Iran to UAE by Ferry: Q&A and updates

[steven]

Please leave your questions and reports on the Persian Gulf ferries below.

We summarize all knowledge in the Persian Gulf ferries article.

We have a separate forum Q&A for the Bandar Lengeh - Dubai ferry.

[funkyboots]

I'm posting details of the ferry from UAE to Iran... I couldn't find much up to date info online, about where to get the ticket, so this might be useful for anyone going that way:
The ferry cpamy is on in Sharjah - 06 5288575. Agent in Dubaiis Al Rais Travel in Municipality Car Park Building on Baniyas Road, Deira - stand with back to Deira Abra Stopa and it is the brown building on the opposite side of road, slightly to your right, last office on ground floor. Tel 042352352
Once you have a ticket in Dubai, get a bus from Al Ghubaiba bus station, Dubai, to Sharjah, ask to get off at nearest stop to Khalid Port. Taxis the will take you to port for 10-15 dirhams. passenger terminal is behind the customs office. Check in there and get a boarding card, and check in any luggage you don,t want to take on board - i took my backpack with me, no issue. Wait in passenger waiting room until you get sent through to immigration in adjoining room to be stamped out of UAE, and then bussed to the ferry. passengers I spoke to said sometimes it can be busier but on this occasion, most passengers had row of 4 seats each, so could stretch out and sleep. earplugs and an eye mask are a help if you plan to sleep... there are films playing and bright strip lighting. Dinner (rice and meat) and breakfast (flat bread, cheese spread, jam & tea) are provided and there are drinking water dispensers.

[funkyboots]

Sorry for the delay, only just saw this reply.
ticket cost $80, probably no cheaper than flying but a lot more interesting.
Takes about 12 hours, sailing around 9pm , arriving around 9a.m., and currently operates 3 days a weepk... Sun, Tues, Thurs. For some reason you are supposed to check in around 4.30 pm, way in advance of sailing, but I found it interesting peole-watching in the waiting room for a few hours, anyway.
I think it is possible to take a car... Not 100% sure, but it is definitely possible to take bicycles or motorbikes.
It's a great way to arrive in Iran, and Bandar Abbas has easy bus connections to other cities.

[carabruan]

Information from 1st of february 2015 - we travelled by bicycle - shipping companies for tickets from UAE to Iran:

DUBAI
P.O.BOX 24713, Dubai, UAE
Mina Road, Bur-Dubai, ART Tower Building
Tel: + 971 4 393 3333
Fax: + 971 4 393 3399
E-Mail: [email protected]
Hours: 09:00 – 18:00 / Sunday – Thursday

Branch:
SHARJAH
Ground Floor Shaikha hamda Bldg.
Al Zahra St. Sharjah
Tel: + 971 6 5724421 / + 971 6 5723422
Fax: + 971 6 5725151

SNTTA Sharjah National Travel and Tour Agency
Mrs. Valsa Mathew, Sales Manager (ask for her, probably the only person in that agency with the knowledge about this tickets to Iran)
E-Mail: [email protected]
Tel: +971 50 302 08 39
Service Charge per person: 100 Dirham

Just go to Iran, traveling there is just fantastic.

[funkyboots]

If you get the ticket in Dubai, make sure you get the correct branch of Al Rais travel! There is more than one, part of the same company, but I wasted quite a lot of time finding one of them and they could not sell the ticket and didn't seem to know that their branch across the creek did. Only after quite a few more phone calls did I find out that it has to be the branch in the municipality car park building.

[Ulle15]

Hello,

Does anybody know at which days the ferry usually goes from Bandar Abbas to Sharjah (Dubai)? Last information on this page says on Mondays and Wednesdays at 09:00 pm. Is this actual?

Thanks, Uwe

[steven]

Hi Uwe,

it could definitely have changed in the meantime. I included a bunch of phone numbers on the relevant pages, I suggest you call them or pay the office a visit directly to find out what is now. Please post your findings if you don't mind, to help future ferry travelers!

http://caravanistan.com/transport/persi ... s-sharjah/

[Cartman]

Hi, I'm thinking of taking the ferry over to Iran while visiting Oman and UAE.
I'm just wonderring if the ferries return back the same day, or if you'll have to spend the night (We're on a cruiseship, so we're just thinking maximum a day in Iran).
Preferably we'd visit Qeshm Island or Bandar Lengeh

[steven]

Hi Cartman,

apologies, I just noticed I had a faulty link to the Qeshm island ferries page. It's updated: http://caravanistan.com/iran/qeshm-island/boat/
Only possible to visit from Bandar Abbas (Iran)

From Dubai, it is perhaps possible to go to Bandar Lengeh and back in 1 day. Timetables change often, you will need to check with the shipping company to get the latest info: http://caravanistan.com/transport/persi ... geh-dubai/

Hope that helps!

