With the number of pets booming during the Pandemic and with more people than ever traveling with their furry companions, pet parents will be happy to hear that the Stena Line ferries on the North Sea are now offering dog-friendly cabins for the first time ever.
The North Sea’s Stena Line ferries include its two largest ferries, the Stena Hollandica and Stena Britannica. Both ferries have completed a €1 million refit to provide brand new onboard facilities. With this investment, 15 of the vessel’s 500 cabins have been converted to allow passengers to travel together with their happy dogs.
Dog-friendly cabins are suggestions that passengers requested via the company’s satisfaction surveys, so the company said they are pleased to be able to respond to their customers’ requests.
The North Sea vessels, that sail twice daily between Harwich, in the UK and Hoek van Holland, in The Netherlands, were in dry-dock in the EDR Shipyard in the historic Port of Antwerp to undergo their regular annual maintenance to keep them up to the company’s standards.
While there they underwent the makeover to add the pet friendly cabins and added a new additional Duty Free shop to each vessel, extending the retail floorspace on both ships by 40%.
Erik Thulin, Trade Director for the North Sea said, “Our annual dry-docking programme is key to keeping our vessels ship-shape and continue looking so good. It also allows us to be flexible in responding to our customers’ demand, so we’ve taken the opportunity to extend our onboard Duty Free offer, to provide for more products and more bargains for our customers.”
“We are also pleased to offer our first ever dog-friendly cabins,” Thulin added. “We listened to our many customers who have requested this option and they can now have up to three dogs with them in each of our 15 dog-friendly cabins. We looking to forward to welcoming all our customers, including out four-legged friends back on newly refurbished vessels on the North Sea.”
Further upgrades include the vessels’ two popular Barista Bars receiving a new stylish Scandinavian look and feel. Each of the vessel’s top of the range Captain’s Suites have also been refurbished.
The Stena Line Netherlands-UK ferries have a duration of approximately six and a half hours. The ferries are equipped with a kennel room for pets in which pets can be monitored from the cabin televisions.
For more on the Stena Line ferry, see below on what the trip is like with a dog.