2 Berth hire

[Idle Al]

I'm thinking about taking my wife for a Christmas cruise next winter (we don't do Christmas day traditionally, presents, booze & telly yes, turkey dinner...NO! We go for a theme every year, be it Peruvian, Indian, 1970's or whatever) and I though it would be nice to do a wholly traditional canal based day in 2012. Does anybody know where I can hire a 2 berth cruiser for 3-4 days?

[BlueStringPudding]

Get a boat with a woodburning stove to properly enjoy the experience. Not all hire companies have them. I'm pretty sure AngloWelsh do. And I think it's Middlewich Boats (someone on here will correct me if I've got that wrong) that hire out more traditional craft rather than modern style hire boats. If you want a more authentic experience for your themed week, perhaps consider them?

But don't forget, hiring over Christmas may mean getting iced in and therefore not travelling very far! So bring plenty of booze and board games.

[Athy]

Ashby Boat Co. at Stoke Golding have (or at least recently had) a nice little 2-berth narrowboat with a solid-fuel stove.

[dor]

Chas Harden does winter hires and has a couple of smaller boats.

[GBBS]

willow wren in ruugby has a couple of new boats with solid fuel stoves

 

01788 562183

[Guest]

Strumble...

 

 

http://www.canalboatescapes.co.uk/traditional_narrowboat_hire_doug_moore.htm

[alan_fincher]

Lots of places will not do a Christmas hire, I think, and equally lots of others don't tend to do small boats....

 

So, unless you want lots of space in a bigger one, you will need to ask the various suggestions made exactly what they do, and don't do at that time of year.

 

If you hire, and the canal is frozen up at that time, as someone said, you'll not actually be going anywhere. It does happen, so you need to be philosophical on that point!......

[FredW]

Hi,One of my dreams is to have Christmas on a narrowboat.

Can I suggest you try Norbury Wharf,they have a few two berth boats

and all have solid fuel stoves & central heating.They have boats

with trad & semi trad sterns.

Good luck,

Fred.

[FredDrift]

Like the OP, we try to do something different every Christmas - Cruises, long haul, short haul, hotels, cottage hire etc.

 

We did the boaty Xmas a couple of years ago from Redhill. The canals were frozen solid to the extent that Trent Lock, Radcliffe and Derwent Mouth locks were all but closed by ice. We had the short stretches of the Rivers Soar and Trent between the three locks to move around on - not far but for the four days it was ok given that Xmas day and boxing day we remained moored.

 

It was a four berth with a stove. Had a whale of a time with our kids joining us for a full Xmas dinner fully prepared on board. We had a really good time and the only downside was that we had to dash off and buy china and glasses on our arrival as this particular boat only had plastic-ware on board.

 

Would we do it again - Yes, in a heartbeat. This year though, we hired a rather large dog friendly motorhome and went down to Devon - another first and again very enjoyable.

 

HN