If it wasn't for bad luck...
 

I'd have no luck at all. Months of planning, booking 15 hotels for 8 people through Spain and Morocco, together with 4 ferries and what happens... Brittany Ferries cancel the Santander ferry and it's 4 days before we can get another. Since we were never going to be able to make up the time we all went home! At least that way most of the hotel bookings could be cancelled. Oh well, there's always next year.

Why not come up to the Lakes for the meet?

Plenty of room...,

Surely you can complain/claim that they havent given you enough knotice of there cnacelisation that youve not had to cancel your planned hoildays.

might be a bit of a :catfight: but they cant just cancel ferries if loads of people have prebooked

sorry to hear that, you book every thing up look forward to it for ages and it,s out of your hands.thats the downside of going to northern spain we booked are,s in october for july. sometimes you cant beat dover to calais

that sucks major!!!!

At least planning next year will be dead easy as you allready done the leg workk for it!

get yourself up to the lakes man. Come join the :partyondude:

Had this trouble before (not with Brittany Ferries), but sadly if you read the small print they have the right to cancel regardless of booking. You are always entitled to claim your fare back, but that is it - no more, no less. I've learnt the hard way, that insuring yourself is the only way to ensure you not out of pocket with hotels and other on-costs directly related to the cancelled ferry. Of course that's just the money, the biggest pain in the arse is your trip is ruined.

Really tough luck Graham, I empathise with your frustration. I take it you didn't fancy a quick change of plan, the tunnel and the drive to Santander, it's only 800 miles - you could have taken on the challenge of beating the ferry's time ;)

Force Majeure I'm afraid. They can and they did. A very rare occurrence and I'm sure they don't do it lightly. The weather in the bay of Biscay must have been pretty bad. Unfortunately we were all scattered around the Portsmouth area trying to salvage something by phone. Initially we booked on the Caen ferry to ride through France but it would have meant 3 consecutive 400+ mile days in lousy weather and the only one who didn't eventually decide against it was on a R1200RT - OK for him, no fun on a Ten! Also, none of us are in the first flush.

With the Tenere's headlight! Not a chance! Our aim was to get to Algeciras in time for the booked ferry. If we couldn't make that everything went to pot. So in went the towel!

Happened to us a few years ago, although it was due due a freak wave damaging the ferry and putting it out of service.

We headed straight to the euro tunnel and got to Santander area within an hour or two of when the ferry would have docked. A bit tired and a few aches and pains, but it can be done.