Reading to Bristol ferry
Ferries from Reading to Bristol start at €11.88 and take 5h 25m at their fastest.
The Ferries from Reading to Bristol starts at €11.88 and takes 5h 25m door to door, run by 1 operator over 118 km, with around 3 departures a day. Fares bottom out about 90 days before departure.
- 5h 25mDoor to door
- 3h 55mMoving
- €11.88From
- 13.6 kgCO2
The cheapest and the fastest on September 21, 2026
Two journeys we can sell today, with the service number each operator files them under.
No bookable itinerary on the day this page prices, so none is shown.
Ferry operators
Speed, flexibility and what is on board. Nothing here is a rating, because we have not earned one.
| Operator | From | Fastest | Typical speed | Flexibility | On board |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Brittany Ferries | €11.88 | 5h 9m | 33 km/h | Changeable | Bar, , Cabins, Cafe, Restaurant, Restrooms |
The trip ends at Bristol Temple Meads. Everything past the gates belongs to somebody else, the rooms included.
A room in Bristol for the night the ferry gets in
Filter by neighborhood and by nightly price, and the map tells you what is a walk and what is a cab.
Search Bristol on Booking.comOr compare on Expedia
Partner links. We do not sell accommodation. We earn a commission when a booking completes, and it never changes what you pay.
When to book Reading to Bristol
The same search run across the whole booking window, so the shape of the curve is visible rather than described.
- €10.0790 days
- €10.0760 days
- €10.0745 days
- €10.0730 days
- €10.0721 days
- €11.7314 days
- €12.837 days
- €17.783 days
- €18.881 days
- Cheapest lead time
- Fares bottom out around 90 days ahead, at €10.07.
- How much it moves
- The gap between the cheapest and most expensive lead time is 87 percent. The most expensive point is €18.88, 1 days out.
- What that means
- Today sits inside the cheap window, which closes about 90 days before departure. Waiting from here has usually cost money on this corridor rather than saved it.
Which departure day costs least
Median cheapest fare for each weekday, taken across the next three weeks of real prices.
- €10.08Sun
- €10.08Mon
- €10.07Tue
- €11.73Wed
- €11.18Thu
- €11.89Fri
- €10.63Sat
Where you leave from and where you arrive
The stations, airports and ports each mode on this corridor actually uses.
Reading
- Thames RiverCruise
Bristol
- Bristol Marina
- Bristol Packet Office
What the journey actually looks like
Direct or connecting, how far the route really runs, and what happens when a connection is missed.
- Direct or connecting
- 71% of the services we sell on this corridor run through without a change. The remaining 29% involve one connection.
- How far it really runs
- The route covers 118 km against 113 km in a straight line, a detour of 4 percent. Track and road geometry account for the difference.
- Where the change is
- Connections are made at Didcot, Swindon, Andover, Salisbury. The gap between arriving and leaving is 52 minutes, of which about 5 is walking.
- If the connection is missed
- The tightest connection we sell here has a 18 percent chance of not being made on the timetable alone. Part of this journey is a self transfer between separate tickets, so leave more time than the minimum and expect to check in again.
- First and last departure
- The first service of the day leaves Reading at 06:31 and the last at 14:44, across 3 departures. The return direction keeps its own timetable, so the times back are not these times reversed.
Ferries against the other ways to make this journey
The same corridor, door to door, with every mode that runs it.
| Mode | Door to door | Moving | At the ends | From | CO2 | Per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Train | 1h 38m | 54m | 44m | €16.84 | 3.9 kg | 9 |
| Coach | 2h 30m | 1h 46m | 44m | €10.07 | 3.2 kg | 2 |
| Ferry | 5h 25m | 3h 55m | 1h 30m | €11.88 | 13.6 kg | 3 |
Questions about Reading to Bristol
The questions people actually ask about this trip, answered from the same prices and times the page above is built on rather than written once and left to go stale.
How long does the Ferry from Reading to Bristol take?
The Ferry from Reading to Bristol takes 5h 25m door to door, of which 3h 55m is spent moving. The route runs 118 km. The difference between the two times is reaching the terminal and leaving it at the far end, which every time on this page includes.
How much does the Ferry from Reading to Bristol cost?
The Ferry from Reading to Bristol starts at €11.88 for one passenger, checked on September 21, 2026. A typical fare is €14.09. Both are the total including taxes, supplier fees and our service fee, so the price here is the price at checkout.
Who runs the Ferry from Reading to Bristol?
1 operators run the Ferry from Reading to Bristol: Brittany Ferries. Between them they file around 3 departures a day. The operator table on this page compares them on fare, journey time, cruising speed, fare conditions and what is provided on board.
Which terminal does the Ferry from Reading to Bristol use?
The Ferry from Reading to Bristol leaves from Thames RiverCruise and arrives at Bristol Marina. Allow about 1h 30m for reaching the departure terminal and leaving the arrival one. That time is already inside every door to door figure quoted on this page.
Is the Ferry the best way from Reading to Bristol?
Traveling from Reading to Bristol by Coach costs €10.07 and takes 2h 30m door to door, against 5h 25m by Ferry. Which is better depends on whether the money or the hours matter more on this trip. The comparison table on this page shows every mode side by side.
When should I book the Ferry from Reading to Bristol?
Fares for the Ferry from Reading to Bristol bottom out around 90 days ahead, at €10.07. The gap between the cheapest and most expensive lead time across the window is 87 percent, measured on September 21, 2026. Booking inside the final week has consistently cost more.
How much CO2 does the Ferry from Reading to Bristol produce?
The Ferry from Reading to Bristol produces about 13.6 kg of CO2 per passenger over 118 km, which works out at roughly 115 grams per passenger kilometer. That figure is for the whole journey and for one traveler, not for the vehicle.
What is provided on board the Ferry from Reading to Bristol?
Operators on the Ferry from Reading to Bristol publish Bar, , Cabins, Cafe, Restaurant, Restrooms. That is what 1 carriers on this corridor state about their own fleets, across a journey of 5h 25m door to door. Where a carrier publishes nothing, this page lists nothing for it.
Where these numbers come from
Derived from service area No carrier record names this exact pair. The operators listed publish a service area covering both places at a distance their mode plausibly carries people, which is evidence that the corridor is served and not evidence of a specific service. Pages state which, because presenting the two as the same thing would be dishonest.
Schedules, seat counts and fares are generated by our own model until the supplier contracts are signed. Places, coordinates, operators, which operator serves which pair, and every distance are real. We would rather say that on every page than let a modeled number pass for a filed one.
Defined in full at Door to door, Fares, The booking window, Carbon
- On this page
- Every figure above was computed for Reading to Bristol on September 9, 2026: 118 km of route against 113 km in a straight line, 3 services a day, 1 operators, a cheapest fare of €11.88, and 5h 25m door to door on the fastest mode. The return direction is computed separately and its numbers are not these numbers.
Related journeys
The trip is the easy half to plan. The days in Bristol are the half people leave until last.
Day trips out of Bristol and across United Kingdom
Day trips that leave Bristol in the morning and cover a good part of United Kingdom by evening.
See Bristol on GetYourGuideOr browse Viator
Partner links. We do not sell tours or tickets. We earn a commission on a booking, and it never changes the price.