Driving to/through France from UK right now
Discussion
I drove across France to Calais a few weeks ago. Two observations:
- Running Waze, very easy to keep the cruise on at 95-98mph. At that speed the fine for getting caught is €45.
- 3 hour wait at Eurotunnel, caused mainly by “technical issues” that seemed to stop trains for a period. Unbelievably frustrating.
- Running Waze, very easy to keep the cruise on at 95-98mph. At that speed the fine for getting caught is €45.
- 3 hour wait at Eurotunnel, caused mainly by “technical issues” that seemed to stop trains for a period. Unbelievably frustrating.
TDK-C60 said:
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.
Glad it wasn't just me who thought that. For all the moaning the British government made a few weeks ago about understaffing from the French side and they go and run at under 50% capacity. I'm sure it's a boring job but I was getting really irritated when I saw the guy dictating our queue length sat there having a 5 min (no exaggeration) conversation with most people. Could have been in and out in a couple of minutes max.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.
Came through the Eurotunnel from Calais on Friday morning. Arrived at 10:30 for the 11:50 train I had booked, got offered the 11:36 - great. Popped into the terminal for a look around duty-free and kept an eye on the departure boards. They didn't seem to be refreshing and the A/B/C codes for the 11:20 train said 'last call' for what seemed like an eternity, then all of a sudden it flashed up 'last call' for the 11:36 and 11:50 
This seemed to cause a mass exodus and a subsequent queue for French passport control, which took 40 minutes to get through and meant we ended up on the 12:05 train which I'm sure didn't depart at capacity. Not exactly a big delay but a bit frustrating given that we were waiting around to be called when we should have been in the passport queue.
This seemed to cause a mass exodus and a subsequent queue for French passport control, which took 40 minutes to get through and meant we ended up on the 12:05 train which I'm sure didn't depart at capacity. Not exactly a big delay but a bit frustrating given that we were waiting around to be called when we should have been in the passport queue. Gassing Station | Holidays & Travel | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff