Ferries from Cádiz

Fifty-six hours. The crossing from Cádiz to Santa Cruz de La Palma is the longest journey in this entire database — two and a half days at sea between the Spanish mainland and the western Canaries, on a route that exists for vehicles and freight rather than for anyone in a hurry.

The routes and what they cost in time

• Arrecife, Lanzarote — about 26 hours.
• Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura — about 29 hours.
• Santa Cruz de Tenerife — about 43 hours.
• Las Palmas, Gran Canaria — about 35 hours.
• Santa Cruz de La Palma — about 56 hours.

⚠ We hold no departure times for these routes

Every route above shows no active sailings in our timetable. These are long-established services and they do run; the gap is in our data, not in the schedule.

Contact the operator. On a crossing measured in days, a schedule found on a third-party page and not confirmed is worse than no schedule at all.

Who takes a two-day ferry to the Canaries

People moving house. People shipping a vehicle. People who will not fly. Freight, which is most of it. The flight from Madrid takes about two and a half hours and costs less than a cabin.

Understanding that is the difference between planning this crossing well and being surprised by it.

The port

Cádiz sits on a spit at the mouth of the bay, with the passenger terminal close to the old town and the railway station. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in western Europe, and the harbour has been the reason for that since the Phoenicians.

Seville is about an hour and a half inland by train.

Season

Year round, because the freight is year round. Passenger demand and cabin availability tighten in summer and around the Christmas period, when people travel between the islands and the mainland to see family.