Hoek van Holland to Harwich - Day Ferry

May bank holiday Monday - fares from Netherlands to the UK were a bit silly - even the Transavia flight from Rotterdam to Stansted was £119 and the Ryanair flights from Eindhoven to London had crazy prices.

I even looked into travelling by train to Calais, and then ferry to Dover, and train to London - but journey was totalling up to £134 ... and of course Eurostar from Amsterdam or Brussels was a truly stupid price, as per usual!

So I decided to spend the day on the ferry from Hoek van Holland to Harwich - and then the train from Harwich to London.

As per Seat61's excellent instructions - I booked the "Dutch Flyer" on Stena's Dutch website, avoiding my browser's offer to translate to english which stopped the website working properly.  I paid 85 euro for the combined ticket - which was just 6 euro more than the foot passenger ferry fare.  So about a 15 quid saving over and Advance Single train fare - and a huge saving over a flexible train fare!

Getting to Hoek van Holland

Of course the first task is to actually get to Hoek van Holland Haven station - and the NS website or app will likely route you through Schiedam Centrum.

I couldn't work out whether the mainline and Metro stations were separate - but they are actually both in one building with the rail tracks next to each other.

Arriving into Schiedam Centrum rail station from the north, for the quickest transfer you should be in a carriage near the back of the train … and if travelling west into SC then a carriage near the front of the train … and if you’re really lucky you might even get a cross platform change!

There’s only one platform exit - so go down the stairs / lift (not sure if there’s a down escalator) - turn left (the Metro sign could do with being bigger) - out through the mainline gateline … turn left and almost double back on yourself to go through the Metro gateline.  There’s just two escalators up to the Metro platforms - with a sign above the bottom of each with the next destinations … so you can’t miss your Metro B destination "Hoek van Holland Strand". 

Carrying a small rucksack down the stairs (from the wrong part of the train) and standing on the escalator up to the Metro platform took me 2 minutes 10 seconds - you can probably beat this by following these directions!  This meant that I was able to catch the earlier Metro (every 20 minutes) than NS journey planner expected.

Hoek van Holland Haven station

Just north of Hoek van Holland Haven station is a very decent sized Albert Heijn supermarket - a proper one, not the overpriced “To Go” versions that are found in most Dutch train stations!  Less than a five minute walk from the front of the Metro platform will enable you to stock up for your journey.  And they have a reasonable choice of Stroopwafels - if you're into that sort of thing!

If you want a strong coffee - I got a good one to go from Cafe Prins Hendrik just down the road from AH for a reasonable 3 euro.

From the rear of the Metro platform it’s just a couple of minutes walk to the Stena building - you can’t miss it with the big Stena sign and the flags outside.

The spacious building suggests that it was built with serious passenger numbers in mind - maybe it still gets big numbers in the Summer holidays.  The toilets are reasonable and there’s even a coffee machine if you don’t have time to go get a proper one!

Two members of Stena staff were scanning passports and issuing boarding passes.  They don’t need your reservation number - you just hand over your passport and their system matches it with the details you’ve already submitted, and they print your boarding pass.  You get offered a map of the ferry - and reminded that all passenger facilities are on deck nine.

A few steps further on a couple of Dutch police complete exit formalities - stamping British passports or just scanning EU passports.

Then it’s a decent walk up to board the ferry itself - there’s a few incline travelators to help but only one was working on the day I travelled.  Although there was one man working on the broken ones!  There are good views out both sides to the ferry and into town to take the edge off the hike!  And kudos to Stena for avoiding the use of a bus to board foot passengers - it's great not to have to wait and be squashed into an old wreck of a bus!

To give you some context - you enter the building on the left of this photo (with the white poles on top) ... and you board the ship through the gangway on the right of this photo.  It doesn't feel crazy long - but it does add up!

Hoek of Holland Strand

If you have some spare time before your 45 minutes Stena checkin cut off - then why not stay on the Metro one stop beyond Hoek of Holland Haven station, and go visit the beach!  Just down the line is the lovely Strand station - where you can spend 23 minutes / 43 minutes / 63 minutes before catching the Metro back to the Haven station (all of 0.33 euro for the 3 minute journey).

