Arriving in Port of Valencia

There are three marinas in Valencia:  Valencia Yacht Port (VYP), Real Club Nautico de Valencia (RCNV),  and Marina Real Juan Carlos.  Because we had friends at Valencia Yacht Port (VYP) we choose to stay there.

When you enter the harbour, which houses both VYP and RCNV, it can be confusing as both marinas answer to the same VHF channel (and in fact may be managed by the same company).  Once you enter the breakwater, VYP is to the starboard side.

We entered on a weekend when there was only one marinara around.  We had made a reservation in advance and when we called on the radio, the marinara answered and came out to the dock to help us with lines.  The docks have alphabetic names (A, B, C, etc.), but they are not posted at the end of the dock.  It will be very useful to look at an online map before you enter to make it easier to find the dock you have been assigned. When we were there most boats were at A, B or C.

The docks are extremely long with lots of space between boats as the marina was built with superyachts in mind.

The marina is adjacent to a huge, busy container port.  It is apparently one of the largest container ports in the Med.

The large and noisy machinery from the container management area is directly alongside the marina and there was a great deal of clanking and clanging and ringing as we pulled in.   ( However, as I will add below, that was the only time that we experienced significant noise during our two-month stay.)

We were tempted to leave but decided to just hang on for the night and check out the marina as well as the alternative marina, RCNV, by foot, before moving the boat.  It is a 2.5 km walk from dock B (where our boat was located) at VYP to the beginning of the docks at RCNV.     After we saw the layout of RCNV we decided we did not want to move over there as the boats were packed together very closely and there was just as much noise, if not more, from the shipping container yard.  They also did not appear to have sufficient or well-located bathroom and shower facilities.

Staying in Valencia Yacht Port (VYP)

We ended up staying almost two months in VYP and here is some info you may find helpful:

First of all, it was very inexpensive. We paid something like 23 euros a day on a monthly basis, from mid-April to mid-June (2018) and we are a 16-meter sailboat.  There was no noise from bars or discos as none are anywhere close by. The machinery noise from the container port is not an issue either.

The noise level from machinery at RCNV seemed worse than at VYP.   We did not have any personal experience at Marina Real Don Carlos, but we heard that it was very noisy at night with music coming from the bars on the adjoining beach until the wee hours of the morning.   We also heard that there can be a bad swell at Don Carlos. ( It does seem to be a much better-located marina, however, particularly for a short stay in Valencia.)

If you arrive at VYP after 3:00 p.m. on Friday, or anytime on the weekend you will not be able to use either the power or the water at the docks.   A security deposit is required for the electricity and water and you can only arrange to do this during their business hours.  There is also no Wi-Fi without obtaining a modem from the office (yes, a modem).  A security deposit is required for this as well.

Marina Facilities

There are several sets of toilets/showers along the dock at VYP. Unfortunately, the showers do not have doors and many of them do not have adjustable water temperature.  The toilets are clean and there are plenty of them.

There is no laundry facility at VYP, however, there is one at RCNV that you can use.  When you are at VYP you are inside the RCNV security zone as well so you have full access to chandleries, restaurants, and other services located on the RCNV side of the basin.

Marina Services

There are two chandleries at RCNV (Accastilage Diffusion is the best stocked) plus lots of boat services including two sail lofts (one of which is North Sails), two carpentry shops, and authorized engine repair shops for Yanmar, Volvo, Onan, etc., plus a Raymarine agent.

There are no restaurants or grocery stores at VYP.  There are two restaurants over at RCNV; one is an informal café type place with inexpensive (and mediocre food). The other is much nicer and had excellent food, but it was only open two nights a week when we were there (mid-April to mid-June) It also seemed to be unmarked and it was hard to find the first time.

Finding VYP by road

To get into VYP (by car) you must enter through the security gates of Real Club Nautico, drive through their parking lots, around the boat maintenance and hauling area, past the sailing club, past the Guardia Civil station, and then you arrive at a gated area beyond which you will find the VYP office.  Just adjacent to the office and following along the length of the entire marina is a long parking garage.

It is difficult to get a taxi to come to the entrance to the VYP (they all know the RCNV, but as previously mentioned, that is almost 3 km away, and many taxis will not know how to get to the entrance of VYP), so it is highly recommended to ask someone at the office to arrange for a taxi, and then go to town and rent a car.

We used Google maps to get around and found that if we specified VYP as our starting or ending location, it would give us crazy and very inefficient routing, and would want to send us back and forth inside the parking lot or even worse, send us to the highly restricted area for trucks heading to the port rather than back to our marina.  It is only possible to get back and forth to VYP by specifying one’s location as Real Club Nautico de Valencia.  Overall, Google maps do not work very well in Valencia.  We have never had more confusing and inaccurate online directions than we had there.

The process of getting your rental car into and out of the marina complex is not easy.  You need to have two sets of security cards.  The first is obtained through the office staff at VYP and will let you enter and exit the garage adjacent to the boats.  The second must be obtained through the staff who sit in a glassed-in cubicle near the entrance gates of RCNV. They will need to see your registration paper-work from VYP before they will issue you a pass.  We also had to stop at the main office of RCNV to get this arranged.  The people in the glassed-in cubicle are not very customer friendly.   There is a 30-euro charge for a one-month pass.  This is well worth it, as it otherwise costs 10 euros a day.   They gave us a paper pass initially and told us to stop by in a few days to get our plastic card.  Three weeks later the card was finally ready, and they charged us an additional 50 euros as a security deposit.  When we returned the card about a month later, we did get our 50 euros returned readily, but then they seemed unhappy about us having such a special card for such a short period of time.  Being a better Spanish speaker would have helped immensely.

Conclusion

Despite some of the shortcomings of the marina, in terms of location and facilities, we enjoyed our time in Valencia very much.  It is a fabulous city with great restaurants, architecture, parks, music and everything one could hope to enjoy on holiday.  Having a bike there would be great.  Having a car there is essential in our opinion.

Laura Pitt

http://www.valenciayachtport.com

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