Bretagne Mini Cruise

When the Bretagne was first entered service in 1989, she transformed the UK to Spain route overnight, dwarfing anything that had gone before her. Not only was the ship large in her presence, but she represented the hard work, hope, and aspiration of a group of farmers from Brittany. After being displaced from the Plymouth route in 1993 by the Val De Loire, the Bretagne continued to operate a limited service from Portsmouth, although she was mainly to be found running to St Malo. Some 13 years after leaving Plymouth, she has returned to her former glory days to once again run to Santander... and what better reason for a BFE Event - well, aside the fact that it's long overdue for one!

So our story moves us to Plymouth on a November weekend, where on a bright and sunny Sunday morning the BFE masses began to assemble in Plymouth terminal, starting at around 9am with myself and Alex H (BonStMichel) arriving after a small dash across the country (starting just after 4am and heading from Somerset to Reading and on to Plymouth considerably quicker than the AA would have you believe), Bretagne was already in port following her 7am arrival from Roscoff although with all passengers disembarked the terminal was very quiet indeed.

Phil and Paul (montstmichel/Doris) joined us soon after from their nearby hotel, looking slightly worse for wear but also informing us of the 'confusing' events that led to them ending up in a 'specialist' nightclub in Plymouth the night before, whilst the recently arrived Dan and Jonathan weren't able to shed any further light on the events of the night before... neither were Andy and Elliot - "Hmmmm"! Dan N (ValFan) and Karl arrived to find us all munching on a good bacon sandwich from the cafeteria as the terminal continued to fill up with the 120 or so passengers for the outward crossing. Mr and Mrs Cox soon arrived as did Derek and Derek - just leaving Alex T (XanderTarr) to join us. BF had been thoughtful enough to give each cabin group their own ticket and reference so those of us there began to board. It also meant that we didn't have to worry about re-convening for boarding in Spain.

Alex T thankfully arrived just after 11, and around 30 minutes later most of the group were to be found on the stern of Deck 7 behind the piano bar, and to the utter shock of many, some of us were already on the beer. As the 12 noon departure time drew closer we moved to the open bow deck to watch the departure and listen to the sound of the horn blasting as we moved away around 15 minutes late. Feeling a little peckish the group headed upstairs to the La Baule self service for lunch before we split off our seperate ways, agreeing to meet up for a game of Bingo in the Bar later in the afternoon. For myself, Paul and Phil this was time to unpack the 4th passenger of our cabin... Pedro the Polar bear. Now, those who've been around here for a while may remember the adventures of 'Jean-Pierre the Polar Bear' in Calais - well, in honour of our trip to Spain we managed to obtain another mascot and having managed to get him through Customs it was time to introduce him to the masses.

The Gwen Ha Du bar was quite busy as we arrived for the afternoon performance of house band 'Hot Banana' to stake our seats for the Bingo. Out of the corner of our eyes we spotted Doris, an obvious bingo professional - she'd even come prepared with her dibber/dabber or whatever those things are - the competition was on. DJ Donny kicked off proceedings by distributing the tickets - Dan was a little confused having never played bingo before 'all the numbers on my ticket aren't in order. What's that all about?'. Phil however was well into it and before too long managed to win a prize of one description or another. As he went up, we felt the need to celebrate his win. Paul announced to the bar that 'It's Philip Kitchen everybody' and a large round of applause followed. A few more rounds of Bingo came to pass, with Doris winning occasionally, although on one occasion she was forced to share her prize of €24.83 with another gentleman much to her loudly voiced dismay!

As Bretagne sailed further south it was time for dinner. We'd opted to have dinner included in the ticket price for one evening and had chosen the first night. The group assembled outside Les Abers and were shown into a group of tables - not quite the long table we had on the Pont event, but still we were all together to enjoy the buffet. Unfortunately though it was around this time we rounded Brittany and began to feel the beginnings of the Bay of Biscay's weather conditions which began to take their toll on some of the group.

After dinner had finished we took a break to re-convene a little later... some of us opting for 40 winks after what had been a very early start to the day. Some of the more awake members of the group were later found to be huddled around a table in the quiet Piano Bar enjoying a nightcap as Bretagne sailed further into the night. As Monday morning dawned the skies looked somewhat grey. Most of us made it up in time to catch our included breakfast in the self-service though some feeling a little worse for wear didn't quite manage. Approaching Spain we recieved an invite to the bridge for our arrival which was around 30 minutes later than scheduled. As we neared Santander the weather began to brighten, bringing many people onto the deck for the spectacular arrival into the port. From our vantage point we were also able to see the Pilot board at the stern of the ship and arrive on the bridge a few minutes later to oversee proceedings - more a formality than him having to instruct the crew.Security in Santander was evident, with a large number of Gardia Civil present around the port as we arrived smoothly onto the berth. Whilst passengers began to disembark we took the chance to have our group photograph behind the bridge wings, before making our way down and off the ship. After having our passports checked we arrived on the main concourse, where a small shop selling various souvenirs and alcohol was doing a roaring trade. Stepping out into the town you realise just how close to the centre the terminal is - well, not close really, it's right in the middle of it.

