Having negotiated over 100 miles of ice flow (the worst seen in 30 years), 40mph snow storms and some very testing sea conditions in the North Sea, the Spirit of Britain finally entered Dover harbour shortly after 11am on Sunday 9th January.
Greeted by glorious sunshine and hundreds of onlookers lining the cliffs and seafront, the vessel made a trip across the harbour prior to berthing in the Eastern Docks for the very first time. In fact the sense of the occasion was wonderfully captured by a welcoming salute from rival SeaFrance’s Berlioz as the Spirit of Britain entered the harbour.
Upon arrival Captain David Miller enthused about the vessel’s exquisite sea-keeping qualities even in some pretty unsavory conditions. He noted that this bodes well for the smoothness of the journey it should be able to deliver on her new Dover-Calais service.
Included below are a couple of pictures of the Spirit of Britain arriving on Sunday together with a hint of what you can expect to find onboard when she enters service at the end of next week.
Spirit of Britain enters Dover Harbour
Spirit of Britain recieves a traditional celebratory shower from two Dover Harbour Board tugs
Seating area outside the Shop & Collect outlet
No forgetting which staircase you came up from the car deck on now – the ‘Red Stairs’ 
Loose furniture, choice of seating, spectacular views – welcome to the new Food Court
The artist impressions although accurate, do not do justice to the reality of the spectacular Family Lounge
- A ships model displayed proudly in the Aft Lounge
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Where did you get the sofas in the family lounge from? They were like day beds. Fantastic & very comfy. We want one.
Hi Karen, They’re great aren’t they! I believe the supplier is called Bretz and it didn’t take more than a quick online search to find them. The model ‘Hookipa’ seemed to look very similar – but be warned they’re not cheap!
Travelled on the Spirit of Britain last weekend, brilliant ship, very spacious and extremely comfortable. Outside deck could be a little cleaner but I have heard there is a problem with soot from the funnel falling on the open deck. Hope it’s sorted soon. But the trip was fantastic, had some great weather and even got a few waves from the bridge crew of the Pride of Burgundy as we left our berth!
Hi, the ship looks lovely, but does it have a Langhan’s Brasserie? The deck plan is a bit ambiguous and just states ‘Brasserie’. I hope it does as it’s always the highlight of the crossing!
pls can you inform me asap if there is a childs area, on the spirit of britian.as even though we do use you once/twice a year the children find it very difficult on the journey and you see alot of children that need to be occupied.i never understood why the childrens areas have been taken away when the high number of familys on your ships spending alot of money,you would think you would help us
Hi Laura, Currently there is not a play area on the Spirit of Britain. However, there are discussions underway to bring in new facillities specifically for children – hopefully in time for the summer.
Congratulations on bringing the Spirit of
Britain into service. When does the Spirt of France come into service and on which routes will she be servicing?
Hi Mike, The Spirit of France will enter service in September, also on the Dover-Calais service.
Hi, had a day trip over to France yesterday, Sat 22nd Jan, on your new “Spirit of Britain” and just wanted to say “WOW” she is beautiful, realy realy something else. The finish of everything is amazing, top quality stuff ! From all the seating areas every where, coffee bars, shops, the deck area outside is lovely and cant wait to use it on a summer crossing, right through to the loo’s ! Very classy indeed.
The staff were very very helpful and very very pleasent, a big credit to P & O. Cant praise it enough, I was very very impressed with the whole experience, more like a small cruise than a ferry crossing!
Thank you P & O. I will definately be using your service again very soon.
Congratulations to P&O on the arrival the Spirit of Britain in Dover! We are booking our trip for March and looking forward to going! One thing will the Spirit have the P&O Artwork of former vessels on board the walls of the passenger area? They show the history of P&O!
Hi Dean, The heritage of the P&O brand is featured very heavily onboard the Spirit of Britain in preparation of the brands 175th anniversary in 2012. The Club Lounge and Brasserie will feature heritage artwork, but more impressively, we have a giant ‘History of P&O wall onboard’.
are there any special first sailing celebrations for the crossing on the 21st?
