Malta - British Expat Forum

Hi all,

In general, does it make a difference how you book your ferry tickets - directly with the boat, or through a third party or website? For those that have made the trip, what do you recommend?

Cheers!

Hmm, I see no one has every replied to this, but since I was about to post a question very similar, might as well do it here rather than make a new thread

Hi everybody. I'm about to move to Malta next week, and my wife will be joining me in August. We're now having to plan what to bring and what to leave in the UK, and one of our decisions revolves around our camper van.

We have a Mazda Bongo, an import from Japan -- here's a picture for those that are curious:



We've used this many times in the past for driving holiday trips in France, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Lakes District, etc., always the two of us and our two beagles, and always having loved it. One of the things that we're excited about moving to Malta for is using the Bongo for driving holidays in Southern Europe (and maybe northern Africa, or is that crazy talk?)

But, at a first glance, it seems like ferry prices are much more costly to get to and from Malta than what we've come to expect from the UK to France. We've done a few searches, and it seems like it's not uncommon to pay over €750 for round trip, and it could be maybe more if they want to charge us for being in a "van" (the Bongo has been classified as a car when we've done UK based ferries, but we're not sure yet if that will be the case in Malta).

So, long story short, we're trying to decide if it's financially feasible to bring the Bongo, or if they extra ferry costs will make driving holidays unfeasible.

And now the question: what kind of price ranges should we expect, on average, to ferry back and forth to the Italy (and elsewhere, I suppose). Just rough ballpark figured would do. And and suggestions would be awesome.

Maybe this is the kind of info one gets in the private members section, though? In either case, thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

rahdo wrote: We have a Mazda Bongo, an import from Japan -

Gozo SPCA uses one of those (without the top bit...)

Well, I guess the lack of an answer means this is more of a "figure it out yourself" kind of board...

I've seen plenty of threads on the ferries on this forum, including on pricing, but maybe many are on the private boards - it seems as though pricing is the same however you book, down to a lack of competition.

Have you checked the pricing on the relevant ferry company website(s) ?

Yup, hence the €750 prices we found. Our worry is if that's the best we can do, it maybe doesn't make sense to bring the Bongo in the first place, if it costs so much more to ferry off the island than to fly...

I was hoping there might be some insider info about ways to make it more affordable... I noticed someone mentioned here getting on cargo ships, for instance.

Where are you getting those prices from? We paid about 400 euros for 3 people+car return recently to Pozzallo.

Oops, didn't see someone had replied!

My wife tried a couple of different websites. It was hard to get exact estimates because we're talking about a van, but she was assuming worst case and that it wouldn't be treated as a car (even though it is for UK-France ferries).

In all honesty though, we're now worried about bringing the Bongo over anyway, because of the insanely high registration fees

rahdo wrote: In all honesty though, we're now worried about bringing the Bongo over anyway, because of the insanely high registration fees

How long have you owned it? Mark will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe if you've owned it 2 years you don't have to pay the fees?

Yeah, tricky thing is we wanted to bring both our Bongo (for long road trips abroad) AND our Nissan Micra (for driving around the island with the top down! Woot!) But apparently we can only bring in one car per person avoiding the reg fees, and both cars are registered in my wife's name.

We're looking to see if we can get ownership on the Micra backdated to my name, but I have my doubts about that

So, we have to choose: bring the Bongo for road trips (and hauling big things around as needed), or the Micra for fun, and sell the other one, which would be heart breaking, but cest la vie.

In other news, to add more complication, I've been here for a week now, and rented a scooter, and am LOVING it. I think it would be preferable actually for daily commuting, but buying a new scooter here seems crazy expensive (no doubt because of the registration fee), and I don't know about buying a used one.

Malta certainly doesn't make things easy...

I've got a 30 year old scooter (Yamaha BOP) - cost me about € 400 10 years ago, and could sell it for the same price easily - not had a thing go wrong with it in 10 years

If that's the scooter we saw you on today Mark it looks great and well worth the money! My kids want a go:-)

thats the one