It’s funny how being parent changes a perspective and how you view travel. In the past, we’d often book flights and never really consider how else we could reach a destination. While exploration continues to remain at the heart of all our holidays, the journey to a destination is very much a part of that. Our six year old daughter POD has a wonderful sense of adventure and our first trip via cruise ferry certainly surprised us all. For all the right reasons.
When we won a ferry competition with Discover Ferries, we were more than a bit excited. The home of ferry travel consists of 12 operators spanning 55 routes to destinations across Belgium, the British Isles, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scottish Isles and Spain. We had no idea there was so much choice available and with our many childhood ferry trips a distant memory, we set our sights on Northern Spain.
We had the best time aboard the Cap Finistère and Pont-Aven cruise ships with Brittany Ferries. One of the highlights was certainly dolphin spotting while in the Bay of Biscay. A pretty special experience especially for five year old POD who screamed so loudly, some might have thought there was a man overboard!
It happens to the best of us. One minute you’re happily taking in the views, the next feeling like you want to reach for a bag. My first experience of nausea was on a boat from Port Douglas to the Great Barrier Reef although self inflicted so I totally have myself fully to blame!
We always flew to a destination before POD came along as we wanted to begin our break by the quickest means possible. Since we’ve become parents however, the journey has formed an integral part of our overall holiday experience. Now aged five, POD is a true adventurer with her inquisitive nature undeniably infectious. Luckily for us she loves to discover new places too and is pretty much up for anything. Over recent months we’ve taken the car to the Isle of Wight, the Côte d’Opale in France and Ghent in Belgium. Road trips are amazingly good fun and they’ve enabled us to do even more exploring that we might have done otherwise. This summer we’ve decided to do something we’ve not done before – travel to Northern Spain on board a Brittany Ferries’ cruise ship.
