A request to Stena Line to make "SailRail" journeys even better

The British, the Irish and the Germans are all well versed in complaining. And so it was, that after our last trip with Stena Line, that I put pen to paper. Or fingers to contact form. The not particularly helpful response is at the bottom.

Dear Stena Line,

I want to start by thanking you for several good foot passenger overnight journeys from Belfast to Birkenhead. Its a brilliantly timed and well run service with lovely staff throughout. Only on my last journey, Belfast-Birkenhead with SailRail ticket to London in September, did I find a few reasons that led me write to you to suggest a few improvements: 

Waiting Room and boarding in Belfast 

It seems your service is a victim of its own success : The waiting room was horribly overcrowded, and no one was giving clear information about when boarding would start or how that would work. I seem to remember that on quieter crossings from Birkenhead, staff offer to take bags from you. In Belfast we had to struggle around narrow areas and get them loaded. The bus could not take everyone on board at once of course this is fine, but you could organize this in advance rather than leaving us standing outside with children at night. Finally, parking is a big problem, as I''m sure you know. And there is very little public transport provision from Belfast. A well timed bus provided by you from Belfast centre might help alleviate the parking problem and improve this great service further. 

Providing a dependable sailrail connection in Birkenhead 

When we got to Birkenhead, we were keen to get on the bus off the boat in order to get to the station on time to continue our journey. We were saddened to hear that the bus to the station is the same bus as the one used to shuttle people off the ship, and that it would need to make more trips to the ship before being free to take people to the station. So we walked. I know the connection times for getting to Birkenhead station printed on the eticket are probably only meant as a guide, but they are completely unrealistic if this is how you routinely deal with large numbers of foot passengers. We had a connecting train in London and would have planned differently if we had known to expect such a delay.

eXtra 'points' for rail journey tickets 

Why are tickets with a rail ticket not eligible for points, not even for the cost of the sailing component?

Again, please accept my thanks for this service and putting in so much effort for this small but growing market segment of foot/rail passengers.

Best Regards,

Matthew

And here was the response:

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for taking the time to contact Stena Line.
Stena Line openly welcome and appreciate feedback and once received is used to review our products and services in order to improve our service for our wide range of customers.

Here at Stena Line, we are committed to providing the highest standards of service to all our customers so therefore I would like to assure you that your comments have been forwarded to the Route Management Team. Not only will this ensure that your comments have been heard but it will also provide Stena Line with the opportunity to learn from your comments with a view to improving our service to all our customers.

Once again, I would like to thank you for your comments and time and we look forward to welcoming you on board again soon.

Did we disappear into Hillsborough lake?

Travelling western Europe and bringing up two children can keep parents busy. And so it is that our tales of our last trip to the UK and Ireland ended somewhat abruptly at Hillsborough lake. Readers will be relieved to hear that we did continue from there, enjoying a great many more things Northern Ireland has to offer, and having a taxing but successful journey back.

Another science museum of sorts: W5 in Belfast is an adventure for curious young children

St George's Market

Drumawhey Junction Miniature Railway near Millisle. This was a last minute decision after learning that the Palace Stables is no longer open to visitors :o Which, by the way, means there is now nothing for young families to do in Armagh on a rainy day (after the earlier closure of St Patrick's Trian) - bit of a pity. However, the railway is a great idea for children. And perhaps for some adults too, at least the ones driving the trains seemed to be having a great time. And the countryside nearby is fantastic on a summer's day.

Not far down the road: Groomsport. One of those places I've managed to ignore my whole life. Well worth the visit.

Perhaps the highlight as tourist attractions go this trip: the SS Nomadic, a tender for the Titanic, now restored and back in Belfast where she was built. 

Wedding Bells! Confetti! Matt's cousin Lynda got married in the beautiful Donegal countryside on a beautiful late summer's day. Fantastic.

Our wedding car was a Fiat Stilo. This guy's got class. And the best bit? He restored the car himself. So romantic.

The journey back. Well, what can I say. On paper, it can be done in 24 hours. But that's assuming the boat is on time, and isn't overrun with passengers necessitating multiple runs of the bus from the ship to the terminal. The same bus that is supposed to get you to the train station afterwards. And so it was, that we missed our first connection. And hence, every single connection after that. Remarkable in itself was that this wasn't so much of a problem for Eurostar. "You did some terrible planning and booked yourself on a train that you realistically had high chances of missing? No problem." Perhaps they had sympathy on us for the problem that was yet to come. We had a German railways' (DB) ticket. And we were going to miss the last DB train out of Brussels. There was no avoiding it. And there was no help from DB's telephone support either. There was however a glimmer of hope. 'Thalys' trains, who seem to have had a falling out with DB (they don't accept each other's tickets anymore), were still running a train out of Brussels that would get us back into Germany. It took some more negotiating, but we made it back, very very late at night indeed. Time for a sleep in our own beds.

Postscript: Amusingly, the premise to my pleas for help from all these rail operators along our journey was a mistaken belief that we were protected by the 'CIV' arrangements for international rail travel (as our journey included an international component). Why was I mistaken? Apparently Section 9.5.1e (https://loco2.com/pdfs/CIVRules.pdf) exempts rail companies from delays caused by boat operators. The fact that it was all part of a 'rail' ticket is irrelevant. Thanks to Kate at loco2 for explaining that to me.

This seems to be the only photo we took on the way back. Here we are working on our scrapbook(1) of our trip inside the Thalys train that had agreed to take us. If you think Matt is looking tired and sweaty, it's because he is.

Not an everyday ticket... 

Our well-used, well-endorsed, somewhat crumpled ticket home, including paper ticket from Eurostar at the bottom. Note the price for a family of 4 in 1st class... (we got a good deal by booking early).

(1) Scrapbooks are what we used to document travels before the age of blogs