IKEA - Ferries from Dublin/DL to Wales/North England

I'm looking to take a trip to IKEA in Warrington - some of the stuff we bought there years ago has well and truly served its time.

It looks like the ferry frequency has dropped a good bit since I last went. It used to be possible to get the HSS over from DL at 0800 and back again at something like 2000, but the timings now seem to be too tight for a day trip.

I don't mind doing an overnight, but I'm wondering what way others have done this - is it better to go late one evening, overnight, drive to Warrington, shop, and then return the next evening, or go early one morning, drive to Warrington, shop, overnight and then ferry home the next morning.

If you can keep the trip within 24 hours it looks to be a good bit cheaper.

I'm wondering what way others have done this trip recently.

z

Interesting thing just came up while looking for details of the trip. The HSS on the Dun Laoghaire route is being refitted at the moment and will be out of action between January 7th and March 1st. This seems a very long time for a refit.

Add to this the fact that the HSS on the Harwich-Hook of Holland route is being taken off the route from January 8th (essentially giving them a replacement vessel for DL if necessary, but it is not being used) and you can begin to see a pattern developing. Two of the three HSS vessels are out of action . . .

z

how about [broken link removed] haven't used them myself but it is another option. a different option would be to fly to edinburgh, have a look around, order your stuff and have it delivered. do a search on this site for details, it could end up a cheaper option.

Also as you're probably aware the High-Speed ferries are much more prone to weather related cancellations ... While the large ships can go in pretty much any weather the catamaran ferries tend to get canceled with winds even a little below Gale force - which is a fairly frequent occurrence in the winter months.

The ferry companies will automatically re-accommodate you on the regular ships of course, but it could mess up your plans a bit as the departure times can be significantly different.

On the plus side though the Holyhead to Chester road (A55) is really good, while not a Motorway it's all high quality dual carriageway - driving to Warrington should easily be under 2 hours.

I have done this trip twice. 8:30am Stena Line from Dublin Port, drive to Warrington arriving about 2pm or so.
We went to the outlet village in Ellesmere Port to fill in time.......
http://www.cheshireoaksdesigneroutlet.com/

.......and then to Ikea about 5-6pm. Left Ikea about 9-10pm, back to Holyhead and the ferry was about 2am or something. If you go in the off peak months, you can always get a bench to lie on on the night ferry, I slept for the entire journey back the last time. It saves on overnight accomodation costs

[broken link removed]

One thing, be sure you pick a day that Ikea is open til 10pm to do this trip.