Direct Ferries Route & Fare Scraper

Scrape Direct Ferries (directferries.com) — a ferry comparison site covering 300+ operators worldwide, including P&O Ferries, DFDS Seaways, Irish Ferries, Stena Line, and Brittany Ferries. Get crossing duration, indicative average fare, distance, and which operators run a given route, or browse every route a port or operator serves. HTTP-only. No auth, no proxy, no login required.

What this actor does

• Three modes: look up a specific route by origin/destination port, browse every route a ferry operator runs, or browse every outbound route from a port
• Route detail: crossing duration, indicative average price, distance in nautical miles, and whether foot passengers / cars / pets are permitted
• 300+ operators covered, from major cross-Channel lines to regional and island ferry services worldwide
• Unicode-friendly port names — accented input (e.g. Málaga, Møn) is automatically normalized to match Direct Ferries' URL scheme
• Empty fields are omitted — you never have to defend against null

Output: per route (mode = byRoute)

• routeName — e.g. "Calais - Dover"
• originPort, destinationPort
• description
• crossingDurationText, crossingDurationMinutes
• averagePriceText, averagePriceAmount, averagePriceCurrency
• distanceNauticalMiles
• footPassengerAllowed, carAllowed, petsAllowed
• operators[], operatorSlugs[] — every operator running this route
• region — geographic breadcrumb, e.g. "Europe > England > Dover"
• sourceUrl
• recordType: "route", scrapedAt

Output: per route from a port (mode = byPort)

• portName, routeName
• operators[], operatorSlugs[]
• routeUrl — link to the full route detail page
• recordType: "portRoute", scrapedAt

Output: per route for an operator (mode = byOperator)

• operatorSlug, operatorName
• portFrom, portFromCountry, portTo, portToCountry
• routeName, routeUrl
• recordType: "operatorRoute", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	byRoute	byRoute / byOperator / byPort
originPort	string	Calais	Departure port (mode=byRoute)
destinationPort	string	Dover	Arrival port (mode=byRoute)
portName	string	Dover	Port to list outbound routes from (mode=byPort)
operatorSlug	string	poferries	Ferry operator to list routes for (mode=byOperator) — one of 300+ operators
maxItems	int	50	Hard cap on emitted records (1–1000)

Example: check the Calais-Dover crossing

{
  "mode": "byRoute",
  "originPort": "Calais",
  "destinationPort": "Dover"
}

Example: every route P&O Ferries operates

{
  "mode": "byOperator",
  "operatorSlug": "poferries"
}

Example: every route out of Piraeus

{
  "mode": "byPort",
  "portName": "Piraeus",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: a Spanish/accented port name

{
  "mode": "byRoute",
  "originPort": "Málaga",
  "destinationPort": "Melilla"
}

Use cases

• Travel comparison sites — pull live crossing durations and indicative fares instead of manually checking each operator
• Trip planners — check which operators serve a route before booking directly
• Logistics/freight researchers — identify crossing frequency and duration for routes relevant to cargo planning
• Travel bloggers — source accurate route facts (distance, duration, pet/car policy) for destination guides
• Price trackers — capture Direct Ferries' published average fare over time

FAQ

What is the data source? All data comes from the public pages of directferries.com. This actor is an independent third-party scraper and is not affiliated with Direct Ferries.

Are the prices exact fares? No — averagePriceAmount reflects Direct Ferries' published indicative average price for the route (excluding booking fees), not a live, date-specific quote. For exact fares on specific dates, use Direct Ferries' own booking flow.

Why isn't there a travel-date filter? Direct Ferries' date-specific sailing times and fares are loaded through an interactive booking widget, not published in the static route page. This actor exposes what is reliably available without a browser: crossing duration, indicative average fare, distance, and the operators serving each route. Date-specific schedules are a known limitation of the static-HTML data source.

Why do byPort and byOperator modes not include duration or price? Those modes read the lightweight route-index tables on port and operator pages, which list routes and serving operators but not per-route duration/fare detail. Use byRoute mode with the specific origin/destination to get full route detail.

What if my port name doesn't match a Direct Ferries route? The actor normalizes common variations (accents, spacing, punctuation) into Direct Ferries' URL slug format, but only routes Direct Ferries actually publishes will return data. If a route returns no records, Direct Ferries likely doesn't cover that origin/destination pair.

Does this cost extra for proxy or authentication? No. The actor uses Apify's free AUTO proxy group and requires no login, cookies, or API keys.