For a family summer trip, a small Europe tour is a ideal way to spend a vacation for all. While planning for Euro summer vacation, taking the ferry from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Newcastle, England would be a great schedule to include. In this article I will be introducing everything you will need to know about this ferry that crosses from Amsterdam to England.
This overnight ferry includes excellent entertainment for people of all ages, including a movie theater, live bar, duty-free shopping, and a great variety of food and dining. From my experience, I would highly recommend family planning trips on this ferry. I saw plenty of families with babies and elderly all together on board and enjoying a great time. There are also many people who are here for hiking trips, so that might be a great idea for you guys as well.
Transportation:
Starting from Amsterdam, the drive from the city center to the port takes about 50 minutes, for people who have cars, you could also bring the car onboard for extra pricing when you are booking the trip. This ferry will arrive at New Castle in the UK, you could take public transportation to go to your following destination or simply get an Uber. From New Castle to the closest big city Manchester will take about one hour by car.
Boarding:
Boarding time is usually three to four hours before departure, I would highly recommend checking in earlier and enjoying the sky bar on the ferry. The departure time was 6 pm, however, the ferry left already at 5:30 ish, so coming aboard last minute probably wasn't a good idea. According to what the Itinerary and reservation advice say: Check-in for passengers with vehicles closes 60 minutes prior to departure; check-in for foot passengers closes 45 minutes prior to departure. Also, I would recommend boarding earlier because you can unpack, and get familiar with the ferry. The floors and room arrangements are quite complicated so it's better to know where your room is and get familiar. People could also choose to book the luxury rooms which will include a launch where you can enjoy the great view of the ocean and unlimited drinks and snacks.
Visit this website for booking information.
Room:
For this trip, we booked a luxury room for three people, so our room was a king-size bed with a sofa bed for an extra person. A bathroom with a shower is also included in each room. The rooms are extremely nice and comfortable, however, staying in the room, you will feel the ship wobbling more than you feel it on the deck or in the dining area. For some people, it might be great as it puts you to sleep but for some, they might suffer a bit. If I were to explain exactly how it feels, it's like having an earthquake all night long. However, you know there is no danger so no need to worry. I would say I really impressed by how the room turned out, it was very comfortable and clean. However, since we were on stock 8, which is the same floor as the deck, people could see through the whole room from our big window if they were on the deck. And most of the time there would be people on the deck, so we always kept the curtains closed. Other than that, the room was perfect, just like rooms in five-star hotels.
Dining:
During this trip, breakfast and dinner would both be included. For dinner, there are two choices, you can have a set menu dinner or buffet. Based on which program you choose to take for dinner, the restaurant will be different so keep in mind to check where the restaurants are on the ferry. We chose to have buffet for both breakfast and dinner and it was the best choice we could make. Dinner had much more variety than I expected, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, and American, basically most of the things you expect you would get. If you choose to go to other restaurants, they would provide dishes in set menus. The price of different programs might as well be different so I would recommend deciding after checking the price.
Entertainment:
As I have mentioned, there are a lot of facilities and entertainment on the ferry. Other than restaurants and bars, they have a gaming room and a movie theater. The gaming room is huge with all kinds of gaming machines, race cars, game consoles, etc. The movie theater also surprised me, it had movies played all the time, and you can check the movie list next to the reception. The movies they had were all new movies and for people of all ages, for example, they had the new movie at that time: Super Mario Bros. Overall, I would highly recommend trying out these facilities if you have time.
Cost:
Last but not least, most people would want to know the pricing of the trip so that they can know the range of price. However, due to the different cabins or dining you choose, the price would also be different so you could just take it as a reference. For transportation, we didn't have to pay because we didn't bring a car on board. For our room, we had 3 beds, one double bed, and one fold-out couch in the luxury section, which cost 760 euros. For dining, we had two adults and one teen, the price for two adults is 55 Euro, and for a teen is 27 Euro. So, the final price for the whole trip is around 842 euros.
Overall, this was a great experience and I really want to bring my grandparents along because this relaxed schedule is what they will want. So, I hope this article will help those who would want to experience this wholesome ferry one day too!