[Fred]

This is a post regarding our experience on travelling from Bandar Abbas, a port city by the Persian Gulf in the southern Iran, to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by ferry in late December 2016.

The original post with photos is on 900days.cyaontheroad.com/post/156667059172/iran-to-united-arab-emirates-by-ferry.

There are actually two ways to travel from Bandar Abbas to the UAE: by flight or by ferry. As you might have already noticed that Stacey and I always try to travel by land or by sea instead by air in our world tour, if possible. So, we farewelled to our hospitable Iranian friends and the peaceful country, and headed to the UAE on the other side of the Persian Gulf by ferry after an 1-month Iran trip.

Dubai or Sharjah in UAE?

There are regular ferries leave for Sharjah in the UAE from Bandar Abbas, and also ferries head to UAE’s Dubai from another port city Bandar Lengeh. In terms of this, before we bought the ferry tickets, the first question we asked ourselves was, “Where in the UAE we like to visit?”

For the reason of a lower cost of living in Sharjah than Dubai, we chose the Bandar Abbas - Sharjah route. Also, Sharjah is actually only 30 kilometres north of Dubai (comparing Bandar Lengeh is 185 kilometres away from Bandar Abbas), so it would be an easy travel in between two UAE cities when we want to.

Ferry Schedule

The ferry from Bandar Abbas (Iran) to Sharjah (UAE) departs every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 22:00.

The ferry from Bandar Lengeh (Iran) to Dubai departs every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 10:00.

Ferry Fare

The ferry fares for “Bandar Abbas - Sharjah” route and “Bandar Lengeh - Dubai” route are the same at 2,900,000 IRR per person, if purchase directly from the ferry terminals. For a purpose of convenience, we chose to book early to secure the seats at a Shiraz-based travel agency with a price of 3,200,000 IRR per person. As you can see there’s a difference of 300,000 IRR as a commission for the agency.

To understand more about Iranian Rials (IRR), please visit the “Currency” section on [1].

Bandar Abbas to Shahid Bahonar Port

The Shahid Bahonar Port is the one where we boarded the ferry for Sharjah, UAE. It’s located about 10 kilometres southwest of the city centre. We stayed with our Iranian friends where is located 10K east of the city centre. For the time-saving reason we opted for travelling with a taxi at the price of 130,000 IRR (whole car) from friends’ home to the port.

To see the exact location of the Shahid Bahonar Port, please visit [2].

Shahid Bahonar Port

We were told by our travel agency to be at the port at least 3 hours prior the departure time (22:00) so we arrived at the port about 19:00. The main hall was quite busy with tons of passengers and luggage. We proceeded to the ticket counter on the right of the main hall to get our boarding passes, and then went to the customs for the paper work as well as luggage scanning. Male and female passengers are separated before the customs but freely to sit together at the waiting area.

There’s NO money exchange at the port, so you either change before in the city (preferred), or change in the UAE like we did. We took some time and visited many money exchange offices and finally found one in Sharjah which accepts Iranian Rials. See the location on [3].

The Ferry Journey

The ferry trip took about 13 hours, from departure at 22:00 to ferry docked at 11:00 next day, including a long waiting time outside Sharjah’s Port Khalid for some reason (maybe due to the heavy fog?).

Two meals, dinner and breakfast were provided and included in the fare.

Make and female passengers are normally sitting in different areas on the ferry. Men are in the back side and female passengers and also passengers with a family are in the front. For non-Muslim female tourists, it’s okay to not to have hijab (headscarf).

The ferry is fitted with seats only but not like the cargo ship we used to cross the Caspian Sea with private passenger cabins fitted with beds [4]. So passengers either laid on the empty seats, or went straight to the two prayer rooms and slept on the floor.


Port Khalid in Sharjah, UAE

Visa on Arrival (VOA) is issued at the port customs so we had no problem on receiving visas with our Aussie passports. If your nationality is eligible for the VOA you should also be able to get it too on arrival. Also, it’s free! Nice.

We didn’t see any ATM or money exchange anywhere inside or outside Port Khalid so we requested our taxi driver to take us to an ATM when en-route to our destination in the city. All taxies in Sharjah and Dubai are fitted with a taximeter BTW.

[1] The Iran we don’t know, http://900days.cyaontheroad.com/post/15 ... -dont-know
[2] Shahid Bahonar Port, https://goo.gl/maps/5hsCNkdXjUN2
[3] Salim Exchange, https://her.is/2jVH7zq
[4] Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan by Ferry, http://900days.cyaontheroad.com/post/15 ... n-by-ferry

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