Newhaven to Dieppe ferry with DFDS Transmanche

My first time crossing the English Channel on DFDS from Newhaven to Dieppe. With the sea calm and the sun shining, I think this is going to be a great way to start a series of adventures on the trains of Europe with my 1st Class Interrail pass… but the trains are for another day. For now, let’s cruise across “Lan Manche”.

Departure: Newhaven, England, UK
Destination: Dieppe, France
Distance: 121 km / 75 miles
Duration: 4 hrs
Average speed: 30 km/h 19 mph

Foot passenger, one way ticket: £31.00 / €36,00

Date of Travel: December 2023
Operator: DFDS Seaways
Motive power: MS Côte D’Albâtre. Built: HJ Barreras, Spain. Maiden voyage: 2006

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Now that’s New Haven Town station where I would have got the train over from eastborn but no trains today cuz Southern uh have uh engineered a rail strike so uh yes I got a lift from my good friend Paul and I’ve been staying with him and Debbie yes so now uh it’s

Time to catch the ferry from New Haven to DF well I’m squinting into this beautiful December sunshine and uh coming across to New Haven the sea out there is calm flat calm so uh I’m really looking forward to a lovely Crossing from here in New Haven to deep with

Dfds uh I’ve never been with dfds before if you watch this channel I think I’m mostly on Stenner so um yeah it’ be a nice trying to uh try out dfds and see how they go so uh yeah come along and we will see how it goes the foot passenger

Check-in is right next to New Haven Town station which is very handy and although the architectural style could be described as large Porter cabin the interior does provide a pleasant enough place for the modern traveler to wait there’s the check-in desk where all the formalities were completed with ease and

Some marketing for the San Maritime region and also places to get on with some work if you need to this sailing is going to be incredibly quiet there’s just a few of us dotted around the waiting area and we are soon called forward for a passport check and a random bag

Search passengers with lots of bags will have them taken on and off in the little baggage tug but I’m traveling light today no American football on this Trip well I expected the bus to into the ship as I’ve seen so many times before but this operation is old school and we get to walk in along the vehicle ramp which certainly Begins the sailing with a slight sense of occasion well I’ve never seen so few

Vehicles on a ferry there seems to be about half a dozen hiding at the back and that’s it there is a lift but let’s climb the stairs to the passenger decks and we pop out on Deck six near the restaurant but it’s too early for lunch

And besides all I want to do is get on deck and enjoy this beautiful sunshine here’s some stairs up to deck seven so let’s keep going up so yeah uh here we are New Haven the uh the boarding process was uh very smooth but I suppose that’s probably not

Hard when you’ve got about 10t passengers to get on and uh hardly any Vehicles as you probably saw on the uh walk up the vehicle deck was very empty and it’s a very cold December day and it’s absolutely gorgeous I’m looking forward to seeing the White Cliffs of

The South Downs over there to my left we should get some absolutely gorgeous views as we leave the UK and steam over to France so the journey is going to take about 4 hours it’s due to leave here at 11:00 a.m. and then arrive in France at 4: p.m. French time so that’s

A 4-Hour Crossing and uh yeah I’m really looking forward to it already the wandering around the ship yeah these these ships are definitely a bit older than uh some of the other ships I’ve used on Crossings with Stenner but I’m happy with that let’s just see how good

The lunch is how how well she rides and how comfy the seats are inside but most of the time let’s just stay out here and watch the world go by looking out across the channel or lar it’s about as still as a mil pond so I couldn’t be better

Really looking forward to this and uh I think I’ve waffled on too much so uh hopefully I’ve got enough shots that I’ve covered up most of this talk with uh some much more interesting things to see than my um Ruby face let’s press on and uh I’ll see you a bit further into

The journey the ferry port at New Haven sits on the banks of the Rivero so the first order of the day is to back the ship out of the river’s mouth it was the coming of the Railway in 1847 which led to the provision of a regular cross Channel ferry to deep in

1853 and the London Brighton and South Coast Railway started its own steamer service in 1863 looking down on the approaches is New Haven Fort which was completed in 1871 it is now a preserved site and open the public I just hope those guns up there aren’t

Loaded and once we get beyond the break water it will be time to complete our maneuver and the ship can start sailing forwards you know I don’t think I’ve ever been on a sea that is this calm and the first view as we begin to

Speed away is of New Haven and its close neighbor Seaford and as the heading of the ferry isn’t actually directly south to France but rather to to the southeast will hug this chalk down Coastline for quite some time and the first big lump of chalk we get to see is Seaford head

