TW
0

Dear Sirs, Much has been said about the new Transmediteranea “Superferries” and I would just like to express a passenger's viewpoint.
The passenger's cabins and facilities are indeed of a very high standard but things start to deteriorate as the vechicle area is considered. I think the problems basically emanate from the innate difference between the Northern European and the Southern European attitude to cars, namely the former preferring to retain his pride and joy in the pristine condition in which it left the factory wheras the latter happily accepts a few scratches and minor dunts as long as it is roughly the same overall shape as the manufacturers intended! This leads to Transmed packing the cars in so tightly (even when the ferry in question was half full) that people carrying any luggage at all are bound to scratch them.

Then comes the coupe de grace where with NO Transmed crew in attendance umpteen lanes of cars all try to do a reverse three point turn at the same time - a glass window should be provided to enable passengers to watch this farce from the other decks as, for them, it would be highly entertaining.

I first started to travel from Hull to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge almost thirty years ago and even then one entered and exited the ferry in a forwards direction without the need for every car to perform a ludicrous three point turn and I am sure that these ferries then were not that much larger, if at all, than the new Transmed ones - is there not something missing from the planning stages?

Yours sincerely

Alister Bottomley