If you're not prepared to swim, there are 3 ways to cross from the mainland to the Isle of Wight with dry feet. Thr girlfriend and I had done the hovercraft, which was fun and the fastest crossing as a passenger
On our weekend trip this weekend, we took the car and chose the Portsmouth to Fishbourne route as it's the shorter of the car ferry journeys (Red Funnel leave from Southampton)
The route is well signposted from the M27 and we encountered no traffic, coming down for the 8pm ferry on a Friday night. Nice to see that, especially as it was the weekend of the IOW round the island race
On arrival, we were directed to a lane to wait for the ferry. There was no mention of the 45 minute delay we then noticed on the large dot matrix sign. The time for the next ferry was also wrong as it was for 19.30 and we arrived at 19.45. There were no announcements or explanations about the delay but one of the marshalls we spoke to at least tried to be helpful but perhaps, they could try and keep their customers informed a bit better
We popped into Greggs, located in the car park area, for a little nibble. There's also a Costa Coffee available
The other slight annoyance was the lack of firm marshalling when the time came to board. There wasn't enough vigilance to stop some naughty cars from cutting in line ahead of other cars which had arrived before them
The journey itself was pleasant enough with some light refreshments available though we chose to enjoy the lovely sun-dappled views of the Solent from the outdoor promenade deck
Incidentally, the 3rd way to cross over is by catamaran to Ryde read more