Frequently Asked Questions

Prices will generally be higher on more popular sailing times and dates. Sailing during the day on longer crossings, booking weekday trips and avoiding travelling around school and public holidays can save you money. Discounts are often available, even for the holiday periods, so it's worth subscribing to our newsletter to be the first to hear about them.

Yes, the driver needs to be included in the number of passengers.

There can be a number of reasons for this and it can vary from one ferry company to another. Sometimes it's because the ferries cannot support your vehicle type, or the option might not be available to book online. If you can't see your vehicle type as an option you can contact us and we'll look into why it's not available.

Some ferry companies will let you book a different vehicle in each direction and you can enter the details for each car in the checkout. If it's not available, the easiest thing to do is book a one way ticket in each direction.

This is possible for some ferry companies, but not all of them. You'll be able to enter the different passenger details in the checkout if it is possible, but if not then booking a one way ticket in each direction will be the best option.

Discounts are sometimes available when there are more than 5 vehicles or more than 9 foot passengers travelling. If you're looking to book a large group and would like to know more, you can email us the details of your booking, e.g. number of adults and children, type of vehicles and the destination, and we'll send you a quote on a group fare.

Most ferry operators will allow you to travel with a rental car. Don't worry if you don't know the exact vehicle you're going to rent, you can enter an approximate size when searching for your ferry tickets. In the Vehicle Details section of the search engine select the vehicle type your intending to rent, e.g. Car or Van, and then a select a Vehicle Make and Model that will be closest to what you're going to rent. You can also select 'other' in the Vehicle Make drop down and select an approximate Length and Height of the vehicle. In the checkout you can enter the vehicle registration as ‘unknown’. Some ferry companies may charge you on arrival at the port to update the vehicle registration stored for your booking, but we'll let you know if this is possible before you complete your booking. You can also update the vehicle details prior to sailing in My Account.

This varies from one ferry company to another however as a general rule, any vehicle carrying commercial goods and vehicles designed to carry commercial goods should travel as freight. If in any doubt then please contact our Freight team who will be happy to help.

This varies from one ferry company to another however as a general rule you are permitted to travel at up to 28 weeks pregnant (at time of travel). Women who are more than 28 weeks pregnant at the time of travel may be required to produce a medical certificate of fitness to travel therefore we advise that you contact us prior to booking if you are going to be at 28 weeks or more at time of travel.

Resident discounts are available on some routes, however each company and crossing has different regulations on who qualifies for the discounts. More information on available resident discounts is available when entering a search for ferry tickets.

We do offer OAP discounts on crossings where they are available, these are applied automatically based on the ages of the passengers. At the moment we're unfortunately unable to offer student discounts.

You can book an open return on some routes. When booking your return journey, you will see an option to book with an open return where your travel dates would go. If, however, there is no option here to pick an open return, then open returns are not available on the route you want.

There are several reasons for there not being any ferries available on the route that you want - it could be because there are no tickets left for the ferry, the timetables have not been released yet, or that a ferry is not running on that day. However, there are likely to be many other ferries  available, so be sure to check out other sailing dates and alternate routes!

We accept payments from all major credit and debit cards, as well as Paypal, Applepay and Googlepay. You'll need to provide your payment details when booking, but we won't take any payment until your booking has been confirmed.

While we try to show prices in local currency, we have to collect payment in the currency charged by the ferry company. During the booking process, we'll let you know about any currency conversion and how much money you will be charged for your booking.

No, we don't mail physical tickets. When you're booking is confirmed we'll send you a confirmation email, which in most cases is used as your boarding pass. For some ferries you'll need to exchange your confirmation email for tickets or a boarding passes at the port, if this is case it will be noted in your confirmation email. For all bookings you should take your booking confirmation email to the port with you.

If it hasn't gotten lost in your junk mail box, log into My Account, verify your email address is correct, and then have the confirmation email re-sent to you. If your email address is wrong you can update it in My Account and then resend the confirmation email. If you cannot find this on your account, or for some reason cannot log into your account, then please get in contact with us so we can send you another confirmation email.

Direct Ferries shows data related to the tickets availability, based on the updated information constantly provided by the ferry companies. Although the data reflects the amount of seats available, on different routes, the same way it is offered by the different operators, Direct Ferries is not responsible for incorrect representations, during the booking process, of this data.

While we're constantly working at growing the number of ferry companies that we work with on a domestic and international level, we unfortunately do not, at least for now, work with every single ferry operator in the world. The list of operators we do work with is constantly being expanded though, so keep checking back here if there is a particular ferry company or route that you're looking for.

It's possible that your confirmation email has fallen into your junk box, so it's best to check there first. If you can't find it you can log into My Account and ask for another copy to be sent to you. Occasionally a communication error can stop us getting a final confirmation of a booking from the ferry company, in these cases we need to contact the ferry company to double check whether they have taken the booking or not. If they have taken your booking we will send out a confirmation email to you, if they haven't taken your booking, and are unable to, we'll let you know and refund your payment straight away. It can take us to up to 48 hours to confirm the booking, however if your sailing time is within 48 hours we will send you an email to let you know about the issue and cancel the booking and refund you straight away so you can try to make another booking.

If you're having trouble making a payment while making your booking it may be a communication issue or an issue with your card. You can try again with the same card or using another payment method. If your card is still not being accepted you should contact your bank to check why. If you've completed your booking and we haven't taken your payment it will be because the ferry company hasn't confirmed your booking yet. Sometimes when putting through bookings for operators, we have to wait until we hear back from them and they confirm the booking before we take payment from you. Once this has all gone through though, your payment will be taken and you should receive a confirmation email soon after.

In most cases we'll be able to confirm your booking straight away, however, for some ferry companies it can take up to 48 hours for us to confirm your booking. We will do our best to keep you updated during this process, and will send you your confirmation email as soon as we have confirmed your booking with the ferry company.