Dover Calais Delays?

[Paul S4]

Hi,

I am planning a trip to The Ring in a couple of weeks. I have done car trips abroad before, The Eurotunnel once and Dover -Calais several times, but not for several years..

I am travelling from the North East....so the joys of getting to Dover await ...!

Anyway, has anyone done the D-C crossing recently, and should I expect delays either outward or inward...?

Any advice welcome.

[Skodillac]

I did Dover - Calais, then Dunkirk - Dover back in the height of school holidays this year. On both sides just literally drove right up to the check in booths and got on the ferry. On the way out they even bumped me to an earlier one.

Problems are totally overplayed in the media, but of course on any given day it can go wrong and you can get stuck for reasons beyond your control. But the ferry companies know this and even if you miss one they'll always bung you on the next one. With DFDS, then even say you can take any sailing 4 hours either side of your booking.

The Media love a good old "OOooooooo look at the queues and the ruined holidays" story, but they're the exception not the rule.

Take the A2, not the M20, but coming from the North East that's probably a given.

Have a great trip.

[LunarOne]

Paul S4 said:

Hi,

I am planning a trip to The Ring in a couple of weeks. I have done car trips abroad before, The Eurotunnel once and Dover -Calais several times, but not for several years..

I am travelling from the North East....so the joys of getting to Dover await ...!

Anyway, has anyone done the D-C crossing recently, and should I expect delays either outward or inward...?

Any advice welcome.

Just came back from three weeks of bliss in France. The only blight of whole trip was caused by UK border staff who were so slow that we were forced to endure several hours of queuing at Calais and then an additional two hours to board our ferry back to Dover. My ferry was booked at 23.00 and they texted asking us to arrive two hours ahead of time. So I did that. In the end we didn't board the ferry until 02.00. I should have been home by about 1.30am Sunday night/Monday morning, but in the end arrived at 6am in time to start work at 9.

Absolute shambles. However, the outbound trip from Dover to Calais and French border staff were effortless. In fact things went so smoothly that they asked me if I minded going on an earlier sailing!

[Skodillac]

Reading LunarOne's post, maybe Dunkirk is the easier option for returning that Calais if UK Border Force are a farce in Calais!

It's half an hour longer, but a more relaxed crossing with a proper restaurant on board. Nicer trip over all.

[RizzoTheRat]

I did Dover-Dunkirk both ways a few weeks back with no delays either end.

However if you've coming from the North East, consider Hull-Rotterdam or Newcastle-Ijmuiden. Overnight sailing with a cabin is more expensive but saves you a lot of miles and a hotel so evens out. I've done Hull a few times, not done Newcastle but apparently it's a smaller boat and not quite as nice.

[blue_haddock]

We do it several times a year, we went through Dover a couple of weeks ago at 6am and passed through security and check in in about 30 minutes. We returned last Saturday and Calais was much busier as it was the last days of the school holidays and the whole security and check in was more like 2.5 hours.

I think away from school holidays you should be fine

[chopper602]

Paul S4 said:

Hi,
I am planning a trip to The Ring in a couple of weeks. I have done car trips abroad before, The Eurotunnel once and Dover -Calais several times, but not for several years..
I am travelling from the North East....so the joys of getting to Dover await ...!
Anyway, has anyone done the D-C crossing recently, and should I expect delays either outward or inward...?
Any advice welcome.

I'm also in the North East. Stick to the A1 and endure the traffic around Darrington / Barnsdale Bar, it flows but it's better than a bigger diversion.

Of course a better route is Hull > Rotterdam, but pockets need to be very deep for that nowadays - it's so much quicker to get to the 'ring from there too

[Paul S4]

Thanks for all the rapid responses !

I have considered Hull -Zebrugge ( I have done that one before, but couldn't get to sleep on the boat ....!!) which defeated the object of driving all the way to The Alps from Zebrugge...!

I did think that maybe aDover crossing other than Calais may be less hassle, and from some of the posts that maybe a good choice.

Thanks again for the posts.

[Dog Star]

I travel from Lancashire and used to live in France and travelled via Dover a lot, but almost never nowadays. In fact in the last 20 years once - and that was only because I got married in Tunbridge Wells last year. It’s a dreadful grind - I can’t abide it.

Hull only nowadays - when you factor in the extra time it takes to get to Dover, the potential for hours of queuing at the port, the significant potential of some form of French strike action, that you’ll probably need a hotel etc etc it’s not the price difference that it first appears. I’d rather be sat in the bar than giving myself an aneurysm in some horrendous queue on a motorway.

The other thing with the Hull crossings is that the amount of vehicles on a given day is finite - it’s limited to how many can fit on the boat. That’s the longest you can wait. The Dover ferry or tunnel - it’s a non-stop stream oof stuff.

[chopper602]

Paul S4 said:

Thanks for all the rapid responses !
I did think that maybe aDover crossing other than Calais may be less hassle, and from some of the posts that maybe a good choice.

The Hull route doesn't go to Zeebrugge anymore . . Don't forget the Newcastle > Amsterdam route with DFDS, not quite as expensive as Hull.

No mention of the Tunnel - it's just so efficient (in my experience) and if booked in advance isn't much more expensive then a Dover boat

[blue_haddock]

chopper602 said:

Paul S4 said:

Thanks for all the rapid responses !
I did think that maybe aDover crossing other than Calais may be less hassle, and from some of the posts that maybe a good choice.