Many of us took the opportunity to check in for the return sailing before we left the terminal to save time later. We dispersed into the city in several groups, and so I should only really briefly elude to the events that involved Phil, Paul, Dan, Jonathan and myself walking through town, having a barman make us a 'special' sandwich, going into a Beauty Salon to do things with the Polar Bear in their window before getting somewhat lost and getting the train back into Santander. There was of course also the incident where Paul had his head stroked by a more Senior Senorita Doris as she entered into a cafe.

Anyway, I digress... Returning to the terminal for our 1900 departure there was a line of people waiting to go through Passport control, which wasn't helped by our insistence at having our Passports stamped... which in turn led to every other passenger who followed being stamped too. A few of us also took the liberty of upgrading to Commodore Class for the return sailing as we boarded, before most of the group assembled on the bow for departure once more. The Bretagne slipped away on time and began to make her way out of the port. Just before we did though, we were frantically waved inside by one of the crew. We were a little unsure why, but were answered approximately a minute later when we began to feel the force of the Force 9 blowing in from the bay... and so it was to continue most of the way home. Unfortunately, the Captain's earlier predictions of a smoother northerly crossing weren't as accurate as we hoped and a text back home to get someone to read the shipping forecast confirmed we were in for a bit of motion. The rest of the evening for some of us was somewhat subdued as the day's consumptions in Spain were not sitting well...

We'd opted not to have dinner vouchers for the second evening, and thus the group split between La Baule and Les Abers (Jonathan determined to not have to disappear halfway again). Afterwards it transpires that whilst some of us went for yet more sleep that Dan waited in the Piano Bar for the rest of the crowd from Les Abers. We'd noticed a lot of new crew who were, by the looks of it, being inducted - and Dan managed to order a cocktail from one who didn't yet know how. The result was that the main bar was telephoned and Dan had to take a wander up to collect his drink and carry it back down, which with the sea conditions as they were was no easy task. Once the diners had finished progress was made to the Gwen Ha Du where some members of the group indulged in a few drinking games (led on by Dan), Elliot however decided to start making new rules up, most of which actually ended up not working in his favour. The music (mostly pre-1990) was provided by the DJ right up until closing time at 1.30.

The night was interesting to say the least, with a lot of pitching of the ship. A few times there were instances where spray struck our windows with some force, and in our cabin we began to play a game of 'guess what's fallen off the table'. I was a winner when Phil went walkabout in the dark and confirmed with a loud ouch that one of the thuds had been my car keys taking flight and landing onto the floor somewhere near the bathroom.

Awaking Tuesday we asked at reception and informed we were running an hour late, and the ship was still experiencing some motion. As time went on we began to see more and more of the group up and about although some individuals (they know who they are) didn't surface until much later in the day. Most of the morning was spent in the bar with a steady supply of soft drinks and watching the sea take up the entire views out of the window. Hot Banana were unable to play one of their sets owing to the motion - but undeterred, Doris was already present waiting for the afternoon's bingoular proceedings. Unfortunately, the bingo was actually run earlier than scheduled after Hot Banana were unable to play due to the rough weather - a shame, since many of us had planned specially to be there.

Lunch time came around with most of the group going to occupy a large table in Les Abers. Some of us who weren't feelign quite so peckish decided to opt for a Sandwich from the self-serivce. Usually we'd have gone to the Salon De Thé but this was closed for the winter crossings along with Le Lido (which seemed to be suffering from damaged doors). Sadly, the sandwich rack was empty, and the staff informed us that if there were more they would arrive 'in half an hour' - which seemed strange as surely they'd have known if they had them or not. Eventually we gave up at 3pm, hanging on until 4 to eat a main course in the self-service when hot food began once again. Bit of a poor show really - and to this day I don't quite understand the difficulty in knowing why a sandwich would take so long to put in an appearance (if they had any).

As we drew closer to Plymouth the vast majority of the group were to be found in the bar taking part in the pub quiz - which was duly won with the prize being a fetching pink cosmetics bag and a furry Milka cow... the locations of both are currently unknown. Before we knew it we were berthing back in Millbay around an hour or so later than scheduled. We vacated our cabins and walked down the gangway, observing the paint damage which had occurred due to the weather on our return crossing. Final goodbyes were said outside the terminal as we all went our seperate ways concluding yet another BFE event.

Thanks go to all who attended for an enjoyable few days, the Captain and Crew of the Bretagne, and also to Graham Smith at Brittany Ferries who helped us in making the arrangements for the trip. Photos (and hopefully some quotes) will follow soon from those who came armed with cameras... and if you're lucky, you might just see Pedro the Polar bear.