very simple eurotunnel question....

[wulluff]

....and at the risk of seeming totally and utterly stupid; surely I can just turn up in my car, join a queue and drive on to the next available slot. Except I cannot find the answer to this question on their website. All they care about is pre-booking which i dont want. Also I plan on travelling mid week late evening which i would have though would be quiet..

So tell me - am I REALLY dumbfromDorset or not?

[loafer123]

In reality, they will probably put you on one that goes soon after you turn up, as long as it is fairly close to your booked time.

Otherwise you will have to buy a Flexi ticket, and then you can turn up when you want, take the next one no matter what and get fed. That's what I do anyway, but it is probably alot more expensive than a mid-week evening booked ticket.

[HD Adam]

Ok, you have to pre-book so that they know how many cars will be on each train.
If it's full from pre-booking, you have to book another time.
If you show up early and the next train has spare capacity, they may let you on an earlier train depending on any booking conditions like price.

[Pigeon]

I'm not surprised they find it so hard to make money.

[j44esd]

wulluff said:

....and at the risk of seeming totally and utterly stupid; surely I can just turn up in my car, join a queue and drive on to the next available slot. Except I cannot find the answer to this question on their website. All they care about is pre-booking which i dont want. Also I plan on travelling mid week late evening which i would have though would be quiet..

So tell me - am I REALLY dumbfromDorset or not?

Assuming you have not booked/don't want to book (Maybe I have read this wrong), yes, you can just turn up and get on (Assuming that there is space). I only know this after a ferry booked last year decided it couldn't sail as it had a hole in it... :-) Darned inconvenient rocks!

Hope that this helps!

[Engineer1]

Eurotunnel in my experience works in a similar way to ferries with regard to turning up early, if you book for the 4pm and get there early they may have a space and you can get on, after all people get delayed and miss trains so arriving early may get you on an earlier crossing but it isn't guaranteed, also turning up too late for your booked crossing may see you bumped to a later crossing.

[Mello]

Pigeon said:

I'm not surprised they find it so hard to make money.

For 10 months of the year you can probably turn up and get on. However, you can't really blame Eurotunnel for encouraging booking in advance for e.g. Saturdays in the sunny season, Bank Holidays and Le Mans etc, otherwise there would be chaos? Plenty of people are organised enough to know which crossing they are going to get, barring accidents/disasters...

[Gaspode]

I always book a crossing about 2 hours after the time I expect to be there. That way if there's a problem on the motorway or something I still get a guaranteed crossing. Every single time I've turned up early I've been able to get on the next train with no problem.

[Myobb]

wulluff said:

....and at the risk of seeming totally and utterly stupid; surely I can just turn up in my car, join a queue and drive on to the next available slot. Except I cannot find the answer to this question on their website. All they care about is pre-booking which i dont want. Also I plan on travelling mid week late evening which i would have though would be quiet..

So tell me - am I REALLY dumbfromDorset or not?

Yes you can. I did this in March 2009. I missed my ferry connection & as I needed to get to a specific place at a specific time I just turned up & purchased a one way ticket. However they do penalise you particulary if its at a popular time. Mine was about 1415 hours. I think I paid about 130 pounds one way.And given those prices the train was (as usual) 75% empty.

[mcflurry]

Buying a single at the port isn't cheap. I would prebook, even if it's the day before. AFAIk they allow a +/- 2 hour window either side

Edited by mcflurry on Wednesday 3rd June 12:52

[CarlT]

We turned up 12 hours early back in February and they got us onto the next train. Just book a crossing around the time you want to go and just turn up early.

[dienamic]

From here http://www.eurotunnel.com/ukcP3Main/ukcPassengers/...

eurotunnel said:

Just turn up and go!
If you are feeling spontaneous or if you don't have time to pre-book, just turn up on the day. Subject to availability you will be put on the next available shuttle.

I would think it would be a lot cheaper to pre-book and then turn up whenever though. I'm pretty sure at's a 24 hour window that they allow whereby they'll put you on the next available train FOC, though at busy times (coming back from Le Mans!) this can be a bit of a wait.

REMEMBER TO USE YOUR TESCO POINTS!!- TRAVEL FOR FREE

Edited by dienamic on Friday 5th June 11:20