We took the DFDS Princess Seaways ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle as a way of bringing me into the UK. UK requirements are really strict for importing animals. This means that dogs can only fly into the UK in cargo. So they aren’t even allowed to go in the hold, let alone the cabin. Which is not only really expensive, but also means you’ll be flying separately from your dog.
My pawrents didn’t want me to do this, so tried to look at alternative options. The only 2 options available in order to avoid flying in cargo was to fly into Paris and drive up to the UK or to fly into Amsterdam and take the ferry across to Newcastle. Our end goal was to get to Newcastle as this is where my pawrents are from, so it made sense to do the Amsterdam route.
The biggest downside to the ferry is the length of time it takes. You leave Amsterdam at 5:30pm and arrive into Newcastle at 09:15. As the UK is 1 hour behind Amsterdam, this means the total journey time is 17 hours.
The ferry has specific pet friendly cabins on board. If you are travelling with a car you can book these online. But if you are travelling as a foot passenger you need to book this via the call centre or via email. I’m not quite sure why this is, it didn’t seem to make any sense.
Booking a Pet Friendly Cabin
Due to covid, there aren’t so many travellers these days so we managed to book a cabin with only a days notice. I imagine at busier times it will be best to book well in advance though as there’s only a few pet friendly cabins available. The cost of the cabin was £176 and there was a pet fee of £32 so the total cost was £208 one way. Unfortunately you can’t book any of the nicer Commodore cabins as they aren’t pet friendly. This is a bit of a shame, it would be nice to have a bit of a nicer cabin if you are willing to pay the extra.
Getting to the Ferry
The ferry departs from Ijmuiden which is about 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam city centre. They do operate a bus service from the city centre to the ferry terminal but it wasn’t near where our hotel was located. So we decided to get an Uber to the ferry terminal. Taxis in Europe are pretty expensive but we pre booked one and the total cost was €60 one way.
Check In
We arrived at the ferry terminal at about 3:45pm and the ferry was scheduled to depart at 5:30pm. It was advised for those with pets to check in no later than 90 minutes before departure and we wanted to make sure we didn’t get stuck in traffic and end up being late. When we arrived there were a few people who had already checked in and noone waiting in the queue.
At the check in counter the lady asked for all of our documents. We had to show the human passenger locator form for the pawrents as well as all of my documents. I had to show the following documents;
- Vaccine records
- Rabies titer test results
- Health certificate from Thailand vet
- GB pet import form confirming I had received heartworm within the past 5 days
Once she was happy with all the papers, she proceeded to give us the keys to our cabin which were small tickets with a barcode on. We also got some instructions for where the pet relief area was on board and a note to say dog in cabin.
Boarding
After a short whlie we were called up to board. We first had to go through immigration and get the pawrents passports stamped. Then we sat in a waiting area. Before long, we were asked to get onto a minibus. There was only a handful of people that went onto the minibus and there were people with and without dogs. Most other passengers just walked on board so I’m not sure why we went on by the bus.
It was a short 2 minute drive onto the ferry itself. Our luggage was taken off and we were escorted by a member of DFDS staff into the lift and then along to our cabin.
The Cabin
All of the pet friendly cabins are located on the lower deck of the ferry. This means that you are quite close to the engines and it was pretty loud in the cabin itself. It also seemed a bit more rocky down there than on the higher up decks we went to.
The pet friendly cabins are all 4 bed cabins with 4 bunk beds no matter how many humans there are. We were 2 humans plus myself. So when we went in to the cabin the bottom 2 bunks were made up and the top 2 bunks were folded up to give us more space.
The cabins are quite small and even though we only had 2 suitcases and my Sturdibag it was quite cramped. I think with 4 people it would be a real tight squeeze.
Within the cabin there is a private bathroom with shower which was clean and functioned well.
The beds were actually really comfortable and the duvets were really thick and warm. Had it not been for the noisy engines it would have been a great sleep actually. We were still a bit jet lagged from the long flight also so we were awake pretty early too.
The Ferry
As it was winter season and covid regulations were still in place there ferry was not busy at all. I overheard someone saying there were only 86 passengers on board in total. This meant that a lot of the places on board were closed and the food and drinks service weren’t operating as usual. For breakfast and dinner you had to book in advance. As we were still jetlagged we didn’t know whether we would be interested in food so we didn’t bother. Instead we just had some crisps at the bar for dinner and a coffee & cake at Starbucks for breakfast.
Dogs were not allowed in any of the communal areas on the ferry. They are only allowed in the pet friendly cabin and the dog relief area. This is a big shame as the ferry is so big there’s plenty of space. It would have been nice had we been able to go to at least one bar we could have sat at together. Especially as the journey is so long it would have helped to pass the time quicker. This would be my one big recommendation for the future.
The pet relief area on the ferry was pretty diabolical. In fact we had to ask the staff where it was as it was literally just a square box with some gravel in. I’m pretty fussy about where I do my business and I have to say that it just wasn’t pleasant at all to go. This is another area I would suggest for improvment. A nicer pet relief area.
Newcastle
We began the approach into North Shields at around 7am when there was an announcement that breakfast would begin. We began to see the shore and slowly made our way along the coast. The boat remained on Netherlands timing which is one hour ahead of the UK. Which made it a bit confusing as we were due to arrive at 09:15 so when we checked the time we thought we were about to arrive. Only to realise we still had 1 hour left!
Before we knew it we were coming into the port and we began to get our things ready for disembarking. Another announcement was made once we had docked asking for foot passengers to wait for a while. We decided to walk up to the main reception area to disembark as noone came to get us. So we went up to disembark with everyone else.
Immigration
There were 2 queues at immigration. One for UK nationals and one for other passport holders. However, there was only 1 lady on the immigration counter. Which caused some confusion as it wasn’t clear who she was dealing with. In the end she served one from each line. As there was only the one lady it took quite a bit of time to get through but she was very pleasant and chatty with us when we got there.
She checked our passenger locator forms via our passports so we didn’t have to give her any of our papers. We also didn’t have to show any of my papers either. We had expected to have to show these upon arrival but there was nowhere to show them. So we assume that we must have passed the import checks at check in at Amsterdam. So once we had passed through immigration we had finally made it to the UK!
Conclusion
The Amsterdam to Newcastle DFDS ferry is a fantastic way to bring your dog to the UK. It avoids costly cargo shipments and allows you to be with your dog the whole time. It is a long journey though but it’s definitely worth it.
In terms of recommendations to improve the journey, I would say to DFDS it would be amazing if you had one bar or restaurant that you allowed dogs into. There are plenty of choices on board so it would make sense to have one that would allow dogs in. It would also be recommended to improve the pet relief area which is pretty abysmal.
The final suggestion would be to allow booking the Commodore Suites so pawrents had a choice of a nicer cabin. Having the pet cabins on the lower deck next to the engines makes you feel like you are in the doldrums of the boat.
Overall, my pawrents would only do this journey again if they were bringing me to the UK with them. Otherwise, they would prefer to just fly which would be cheaper and a lot quicker and more convenient. But for bringing me with them, it was definitely a good option.
Check out my Youtube video of the full journey on the ferry for more info. Let me know in the comments below if you have done this journey.
Woof woof, Wylie x
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