And it’s so still today there’s a visible clear division between the silty river water and the Sea whilst this Coastline passes by let’s talk a little bit more about the ferry well the MS coat delbra was built in Spain for Trans mulge feries and had a maiden voyage in 2006 both this ship

And her sister ship the Seven Sisters were built to serve this route and are the maximum size that could be accommodated at the New Haven Harbor on board there’s space for 224 cars 75 Freight vehicles and 600 passengers including 196 beds in her 50 cabins and with one last lingering look at beachy

Head we now chug out into the Open Sea and that’s my cue to get into the warm and get myself a coffee bar corneal on Deck 7 is a great place for a coffee even though the tabletops do look a bit worn however the double height design is pretty impressive

Right let’s go down to deck six and do a quick tour down here off the salon are the comfortable recliners if you fancy a quick nap and forward of that is the restaurant mopas where I should be getting my lunch quite soon forward of the restaurant is the main

Reception and beyond that are the cabins and as you can see dfds has continued to use the trans Munch branding there is an upper restaurant area but with so few passengers it’s been cordoned off and on the other side is an unused bar a few lackluster games machines and

The saddest pair of shot windows I think I’ve ever seen and finally there’s a small dutyfree shop but as I’m traveling very light I have decided not to buy either the Union Jack Teddy nor the London branded watering can as you might expect there wasn’t a

Queue at the restaurant and I got served fairly quickly just a bit of time to kick back and listen to my American football podcast the podcast was entertaining and the lunch was nice and it was great to sit down but The Lure of the outside was just too

Great one of the great things about the ship is there’s loads of deck space spread over a number of levels for what is a comparatively small Ferry well more than half way to France now uh looking back I can’t make out the White Cliffs of the South down so uh

Yeah we’re moving along quite well so yes it’s an old ship it’s certainly even on such a calm day as this it has a bit of a move on it so I suspect stabilization isn’t quite as good as uh more modern crafts so you know bring a

Sick bag if it’s uh if it’s going to be a rough Crossing anyway yeah halfway here so uh yeah I’ve just had a lovely time really chilling out out on the boat and I will continue to do so for the next hour or so before we get to deep

I’ll be uh looking out and I suppose in the modern world you check out how close are we to the French Coast when uh your phone suddenly picks up some French signal so uh yeah I’m uh I’m en enjoying what is really with the weather like

This not so much of Ferry Riders just an afternoon’s Cruise across Lon see you in deep Hello France with the sun going down I was extremely pleased I had my thick Under Armor base lay underneath my ski jacket I would have hated to have missed these views of the French Coastline on account of being too cold to stay Outside there appears to be more chalk Cliffs here so I suspect there’s a fairly close geological relationship between the two coastlines oh and also shyed viewers will be able to spot the ponle pwr nuclear power plant which is just 6 M north of deep as we enter the dock let’s

Talk about what I paid for this Crossing well as a foot passenger I bought a ticket about a month in advance and paid £31 for my journey today which I think is a pretty fair price had I needed to be in Paris tonight onward train tickets can be as low as

£450 which would still leave time to have dinner in deep before arriving in Paris before 9:30 p.m. judging by the look of it it’s a decent walk from here to the town center but still it’s lovely weather and I’m in no rush right well they’ve asked all foot

Passengers to go down to deck six down by the dutyfree shop so uh off we go down there Then and off we go by the rear-facing escalator and our little band of Travelers takes a short bus ride to the terminal building to find finally gain entry to France and that’s it I’d brought the right paperwork and I answered all their questions correctly so here I am in

France ready for more Adventures on the tra train with my interrail ticket but first I’ll have to negotiate the walk along the busy road that you always seem to get when you’re a foot passenger on a ferry good afternoon from the key side here at Deep Well we disembarked very

Quickly and went through passport control no problem so I’m just on the walk down into the town itself where I’ll be staying tonight as one of the bonuses and one of the problems of course of traveling in December is it gets dark quite soon so I’ll call it a

Day here and um travel on tomorrow so anyway if you’ve uh if you enjoyed this little trip on the ferry then uh do come back and uh join me again so best thing to do is subscribe to the channel and then you got less chance of missing

Things I’m going to check into my hotel now get something to eat and um yeah in the next video we’ll catch up with me and uh see where I go next but in the meantime from the key side here in deep goodbye and thank you very much for watching