Malta - British Expat Forum

Does anybody know if you have to do a lot of manoeuvring when you drive your car on/off the ferry? We are taking our car with a trailer (3.5m long, 1.90m high) on the Grandi Navi Veloci ferry from Livorno to Malta.

When driving to Sardinia two years ago, I remember we were parked all the way up front on the side of the ferry, and had to reverse and turn around to get off. I don't really see how this will work when we are towing a large trailer...

How does the offloading happen? Any info appreciated. Perhaps we should brush up on our driving skills

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question. With any luck someone else will. Meanwhile, have you seen this article which was written by Melby? It may be of use to you.

http://britishexpat.com/europe/malta/driving-from-uk-to-malta-via-livorno/

Good luck with your journey.

Hi Liesbeth
I brought out a LWB Shogun and box trailer about the size of your's last May. I will try to find the link/write up for you later.

Basically, if you stick to the toll roads, towing through Europe is no problem, though there is a sharp right hand slip road onto a precarious rusty bridge just outside Genova to worry about!

Your biggest problem is actually finding the right location for the ferry. Once there you join quite a queue to get on the Malta boat and it turns into a bit of a free for all. When you collect your boarding passes at the terminal building make sure you tell them you are towing a trailer to Malta and try to get towards the front of that queue.

If you get the same Grimaldi ferry we did, then vehicles towing trailers/boats were put on near the start. You have to drive in, up quite a steep boarding ramp, and turn around 180 on the car deck, so you are facing back out. (All loading/unloading is done via the stern)

Take your time and it should work out fine.

we are going with Grandi Navi Veloci. I'm not really worried about the driving, since as you said, all toll roads, and we have been to Italy with the car many times. We have found a hotel with outside parking lot that is closed by a gate, so quite safe. The only thing I was thinking of was the driving on and off the ferry. But if we don't have to make too many manoeuvres, or back up to get out of the ferry , I guess we'll be fine.

Thanks for the info!

Hi Liesbeth

On the GNV ferry cars are loaded onto the lowest deck, cars + trailers & vans on the next deck up and lorries and car transporters on the deck above that, There are some tankers and trailers that travel without their motor units and they’re loaded on the top deck.

I can only speak definitely about a car and we were loaded in lanes facing the front. Upon arrival in Malta we reversed and did a 180 turn and went out the same way we came in. As far as I could see cars with trailers and vans were turned facing the rear on their deck but I think there was still some reversing required when we arrived. There is only one entrance/exit on each deck so however it’s done you have to go out the same way you came in. However there is plenty of time to off load and if you take it easy you should have no problems at all.

You should see the size of the car transporters and their trailers that load on there!