Dogs on W.B.Yeats

I'm looking at options for travel from/to France later in May. The W.B. Yeats seem to have room where other Ferries are booked out for Motorhome space. Has anyone travelled to/from France on the W B Yeats with a dog? Can you visit to feed/walk during the crossing? Are there set times, like Stena, to visit dogs? Are the kennels easily accessible etc.

Can't beat stenna for the doggies.....a lot less stressful for them if you leave them in your van.......

Do you have to park you're van on the open deck if you leave the dog in it, how many visit, how long each visit?

Vans are parked as normal and you usually get 2 visits to the van, weather dependant Martin, we find their much happier in their own environment

I see you still have not gotten an answer Colin , I'm beginning to think you have to sign the official secrets act when you board this ship there's very little info coming back about it

We have dogs and wouldn't consider any other ferry company but Brittany Ferries....You can be with your dogs for the entire sailing should you wish

We’ve just done the Dublin-Cherbourg crossing on the W.B Yeats with our dog. This is the first time we have brought our dog on a ferry. We dropped her in to the kennel and were given a visiting schedule. We were allowed 4 visits of about 15 minutes. The sailing was at 16:00. The visiting times were 18:15, 20:15, 22:15 and 08:15.

That was all fine until the first visit came around and we were shown where we could take our dogs. I was shocked. I expected an outside deck with some fresh air. Instead we were shown a tiny section of the car deck that we could bring our dogs to. I’m talking a very narrow area of a diesel fumed deck in which they expected our dogs to relieve themselves on a fake grass carpet. We train our dogs not to relieve themselves indoors, so needles to say poor little Olive kept it in all night long. We couldn’t get her to go until the last visit of the night.

Honestly, I didn’t expect the dog facilities to be so poor. But we have nothing to compare it to. What’s the setup on the Oscar Wilde. The attached pic shows the green carpeted area where we were told to confine our dogs. We left our dog off the lead and run n a bit of a much across the car deck btw.

Stena Horizon isn't great, but we were allowed to walk our dog all around the car deck, it wasn't outside , but was ventilated. The deck floor is quite dirty with diesel / oil etc. so when they would get back in the van , they brought oil in with them. Also on Stena there was normally livestock being carried on the same deck. It's been a while since we brought our dog on Britanny Ferries , they had just put the lock on the door to the kennel area, before they put the lock on, anyone could get in to the dog's, we saw children in the area and were worried about the dog's being let out, we started bringing our own lock to lock our dog kennel door. We also found that Britanny didn't strictly enforce the muzzle rule, and there was a nasty incident in the lift from the car deck to bring the dogs up to the kennel. There was an outside deck on Britanny where you could walk the dog at any time during the crossing. I have been told that now the dog has to be returned to the car 90 mins before docking. 4 trips seems quite generous, you get 2 on Stena, but maybe that's because it's a longer crossing.

That looks like doggy paradise John! In my naivety, I was expecting something like that in the W.B

To be honest Jon, it's fine but I preferred the layout on the Oscar Wilde. On the Wilde you have a bar at both ends of the deck, two restaurants in between, and a brasserie/ buffet, as well as another bar with menu. There is way less choice on the W.B. And it’s more disjointed I’m sad to say. All the lounge chairs that connect both ends of the recreational deck on the Oscar Wilde are nowhere to be seen on the W.B.