Portsmouth Ferries is an independent guide to every ferry that leaves from Portsmouth: the Brittany Ferries routes to France and Spain, the Channel Islands, and the boats and hovercraft across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. It covers the crossings, the port they leave from and the ships you will be on. We don’t sell tickets, take bookings or run any ferries, so if something goes wrong with a booking, the operator is who you need, not us.
Why a site just for Portsmouth
Portsmouth is one of the busiest ferry ports in the country, with direct sailings to France, Spain and both Channel Islands, and the Isle of Wight a few minutes across the water from three more terminals. That is a lot for one page in a bigger guide, and the questions people have about it are specific: which terminal, which crossing, which port to pick, what changes in winter. We thought Portsmouth was important enough to get a site of its own.
What you will find here
- Every route, side by side. Compare Portsmouth ferry routes puts Caen, Cherbourg, Saint-Malo, Santander, Bilbao, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Wight crossings on one map. The France and Spain guides have a port picker that shows which port is the shorter drive for where you are heading.
- The port. Our Portsmouth port guide covers check-in, parking, getting there and what the terminal is actually like.
- The Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight ferry guide compares the hovercraft, the FastCat and the car ferry, and The Solent is about the water they all cross.
- The ships and the operators. Which ship you will be on, plus Brittany Ferries, Condor and DFDS and how they fit together.
- Times and prices. Winter 2026/27 sailing times for every route, how the timetable works, and what drives the price.
- The way back. Ferries from France to Portsmouth, and what is changing: the 2026 route changes and the routes that do not exist.
Who writes it
Portsmouth Ferries is written and built by Jan Willem van Tilburg. He has made more than 25 ferry crossings, with family, with a dog, overnight in a cabin and as a foot passenger, and has a particular soft spot for night ferries.
This site grew out of a family trip in August 2025: Saint-Malo to Portsmouth on the brand-new “Saint-Malo”, then back to the continent on Portsmouth to Cherbourg on her sister ship the “Santoña”, the return delayed by a car that broke down disembarking in Portsmouth. That trip is where most of the photos here come from, and it is exactly the kind of detail, what happens when something goes wrong and not just when it goes right, that a standard route listing leaves out.
What we have sailed, and what we have not
Where we have made a crossing ourselves, we say so and use our own photos. Where we have not, we say that too, and write from the operators’ own information instead. We would rather be clear about the difference than blur it.
| Crossing | Status |
|---|---|
| Saint-Malo to Portsmouth | Sailed, by day, August 2025 |
| Portsmouth to Cherbourg | Sailed, overnight, August 2025 |
| Portsmouth to Bilbao | Booked for 2027 |
| Everything else | Researched, and labelled as such |
How we keep it accurate
Ferry information goes out of date quickly: ships get reassigned between routes, timetables shift by season and fares move constantly. Where we quote a price we paid, we date it and treat it as a real example, not a current rate. Where something is time sensitive, we send you to the operator. How we check the facts, and where they come from, is on our how we research page.
Spotted something out of date or wrong? We would rather fix it than defend it. Tell us on the contact page.
How the site pays for itself
Some links on this site are affiliate links, mainly to Brittany Ferries and Direct Ferries. If you book through one of them, we may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not decide which routes we cover or what we write about them, and we say so plainly on pages that carry booking links when we have not sailed the route. The longer version, with the specifics, is on our affiliate disclosure page.
And FerryGoGo?
We also run FerryGoGo, a wider ferry guide that covers routes across the UK, Ireland and Europe, Portsmouth among them. Portsmouth Ferries is its own site, with its own research, its own photos and its own focus, and if you are crossing from anywhere else, FerryGoGo is where to look.