Hi, I’m not aware of anything specific planned for the 21st.
I don’t seein this ship in:http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ AIS map
Why?
I have not found yet P&O shipmodells. so I did a few myself, but small enough.
You see here: http://postimage.org/image/25l184zfo/
looks great,car`nt wait to sail on her.whatever the weather.
Saw Spirit of Britain on Sunday she looked very big moored next to Pride of Burgundy. I got some good pictures as well (see my facebook site).The loose chairs and tables in the food hall could be interesting in rough weather.Look forward to sailing on her probably in the summer
love the model of the vessel. Modern seating area outside the shop. The blue and the white relay do go well together. personal well done to the interior designers who helped with the interior and feel of the ship.
Looks fantastic. Can we expect to see the new style Food Court, Family Lounge etc being rolled out across the rest of the fleet? What about the white funnel?
Hi Richard, The plan will be to standardise the onboard outlets as much as possible over the next few years. However, I believe the white funnel is so far only planned for the new ‘Spirit Class’ vessels.
Great! I have just booked a return trip on 21st January (12.30 from Calais) Couldn’t get it through the website though so I had to use the 0825… phone number, which is expensive in France, but never mind!I have always liked your P & O pens (when I was a teacher I used to make the ‘Pride of Dover/Calais’ go up and down during boring meetings) so I was pleased to find some again on the ‘Pride of Kent’ a few weeks ago, but they came from the ‘Pride of Bilbao’ : why not have some made with the picture of the ‘Pride of Britain’ if a model is obviously too expensive, and also key-rings?
I have no idea what the seafrance salute was, I was there and in fairness very disappointed by her welcome. The salute I witnessed by all vessels including the P&O vessel that passed her more closely resembled a two finger salute. I think P&O missed and wasted an oppotunity to reallty announce her arrival….all the hype leading up to the arrival, I think understated would be giving it to much credit.
Hi Chris, January is a tricky month to welcome a new ferry – remember the complete snow chaos we had the this time last year? As it turned out the weather on Sunday was glorious but can you imagine if we’d laid on a huge celebration and the weather is as it is today (I can’t even see the see out of my port side office window!).
There was also the matter of the ice flows and heavy North Sea weather conditions the ship had to navigate – could we be certain that she would arrive on time?
It’s not unusual in these circumstances to bed-down a new vessel then hold her official ceromony later and at a time we can be more confident about the weather. Additionally don’t forget that Dame Kelly Holmes is the ship’s godmother, so there will be media interest surrounding the ‘official’ welcome.
Hi, glad to see the success of the arrival of the “Spirit of Britain”. It looks like a very comfortable, modern ferry, and I’m sure that the two ships will be a good addition to the fleet. It’s still a shame about the withdrawal of the Pride of Bilbao though, and the end of PO Portsmouth’s era. Look’s good inside the ferry, and was just wondering whether you sell the model, like the one in the photo
Hi Jason, The Ship model you see in the picture is supplied by the yard as part of the contract and I understand that additional models were very, very expensive (Thousands not hundreds!). I don’t think there are any replica models available yet, but possibly in the future.
Comming down Jubilee Way and over the Docks on Monday was surprised to see a P + O Ferry in the wrong berth! But no ordinary Ferry. It filled the whole dock – be-decked in bunting and, with it’s fantastic futuristic design, lookeed a ‘cruise ship’ amongst ordinary ferry boats.
Looking forward to actually travelling on her – just waiting to see her schedule before I book a day-trip after the 21st.
Congratulations P + O on hauling the ferry Industry into the 21st Century!
Looks amazing!! Can’t wait to journey on her!!
Two of us are already boooked to sail in both June and September. Looking forward very mmuch to the experience.
Congratulations for all P&O and Aker Yards workers.
She’s very nice and beautiful at the Port of Dover