Brittany Ferries fires starting gun on The Scooby Scramble

• Captain Bergeroux and Ruben the dog on bridge of Salamanca
• Crew and Ruben the dog in front of Salamanca

Brittany Ferries has opened its books for 2026. The move fires the gun on what has become known internally as The Scooby Scramble every year.

It’s a time when pet owners scramble to secure pet-friendly cabins at peak times, before they sell out. Alongside luxury commodore class cabins, pet friendlies are the first to sell-out on many sailings.

Brittany Ferries carries around 100,000 dogs a year. The figure is rising annually and the company is working hard to match pet demand to supply at peak times. Since 2019, it has increased the number of cabins designed especially for pooches from 66 to 162 across the fleet, up 145%.

It includes 50 new pet-friendly cabins for two new ships that arrived this spring. Guillaume de Normandie and Saint-Malo serve routes from Portsmouth to Caen and St Malo (the destination) respectively, two of the company’s most popular routes.

The ships they replaced had a total of 12 pet-friendlies, meaning most dogs had to be left in cars for the voyage across The Channel. “Now more pooches will be able to travel with their owners in comfort and style, and rightly so,” said Paul Acheson, sales and marketing director Brittany Ferries.

https://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/information/pet-travel/travelling-by-ferry-with-pets

Number of pet cabins by ship – green are brand new ships that joined the fleet, red are those retired from the fleet

2019

2024

2025

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