Driving to/through France from UK right now

[21st Century Man]

I priced Plymouth - Santander for the last week in June, return with cabin was £1100, but went shotgun in a mate's car instead. £1800 sounds steep. Dynamic pricing?

[TDK-C60]

Dover today - around 1630.

HGVs blocking the roundabout a bit and the almost (daft) single lane entry to the whole dock, but once past that only 3 cars in front of us at customs. Took 90, 60 and 45 secs for each car to be checked. Not as fast as the 3 sec wave through in the 2014 video above but clearly not a problem today. The check in bloke looked tired mind.

The Dover prices don’t seem too bad - they seemed to drop a bit after the carnage but also fluctuate. Company changed our non-flex ticket for no charge.

I usually prefer Pompey (Portsmouth) but I do think that seems to cost a lot more post covid - that I know that also used to vary. Hopefully will settle as fuel prices ease.

[21st Century Man]

Magooagain said:

To me,they all seem expensive. But that probably says more about me than the prices.

Where have the days gone when I used to turn up at Calais or Dunkirk at midnight with van and trailer,not mention the trailer, and get across to the uk for €50.00?

The tunnel seemed to be a pretty consistent £79 each way for years on end outside of holidays.

Costs now are due to post pandemic ramp up demand, Ukraine, Oil, USD rate, Inflation is a thing again, and of course it's holiday time.

I'll be sticking with an unpopular travel time on the tunnel for a decent price and no hassle. I hate the ferries, love the tunnel.

[Tyre Smoke]

omniflow said:

Tyre Smoke said:

For example, a last minute trip with two dogs, caravan, wife and myself, Pompey to Caen overnight with a cabin both ways is just shy of £800.

I can book the same trip, without dogs, for Le Mans next June for £545.

I don't think that's bad at all.

If I could find space on a ferry, Portsmouth to Santander was over £1800 return.

Where on earth is "Pompey"?

I presume it's not Portsmouth, as that's spelt in full lower down. So where else could it be? Plymouth?

Pompey IS Portsmouth. Plymouth is known as Guzz. Something to do with RN identification letters or something.

[Tyre Smoke]

21st Century Man said:

I priced Plymouth - Santander for the last week in June, return with cabin was £1100, but went shotgun in a mate's car instead. £1800 sounds steep. Dynamic pricing?

No, 8 metre caravan I think.

[21st Century Man]

Tyre Smoke said:

21st Century Man said:

I priced Plymouth - Santander for the last week in June, return with cabin was £1100, but went shotgun in a mate's car instead. £1800 sounds steep. Dynamic pricing?

No, 8 metre caravan I think.

[sunbeam alpine]

21st Century Man said:

That makes sense when you're on the mainland as borders are hard to control when you can walk across fields. I guess the UK and Ireland aren't because they're islands and control should you want it is easier...

Remind me - how's that going so far?

[andyA700]

Amateurish said:

I take the Eurotunnel pretty regularly, and I reckon prices have gone nearly doubled vs pre Brexit / Covid.

So my typical journey would have been £100 each way now it's more like £200.

My two week return at the end of August is £240 all in.

[21st Century Man]

sunbeam alpine said:

21st Century Man said:

That makes sense when you're on the mainland as borders are hard to control when you can walk across fields. I guess the UK and Ireland aren't because they're islands and control should you want it is easier...

Remind me - how's that going so far?

Traveling across multiple countries once into Europe is a relative doddle to get to the channel because there are no controls or barriers Then things become much more of a challenge because there are border controls that have to be circumvented and a huge natural barrier to cross too, with a real risk to life. If you're alluding to what I think you're alluding to? Crossing the channel illegally is no walk in the park, as the poor souls who've made it will no doubt confirm, let alone those who didn't.

How's it going so far? Compared to what? Being on the same land mass with no controls? It ought to be obvious.

[TDK-C60]

I’d also add I can’t see much evidence of any extra customs facilities - look like the same old booths from donkeys years ago.

There did seem to be only a half dozen or so of them but didn’t really count carefully. The actual ferry companies have more than that each (per company, so 3/4 times more) for check in (which does usually take a bit longer).

I suspect someone has decided “not to bother” spending the money to cover the extra hassle & chaos during busy periods by the extra checks when it only impacts a few days a year.

