It's taxi, cycle or make the long walk.
My preference used to be Stena Line but the last two return sailings from Holyhead have been a disaster with the first one being the bus operated by Nolan's Coaches not showing up on time causing me to miss my train connection back home and then the March over-capacity issue. My recommendation has now switched to Irish Ferries as a result. Their earlier Holyhead to Dublin afternoon crossing means you don't run much risk of missing your train connection.
Is it not possible to walk from Irish Ferries Terminal 1 to Stena Line Terminal 2 and catch the 00:10 FerryLink bus 853 from there?
Was there any sort of financial reimbursement as a result of this?
You're right. I missed that when I was looking at the Nolan Coaches timetable. It should be okay if it was on time.
Nope, they just put me on the Ulysses and that was that.
I don't know what would have happened if that wasn't an option.
Cloud Strife
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The Oscar Wilde (ex-Tallink Star) is certainly capable of it, as it did the 80km Tallinn-Helsinki in around 2 hours, so 3 hours for Holyhead-Dublin is well within her capabilities. I'd expect them to match the Ulysses sailing time for marketing purposes however, as well as keeping people spending on board.
But there is something else in the mix: Dublin Swift is perhaps worth it from a marketing point of view. She doesn't require a huge amount of crew, and they can fit in two departures/arrivals at normal times with her.
There's also the fact that the Oscar Wilde might not stay on Dublin-Holyhead due to her very limited lane capacity. She was designed for Tallinn-Helsinki with huge amounts of foot passengers at the expense of freight capacity, and there's no real way to change that. Until Irish Ferries can get their hands on a ship capable of moving huge amounts of freight, I'd expect the Swift to stay where she is, especially as crewing costs are really quite low and they can (and do) charge a premium for the Swift.
The other thing is that the Oscar Wilde has plenty of cabin capacity, something that isn't needed/wanted for Dublin-Holyhead.
duesselmartin
Established Member
reading this I really get the impression Irish Ferries have gone down the hill over the years. Back in the 90s it felt superior over Stena Sealink.
Maybe, but Stena Line are pricing themselves out of it with overbooking on smaller capacity ships and a much poorer lounge service. Their refits though do look nice.
The Swift doesn't really add freight capacity (maybe a few Screwfix vans use it) and it's prone to frequent cancellation if the wave height gets too much. I guess you mean that having the Swift removes cars from the Ulysses and Oscar Wilde to allow more freight on those ferries?
You're probably right about its marketing usefulness. In the past when I have chosen Irish Ferries over Stena Line it has come down to the faster times on the Swift. I do think that a faster Oscar Wilde service with its greater amentities would still give it a competitive advantage over the slower Stena Line ships.
I do wonder why she has so many cabins if she was designed for Tallinn to Helsinki?
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I was wondering that...storage space for people coming back from a cheap grocery shop in Estonia?
Hmm. My (very limited) experience was the reverse.
nwales58
Member
The structure of Ireland-GB traffic has changed though. Transit traffic has dropped and looks unlikely to come back. So the HGV to car, and therefore passenger, ratio has fallen.
CLdN and others now have 8000 lane metre vessels for unaccompanied trailers running between Ireland, Zeebrugge and the like which means much lower costs once the logistics people have reworked around the disadvantage of frequency and not having your own driver in charge all the way.
I'd see timetable, number of rotations you can produce and sell as main criteria. Slower sailing is now the norm to reduce the fuel bill, unless you can squeeze and use another trip in the day.
Points to leasing it out and leasing in something with better parameters. I have no detailed knowledge but their recent channel adventure looks utterly opportunistic at getting turnover out of the assets.
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Cloud Strife
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Yes, this is probably why the Swift will remain for a while. The higher fuel costs are outweighed by the low crewing requirements combined with a rather unorthodox approach to accommodating them at night, and tourist traffic generally wants to be on and off as quickly as possible.
One problem is that Irish Ferries seem somewhat unwilling to actually use the amenities that the ship has, and I'm not convinced that they can ever attract the number of passengers needed to open them.
My understanding of the route is that she was originally designed to cover both Tallinn-Helsinki and Tallinn-Stockholm, as well as providing the possibility of offering overnight stays in Tallinn. Tallink have (for many years, as have other companies) offered overnight cruises to Tallinn: you can get dinner on the boat, sleep in a cabin (in Tallinn harbour) overnight, then on the way back, do your shopping and get it delivered to your car. These are normally attractively priced, and a quick look shows that you can go next Monday on such a cruise for as little as 40 Euro. Usually you can disembark and visit Tallinn for a few hours at night too.
The thing with these routes is that people normally don't take their cars, and a lot of freight goes directly from Germany to Helsinki rather than going through Poland and the Baltics.
They haven't bought Oscar Wilde yet, and I suspect they won't bother. These ex-Baltic ferries are surprisingly difficult to pass on to the second hand market, as Tallink are finding out with many of their surplus vessels.
Ah I see about the cabins. The cabins are useful to sub in for the WB Yeats on the Cherbourg route.
I'd be pretty confident they will buy the ship. They just painted the funnel on the Blue Star ferry as they had no intention of purchasing it. They have repainted the entire Oscar Wilde and they have a purchase clause in the hire contract. I'd be surprised if they let it go.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
From my experience of that part of the world, it's probably because they need somewhere to sleep it off...