It's not the most amazing beach in the world, but you get a good view of the ships coming in and out of Rotterdam.  And there's a decent number of cafes and restaurants - but I didn't stop to sample their output, so can't vouch for the quality!

Stena Brittanica / Hollandica

Most of my ferry experience in recent years is on the Irish Ferries Ulysses - which has a great mix of different outdoor areas and indoor spaces.  I found the Stena Brittanica (the Hollandica is identical) a bit of a let down.  The only official outdoor area is at the rear of deck 9 - and once the ferry gets up to full speed the engine noise and vibrations aren’t pleasant.  I realised late in the crossing that if you go up to deck 11 inside the ship and look for the orange staircase - you can then get outside on a nicer deck with a couple of benches.

I found the indoor areas got quite stuffy on my journey - which was a busy daytime May bank holiday Monday - but it wasn’t completely rammed.  The WiFi on the ferry was pretty woeful (as it also usually is on the Ulysses).  One thing that's great about the Stena Brittanica is the outdoor enclosed mini football space - which the kids loved.  Sadly on our crossing once we were out to sea it got too windy for much use.

Weirdly the Truckers Lounge was completely empty - which was such a waste when the rest of the ship was so busy.  Surely Stena should declassify it when there are virtually no truck drivers on board?

The loading of our ferry was late - finishing about 15 minutes after our scheduled departure.  And the waterways around Hoek of Holland are so busy that we waited another 15 minutes to depart our berth.  Amusingly we had barely cast off before Stena announced that the duty free shops were open!

With my AH food in hand I didn’t use the ship's catering outlets - but they mostly seemed to serve the usual burger and chips fare.  I did have a coffee - which was ok and cost 3.50 euro.  But it wasn’t good enough for me to have a second one!

As with all big ferries, the last mile into port takes a relatively long time as the ship gradually loses speed / energy.  You get to see the port of Felixstowe on the north side of the estuary, which looks a bit feeble after the enormity of Rotterdam.  But we did get to see Evergreen's "Ever Given" - made famous for six days it spent blocking the Suez Canal!  You also pass the town of Harwich on the way into the Stena berth.

Some ferries leave you guessing until the last minute as to which side or even which deck you will disembark - but Stena wins marks for having the Harwich and Hoek exit points clearly marked.  The only trouble is that the queue wasnt very well managed - one of the crew even accidentally facilitated queue jumpers!

Since we were 25 minutes late arriving into Harwich (although the Stena Sailing Updates page didn't update), I wanted to be off quickly to avoid getting stuck in the passport queue, to ensure I didn’t miss the next train.  So I queued up instead of watching the ship dock - which can be a bit of fun - but I didn't want to add an extra hour onto the already long journey!

After a short walk down some gangways … we came to two Border Force agents checking passports, supported by two (presumably Special Branch) plain clothed coppers.  My passport was scanned and I was on my way quickly. I passed some luggage carousels that weren’t being used (maybe they see action in the summer) and immediately you leave the Stena section you are into the train section - it's all one building.  I timed it from the foot passengers being released to arriving onto my platform at five and a half minutes.

I was so fast that I had time to wander around the station before my train.  The station toilets were ok.  There was a coffee vending machine that sadly wasn't working, and a drinks vending machine that charged £2.20 for everything!

I caught a train that just went a few stops to Manningtree station.  In Manningtree the fast London train went from the other side of the same platform.

Both the East Anglia trains were fine - the restricted leg room is a bit shocking after the generous space that you get on NS trains.  But there was power provided on both the East Anglia trains I used, and neither were busy.

The ticket inspector on the train seemed a bit surprised by my Sail Rail ticket - but he did check the date of my ticket.  And arriving into London the gateline guy saw that I had my printout (Stena tell you to print it) and just waved me through.

Final thoughts

Maybe I'm spoiled by the Irish Ferries Ulysses, or maybe the extra journey time was just a bit too much for me - but I wouldn't be rushing back to do a daytime crossing on the Hoek to Harwich route.  I might try doing an overnight crossing - where you should get a decent night's sleep.