Dover - Calais - Ferry and Tunnel News.

Well done @Merc? No. BM!

As I said, it was plain sailing for us (no pun intended). But that was before Nice and before the summer hols.

 

Well they have hit an all-time high with the delays in Dover - Saturday 23rd July.

Today's report from P&O states:

DOVER: Estimated waiting time M20 from "Roundhill" to Aycliffe: transit time 320 mins

I suppose the idea is that if they give the delay in minutes no-one will work out that it's now taking over 5 hours from the motorway tunnel at Roundhill to the first roundabout coming into Dover.

Best of luck to anyone travelling on the ferries today.

I wonder how @The CO will get on - he's taking the Channel Tunnel - hopefully the tailback from Dover wont reach the EuroTunnel exit from the M20

EuroShuttle says:

Due to congestion at M20 Jct 11A at Folkestone customers may wish to consider leaving M20 at Jct 11 and accessing UK terminal via A20 ^CM

and:

Update Folkestone: There is a wait of 90 mins before check in. Once on site our Passenger service is running well with no problems ^CM

 

Did Eurotunnel this morning, as soon as you came off the M20 there was a queue, never seen that before. We hit the queue at 0640 and got on a train at around 0815 (including 10 mins to grab some coffee) so actually a lot better than the poor sods taking ferries. Now just arrived in Alsace and having a bit of a lie down!

 

In sympathy my friend, in sympathy and not as in money!

 

You made the right decision to take the EuroTunnel today @The CO

Here's the most ridiculous info yet - posted by P&O Ferries Updates at 21.30 Saturday night:

DOVER UPDATE: the estimated waiting time: A20/M20: up to 12 hours. A2/A256: up to 1hr. Once you arrive at port: 2hrs.

Here's what the BBC are saying:

Motorists have been hit by delays of up to 14 hours through Kent to get to the Port of Dover, with many holidaymakers being stuck in traffic overnight.

Port officials said delays built up due to understaffing of French border posts during heightened security checks.

The port warned of road delays of five to 10 hours while Kent Police said the disruption could continue for another 36 - 48 hours.

Police are flying in water for stranded motorists by helicopter.

EuroTunnel LeShuttle says:

UK Terminal, update: End of wait pre Check-in & access to M20 jct 11a is clear. ^ST

 

I actually expected it to be busier than it was. It was still busy and there were extra checks and I missed my booked slot (as did loads of others) but still ended up on a train less than two hours after I arrived. We have to travel by train as we take our Spaniel everywhere with us (her) and leaving it alone in the car as ferry policy dictates is a big fat no. The extra £20 over the cost of a ferry is well worth it. Still, I just can't believe that people are stuck for 14 hours at Dover, something has fundamentally failed somewhere. Just unbelievable.

 

I think that you were wise and/or lucky to have chosen an early crossing.

Later in the day the queues became silly - many people have been stuck in their cars overnight.

News film shows it to be the worst hold ups there have ever been getting to Dover.

They are giving reports this morning as 'good news' - the queuing time from the Roundhill tunnel is now down to only 4.5 hours.

 

Absolutely astounding. Dreadful stuff and really feel for the people caught up in it.

I once had a similar situation to what @The CO describes, where we were stuck on the sliproad of the M20 going into the Eurotunnel - cause of the holdup was them just introducing new touchscreen checkin and the Screen couldn't cope with the high ambient temperature and was struggling to tell the difference between the atmosphere and the heat of a finger on the screen!

Monumental (2.5hr) delays just to check-in.

And I got caught up in the fire episode back in Jan 2015 where we ended up having an additional overnight in Calais, 7hr wait in the terminal building at Eurotunnel (with a 2yr old - oh what fun!) before being herded onto ferries.

Since then I've only ever taken the Ferry. But I will certainly be doing my best to avoid the Dover chaos in School Holiday periods to come!

 

Amazing scenes right enough.

Morrisons, Tescos, and a Sikh Humanitarian Aid charity were handing out food and water to queuing passengers.

The same sort of thing I spent days and days doing on the Kosovo/Macedonian/Albania borders back in 1998/99.

Car drivers were experiencing the sort of queues on the M20 that the truckers frequently have to endure during 'industrial action' - or should that be 'industrial inaction' - but without the portable toilets and extra waste bins that Kent Council line the hard shoulder with.

We still didn't reach the sort of delays that can exist elsewhere in Europe though -

Kalafat to Vidin across the Danube border between Bulgaria and Romania can take 5 days - it's helped by the new bridge - but it's still a nightmare.

Ruse to Giurgiu (also between Bulgaria and Romania isn't much better.

And let's not think about what goes on after you've passed Greece and Turkey. :confused:

Oh the joys of international travel.

 

And in that vein, Bob, it was interesting to note the variations in viewpoints when BBC was reporting from the queue the other evening.....

All of the Europeans who were interviewed just said it was a fact of life of travelling and not as bad as in Europe, whereas all the Brits were complaining that it was the end of the world and it was dreadful that this could even happen.

 

I'll be getting a Scottish one, no doubt, before long.

 

The lengthy queues have died down - for now.

But this problem is not going to completely go away anytime soon - here's the latest gov.uk info:

France/Calais:
Latest update: Summary – the French government has extended the national state of emergency until 26 January 2017; there have been recent incidents of obstacles being placed on to the road and items being thrown at vehicles on the approach to Calais Port from the A16 motorway.