The Hull route doesn't go to Zeebrugge anymore . . Don't forget the Newcastle > Amsterdam route with DFDS, not quite as expensive as Hull.

No mention of the Tunnel - it's just so efficient (in my experience) and if booked in advance isn't much more expensive then a Dover boat

Whenever i've priced the tunnel its been at last double the ferry and is often just as badly delayed if not worse thsn the ferry.

But what we like about the ferry is that after 4 hours driving to dover i can either get an hour or so's rest before blasting down into france or alternatively get something to eat before heading into france.

[Skodillac]

blue_haddock said:

chopper602 said:

Paul S4 said:

Thanks for all the rapid responses !
I did think that maybe aDover crossing other than Calais may be less hassle, and from some of the posts that maybe a good choice.

The Hull route doesn't go to Zeebrugge anymore . . Don't forget the Newcastle > Amsterdam route with DFDS, not quite as expensive as Hull.

No mention of the Tunnel - it's just so efficient (in my experience) and if booked in advance isn't much more expensive then a Dover boat

Whenever i've priced the tunnel its been at last double the ferry and is often just as badly delayed if not worse thsn the ferry.

But what we like about the ferry is that after 4 hours driving to dover i can either get an hour or so's rest before blasting down into france or alternatively get something to eat before heading into france.

True. For years the tunnel was £150-180 return, the boat £75-100. So I used to always take the tunnel as I was prepared to pay that difference for the faster service. This year the tunnel was over £400, the boat £196, so I went with the boat as the Tunnel has passed my personal tolerance of paying for convenience. I quite enjoyed the boat, hadn't done it for about 15 years.

[LunarOne]

chopper602 said:

Paul S4 said:

Thanks for all the rapid responses !
I did think that maybe aDover crossing other than Calais may be less hassle, and from some of the posts that maybe a good choice.

The Hull route doesn't go to Zeebrugge anymore . . Don't forget the Newcastle > Amsterdam route with DFDS, not quite as expensive as Hull.

No mention of the Tunnel - it's just so efficient (in my experience) and if booked in advance isn't much more expensive then a Dover boat

I don't mind a sailing at all if it's not going to result in delays, but my holiday plans were very last minute and for both trips it turned out that Le Shuttle (the tunnel) was sold out so I had no choice but to take the ferry. In fact I booked a one-way outbound and therefore a one-way return because there was a good chance that I was going to rent a villa in the South of France this week to work from as I need to be at the office in Paris next week. So I could have just driven up to Paris at the end of this week. But events at home meant I needed to come back to deepest darkest wettest Surrey for this week.

[greygoose]

Now the summer holidays are over there shouldn't be huge volumes of traffic so delays shouldn't be too bad (unless the weather is awful).

[vikingaero]

LunarOne said:

The only blight of whole trip was caused by UK border staff who were so slow that we were forced to endure several hours of queuing at Calais

I travel between 8 to 10 times a year and find the UK Border Staff to be really slow too. You can tell they are asking everyone numerous profiling questions, so each car can take 5-10 minutes to process. When they get an answer they don't like, they then move onto the next question, and the next question, and the next question after that.

The French Border Staff couldn't give a monkeys about us Rosbifs and don't want to engage in chit chat, they simply scan, stamp your passport and wave you on.

[RizzoTheRat]

chopper602 said:

The Hull route doesn't go to Zeebrugge anymore . . Don't forget the Newcastle > Amsterdam route with DFDS, not quite as expensive as Hull.

No mention of the Tunnel - it's just so efficient (in my experience) and if booked in advance isn't much more expensive then a Dover boat

Newcastle-Ijmuiden was way more expensive than Hull-Rotterdam last time I looked at it, I guess prices must vary a fair bit though.

I find I get much better nights sleep on the Hull-Rotterdam ferry than I do on Harwich-Hoek as it's a longer crossing so they don't wake you up at silly o'clock to try and sell you breakfast

[dontlookdown]

Did Dover to Calais in mid August for a weekend in N France, out Thurs back Sun. No delays re sailing times, but it did take a while to clear passport control in Calais so give yourself plenty of time for that.

Have used tunnel for the past 20+ yrs as it is quicker, but this time the ferry was one third the price so gave it a go. Would do it again in the same circs.

But fom the Toon I would prob be looking at a closer ferry and more driving on the other side tbh.

[towser44]

We've done Calais - Dover mid-afternoon on a Sunday in August and got bumped onto an earlier ferry having arrived early before now. Was impressed as was expecting nightmare queues reading all the media reports.

[Dog Star]

RizzoTheRat said:

Newcastle-Ijmuiden was way more expensive than Hull-Rotterdam last time I looked at it, I guess prices must vary a fair bit though.

I find I get much better nights sleep on the Hull-Rotterdam ferry than I do on Harwich-Hoek as it's a longer crossing so they don't wake you up at silly o'clock to try and sell you breakfast

The Amsterdam boat leaves you quite far north though. Prices seem a lottery - first weekend in May this year it was double the price - it was a real shocker. It’s usually a bit more expensive but not that much.

I wish they’d bring back the Zeebrugge route - that was so nice and very convenient for us northerners.

[RizzoTheRat]

Yeah if you're heading south Ijmuiden/Amsterdam is a pain, and even Rotterdam adds about 45 minutes to your journey south compared to Zebrugge. If you're heading to somewhere like the Nürburgring though I don't think there's much in it between Zebrugge, Rotterdam and Ijmuiden.