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Rail Sail to Dublin?

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Just wondering which of the ferry services are best, from Holyhead. Irish Ferry, or Stena? What are the options to get from the ferry port into Dublin itself, which arrival port (they seem different?) is the easiest for getting to and from Dublin. Any tram connections are are they both buses?
Thanks in advance!
 
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Tomfleet

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I did the Holyhead to Dublin route back in 2018, it was good fun, there a bus the Dublin side or you can walk about 15 minutes to the Luas
 

hilly

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The Irish ferries terminal in Dublin has a bus to get to the centre, there’s a bit of a walk from the arena terminal (or there was last time I did it)
 

181

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Have you looked at Seat61?

In my experience*, there's not much to choose between the two ferry companies; maybe you could go out on one and back on the other. Both have bus connections in Dublin from just outside the terminal, at least for most sailings. The two terminals are almost adjacent.

On Stena you have to use a shuttle bus to get on and off the boat in Dublin, whereas on Irish Ferries there's a passenger gangway -- on one occasion I used Stena because of the slightly earlier arrival time, but this was was more than cancelled out by the wait until enough vehicles had disembarked for the bus to come on board the boat.

Taking some Euro coins for the bus into the city is probably a good idea (unless they take cards now). Seat61 says 'The bus accepts pounds as well as euros, but only in notes with change given in euros', but further down the page it says 'please have the exact fare'; my observation on one occasion (albeit some years ago now) was that sterling coins were accepted, but at a 1:1 exchange rate which made the fare somewhat higher.

Sometimes I think I've found that one company is easier to book SailRail tickets for than the other.

If you want to travel at a time other than the main departures at lunchtime from Holyhead or in the morning from Dublin, there seem to be some differences between Seat61 andd the current European Rail timetable with regard to which sailings take foot passengers; you may find that one company offers a sailing at the time you want and the other doesn't.

*A few trips over the past 15 years -- others may have more experience.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Stena and Irish Ferries both have 2 large ships on the Holyhead-Dublin run, making 4 daily departures each.
Stena has a new ship on the morning/evening departures from Holyhead, and back from Dublin in the afternoon/night (Stena Estrid).
In summer, Irish Ferries has the fast ferry Dublin Swift as well as the classic ferries, but it doesn't operate in bad weather.
 

Sir Felix Pole

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Stena run a connecting bus to the city-centre (also calling at Connolly Station) for all the day sailings - it is contracted out to a private operator and you have to pre-purchase tickets on board ship. In my experience it departs quite promptly, so don't dawdle about when disembarking. Irish Ferries are served by a normal Dublin Bus route (#53), but it isn't very frequent, so do check the timetable. It is a fair old step to the Luas along a not very salubrious dock road, so I wouldn't recommend it.
 
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Thanks to all for the replies, there does not seem to be much to choose between the two services. I do check "Seat 61" for my more exotic rail trips, never thought of it for this local jaunt!
 

181

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Stena and Irish Ferries both have 2 large ships on the Holyhead-Dublin run, making 4 daily departures each.
Stena has a new ship on the morning/evening departures from Holyhead, and back from Dublin in the afternoon/night (Stena Estrid).
In summer, Irish Ferries has the fast ferry Dublin Swift as well as the classic ferries, but it doesn't operate in bad weather.

I think some of the night sailings don't take foot passengers, though (and currently the Irish Ferries website seems to be showing only two sailings per day anyway).

Stena run a connecting bus to the city-centre (also calling at Connolly Station) for all the day sailings - it is contracted out to a private operator and you have to pre-purchase tickets on board ship. In my experience it departs quite promptly, so don't dawdle about when disembarking. Irish Ferries are served by a normal Dublin Bus route (#53), but it isn't very frequent, so do check the timetable. It is a fair old step to the Luas along a not very salubrious dock road, so I wouldn't recommend it.

It's a pity that Irish Ferries don't have a dedicated bus any more -- I didn't know that. Times for the Dublin Bus route 53 can be found here, with pdf timetables available here. Some of the connections with the boat don't look that good.

Information about the Stena bus can be found here. I'm not sure how SailRail passengers are supposed to buy tickets for the eastbound bus -- presumably on board the boat on the outward journey, but that's not much help if you live in Ireland.
 
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