I did not enjoy the drive to Ancona and was unlucky enough to arrive in the rush hour. All the ticket offices are housed in a building about a mile from all the boats, luckily the all the police were charming and helpful as I navigated from as near to the ferry as I was allowed, back to the ticket office, then back to the ferry! All my problems vanished when I got on the ferry, staff helpful, cabin excellent, good food and attentative stewards in the lounge.

We arrived luckily 4 hours earlly as we were not informed about the changes in ANEK. The boat left two hours before our tickets said! Secondly...there were around 300 students on board who had no reservation I assume, in cabins or airplane seats. They were very drunk and the noise with boom boxes and then the disco was awful! As it rained they slept were they could which meant on the floor...even on the landings between the floors and on the staircases making it difficult to move around. They were vomiting everywhere and it was disgusting. ANEK's crew did their best to control the situation but there was very little sleep to be had. Your airplane seats are even worse than on a plane as they do not recline! It was one of the worst trips I have had on a ferry and I have been on plenty over the last 20 years as I lived in Greece. Otherwise the boat was clean and the crew pleasant and helpful. The food was good etc.

Although I have boarded ferries at Igoumenitsa at least 10 times, I find the signposting to the dock terrible. Where one is invited to enter one finds oneself driving the wrong way up a one-way road. The other , probably correct entrance, is in total darkness and not visible from the road. One sign is hidden behind thick bushes and not even lit. The checking in is poor. On Corsica Ferries or Seafrance or P and O it is sufficient to show ones printed internet invoice and one does not even have to get out of the car. In Igoumenitsa AND Ancona, one is forced to queue for ages to obtain a ticket which one should not need having already paid the full fare online. Igoumenitsa is particularly awkward as one is obliged to use separate entry and exit doors which are miles apart and badly signposted. The razor wire and iron fence also adds a 3rd World touch to the port.
The exit from Ancona is very disorganised compared with Dover or Calais where one drives straight onto the motorway from the port. In Ancona, one has to drive in a slow queue for at least 5km, cross on-coming traffic in order to find the slow and quite complicated route to the A 14 some 20km from the port. It took us 40 minutes to do these first 5 km on Thursday evening.
It would also be a good idea to have lanes marked at the port. In Dover there are more than 150 of these lanes. The girl who looks at your internet ticket just says "Lane 136", gives you a number to hang on your rear view mirror and you know immediately where to go and there is no need for any further information.
Your ships are magnificent and the manoeuvring stern-to in the narrow port of Ancona is masterful.

The ferry service is a rather convenient service, we needed to go to Greece for a quick check on our boat and chose to go by ferry. Despite Italian and Greek strikes we made it by changing travel times a few times. "aFerry" I really have to recommend since they took care of all that without any big issues, two thumbs up! Once on the ferry, I can only recommend to bring your own food and drinks, service is mediocre at best; food and drink prices are sky high; cabins are clean and rather nice; whole appearance of ship is rather positive; being on time ???? ( never mind, we got there and back ). Overall: I will go again but bring my own supplies!

in view of my poor experiences traveling with ANEK Venice-Patras i spoke with reception on boarding refusing to take my dogs to their on board accomodation. With reluctance i was allowed to take them into my cabin as opposed to leave them inside the car in the garage. Although the staff were more helpfull than on the Venice=Patras leg of my jouirney, it was not a pleasent experience. Journey made ANEK lines 11.03.2011