[Amateurish]

andyA700 said:

Amateurish said:

I take the Eurotunnel pretty regularly, and I reckon prices have gone nearly doubled vs pre Brexit / Covid.

So my typical journey would have been £100 each way now it's more like £200.

My two week return at the end of August is £240 all in.

I'm not saying you can't get it cheaper. Just that for my regular travel dates, that's what I'm seeing. For example, I always travel back to the UK on the last Sunday of the school holidays. This is what I have paid in recent times:

2022 £200
2020 £120
2019 £90
2018 £80
2017 £80

[Rushjob]

TDK-C60 said:

I’d also add I can’t see much evidence of any extra customs facilities - look like the same old booths from donkeys years ago.

There did seem to be only a half dozen or so of them but didn’t really count carefully. The actual ferry companies have more than that each (per company, so 3/4 times more) for check in (which does usually take a bit longer).

I suspect someone has decided “not to bother” spending the money to cover the extra hassle & chaos during busy periods by the extra checks when it only impacts a few days a year.

That's because the wonderful UK Govt had this flagged up as a potential choke point in 2020 by Dover Ports, in their wisdom the UK Govt declined to fund extra outbound border posts but have now decided to blame the delays and jams on the French. Cue Daily Wail / Express article

[21st Century Man]

Rushjob said:

That's because the wonderful UK Govt had this flagged up as a potential choke point in 2020 by Dover Ports, in their wisdom the UK Govt declined to fund extra outbound border posts but have now decided to blame the delays and jams on the French. Cue Daily Wail / Express article

Go on then, I'll bite. How would additional unmanned booths have helped? They had 6 of the 12 open, not even the 9 that they had planned for to be open.

[ooid]

21st Century Man said:

That makes sense when you're on the mainland as borders are hard to control when you can walk across fields. I guess the UK and Ireland aren't because they're islands and control should you want it is easier. Ireland is a very pro EU member but still not in Schengen.

To my best knowledge, that was all about keeping U.K. border free flowing, nothing to do with their borders. (Someone from Ireland or more knowledge can prove me wrong).

Both Norway and Iceland also Schengen but non-EU, they seem to have non issues with movement?

[RizzoTheRat]

TDK-C60 said:

Dover today - around 1630.

HGVs blocking the roundabout a bit and the almost (daft) single lane entry to the whole dock, but once past that only 3 cars in front of us at customs. Took 90, 60 and 45 secs for each car to be checked. Not as fast as the 3 sec wave through in the 2014 video above but clearly not a problem today. The check in bloke looked tired mind.

Similar today. Arrived at 12:30 (90 mins to departure), big queue of lorries, but luckily not long enough to block the roundabout, and had 3 cars in front of us at passport control.

Never had them put our suitcases though a scanner before, although we seem to get picked out by customs fairly often, my Mrs is convinced its because a right hand drive car on European plates just looks suspicious.

[loafer123]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Travelling on Eurotunnel you have to provide Advance Passenger Information - passport numbers, traveller names - so they already have the data.

[psi310398]

loafer123 said:

Travelling on Eurotunnel you have to provide Advance Passenger Information - passport numbers, traveller names - so they already have the data.

I also have to do this with both Stena Line to Hook and Brittany Ferries to Ouistreham. I’m not sure you can get off mainland Britain (except possibly through RoI) without completing an API, so it’s a very good point. That said, HMG is very proficient at wasting its taxpayers’ time when it doesn’t have to pay for it.

[RizzoTheRat]

You do on the ferries as well

[TDK-C60]

Not that much of an issue coming back today, french passports very quick but UK passports were very slow. So slow the car deck we were on was half empty with a huge queue of people that had got there in good time having to wait a few hours for the next boat. We were lucky and just got on but the UK border delays did not look proportionate and you could tell many in the queue were a bit furious at missing the boat for no explicable reason.

Surprised to see the UK customs staff were smiling and joking and could not give a toss - unsure if they were actually unaware how the situation was perceived. Ferry staff looked stressed and frustrated but powerless.

Bit of an embarrassing shambles - made the Border Force look more of a Bumbling Farce.

[rugbyleague]

Just at Calais, ferry's all fine and on time, 3 checks of passports and then into lanes