Travelling to Santander on the ferry

Hi I am new to the site and contemplating travelling on the Ferry next year to Santander with my Collie. I am aware that you can book pet friendly cabins so that my dog can stay with me for the whole journey. I wondered if anyone has had experience of using them? What should I expect and is it a good way of travelling with your beloved pet? My Collie has only ever travelled on the eurotunnel before staying in the car with me and is quite a nervous dog.
Any advice or personal experiences would be very welcome.

Thanks

Sue

Hi Sue - I am sorry that I cannot help you as I do not know anything about Santandar or any other type of transporting pets, but hopefully someone will be along soon who will be able to help you.

In the meantime

I've heard some marvellous reports about travelling with dogs on ferries nowadays. Is it Brittany Ferries from Plymouth or Pompey? There is another ferry operator who goes to Santander. All the info with photos was on the websites when I checked recently.

They even have cameras on those I was looking at so you can 'check on your dog'.

Here's their website with the pet travel info

http://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/in...-travel-scheme

http://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/in...riendly-cabins

Hi Tang Thanks for the information, much appreciated.

Sue

Hello and a warm welcome from Moyra and Amber Sorry cannot help you with regard to travel.

I'm considering the very same route next year so would be interested in replies. From reading the blurb it seems the pet friendly cabins on one of the ferries has a size limit so it might mean the kennel section for my dog. There is also the price of the fare to consider but it would be quicker than driving through France and easier if you didn't fancy the drive!

And a HELL of a lot cheaper than flying them! I still have it under consideration to move to mainland Europe one of these days purely because of the ease with which I could travel with my dog on her EU pet passport compared with having to fly her while living on a small island.

That's true although my pal in Oz flies her dogs to shows, to be mated, they're much better travelled than I am lol.

We did the return journey in Sep travelling Portsmouth to Santander. The Cap Finistere has dog friendly cabins which were unfortunately all spoken for when we made our booking. Our two had to travel in the kennels on the top deck. The kennels are fine, 4 large and 8 small on top of the big ones, they are stainless steel and roomy but you need to take your own bedding, food and bowls, water is supplied. The kennels are in a small room and you get a code to open the door so you can go in whenever you want. There is a deck area to walk the dogs, some of which is covered. The day we travelled over was glorious so we spent most of the journey on deck sitting in the sun with the dogs . Only problem there is anyone can use this deck so non-dog owners were sitting there as well, taking the chairs, which I thought was a bit of a cheek! Not like there isn’t plenty of deck area elsewhere! Dog cabin users have a different area of deck which is much better, and bigger, and I would definitely try and get a cabin with the dogs next time, particularly as one of mine got really stressed and howled whenever we left them in the kennels .

The other ferry, the Pont Aven doesn’t allow dogs in the cabins but there are a lot more kennels. The dog walking area on that boat is a reasonable size but none is under cover and it is very noisy and bluddy freezing in the winter. I would always go for the dog friendly cabin if I had the choice. If you have a nervous dog he/she might get stressed being in a kennel next to a dog like mine! Mine do quieten down after 5 minutes but they have had dog neighbours that have just barked non-stop. We’ve done the journey a few times and most of the dogs we’ve seen seem to cope with it really well.

A cautionary warning if you do decide on the journey, double/triple check your dog’s chip number against the passport. We were held up by the car in front of us as they obviously had a problem. They dog was scanned 3 times, then compared with the passport, and they obviously didn’t match as they sent them off to the Spanish vet down the road (which didn’t open for another hour). Not sure if they made it back in time, but you can’t afford to miss the boat when you have a dog with you coming back into the UK.

Tikali that's excellent advice and info for the OP. Well done for posting it.