Overnight Ferry: London to Amsterdam

Dulles Lounges and United Washington Dulles - London Heathrow
London Day One
London Day Two
London Day Three
London Day Four
Overnight Ferry London - Amsterdam
Amsterdam Day One
Amsterdam Day Two
Lufthansa Amsterdam-Frankfurt/Senator's Lounge Frankfurt/Lufthansa Frankfurt - Dulles

First off, I would like to apologize for missing a few days. I was on a work trip and I thought that I would be able to stay on schedule...but alas the real world calls. :p

When we first booked our trip we routed ourselves back to DC from Amsterdam because it was much cheaper than flying from London. I have been to Amsterdam and was not that impressed, but I wanted to give it another try and Kelsey said she was interested in seeing the city. So, we added it as the second half our adventure. We had many different ways to get to Amsterdam, flying being the obvious one, but we were trying to not spend too much on a night in a hotel in either city if we could afford it because they were all pretty expensive. After doing a bit of research it turns out that you can actually kill two birds with one stone in this case. You can take an overnight ferry from the coast of England to the coast of Holland via the Stena Line Ferry system.

The ferry route leaves from Harwich and arrives 8 hours later at the Hook of Holland. When you purchase your ticket you purchase a "rail and sail" option that allows you to take any train operated by the Greater Anglia train company in the UK and any NS Rail Company train. If you are in London you  traditionally leave from London's Liverpool Station and take a train direct to Harwich. Then from the Hook of Holland you can travel to any city in Holland with your "rail and sail" ticket. For our purposes we would have to take a train to Rotterdam and then change to Amsterdam.

The Stena Line also operates two ferries on the England-Holland crossing, one that leaves in the morning and arrives mid-afternoon or the overnight option. During the day you can just purchase a general ticket. But, for the night crossing you have to purchase an actual room with a bed (which we did not complain about). So, for us the "rail and sail" package with an outside view cabin (they have inside views for a bit less) was £56 each. Much cheaper than a plane ticket and another night in a hotel.

So after touring on our last day in London we headed to London's Liverpool Street Station. We looked on the board for our 7:15 pm train that would get us into Harwich around 9:30 pm so we could have about an hour and a half to settle in before the ferry left at 11:00 pm. But, when we arrived at the train station we couldn't find our train listed....so we headed to the information desk and they searched around for a bit and told us that since it was Sunday our train was not running and that we would have to take a bus instead. They pointed us toward the taxi stand next to platform 10 and said a bus would be waiting. We walked down toward the taxi stand and found a queue of people waiting next to a bus. We asked those in front of us if they were heading to Harwich and everyone said yes...but they didn't really know if we were actually in the correct line. So we decided to just get in line and take the bus wherever it was going, which our feeling were basically summed up in this picture below:

I think this is the right bus....

After waiting for a bit someone from the train/bus company came over and started to load the bus up and indicated that it was indeed the bus to Harwich and that we were in the correct place. So we loaded up on one of the two busses and got the last two seats next to each other only to realize that our bus was going to leave full while the other bus was going to leave with about eight people on it. The hour and 45 min ride was as comfortable as could be expected, though when we were leaving London we did drive by the Olympic Park and I was able to grab some exquisite blurry photos which you can enjoy below:

Told you they were blurry...that's the Olympic Stadium I think

A tiny bit better 

We finally arrived at Harwich and it was easy to see which boat was ours. The ship was massive...or at least as massive as you would expect for a simple eight hour ferry crossing. Kelsey said it reminded her of a smaller version of a ship she was on for a Mediterranean cruise. The bus drivers directed us to the boarding area someone checked our tickets and we passed through a security area and to a check-in desk that gave us our tickets and the keys to our rooms on the ship. You then walked up the long long long gangway to the ship and boarded on the 7th floor which is the car deck. There is a small lift that will take you to the 9th floor which is the main deck, or you can lug your luggage up the stairs. The passenger cabins are on the 10th or 11th floor and again you can wait for the lift with everyone or hoof it up the stairs. I dragged Kelsey up the stairs to the 11th floor and found our outside cabin.

The quarters were pretty tight, but it was a very nice room. There were two beds that during the day can be folded away and made into a sitting area, but were made up for the night for us. There is also a small private bathroom with a shower for your use as well. The best feature was the huge port-hole style window to see outside.

Outside cabin beds

Door to the Bathroom

Bathroom 

Shower 

We were very tired so we took a quick lap around the boat and found that on the passenger deck there were big seating areas that you could meet up with others if you wanted along with three bars and a big all you can eat buffet style restaurant. You can buy tickets ahead of time for the restaurant if you want, but we decided to eat beforehand and didn't take advantage of it since it was such a late departure.

This was my first time sleeping on a ship and the water was rough from a huge storm over the sea so I slept kind of on and off due to the rocking and rolling. But the bed and cabin were very comfortable and the staff we encountered were very nice. The best part had to be taking a shower while the ship pitched and rolled and watching the water slosh from side to side in the bathroom. 

Overall the ship was a great experience. We left on time at 11:00 pm and at 6:00 am we were headed off the boat at the Hook of Holland with a decent nights sleep and ready to tackle Amsterdam. But first we had to not piss off every commuter on the Netherlands train system....