Veronique maybe the UK is not that important and the actual dates of kids holidays
will propbably never enter into the minds of the adminstrators at Cherbourge, St Malo
and all the other ports......but maybe someone may tell them that there will be a lot of lost
revenue all the way down from the route to La Rochelle, the landing beaches, Arcachon.....every where.....every hotel, every restaurant, every petrol station, every gite, supemarche, tobac.....everything which is remotely attractive to tourites will suffer greatly if they decide not to
There are many many other routes for getting to France from the UK, they don't all have to go via Dover-Calais. They are piling up in the UK, that's their bad luck. I flew from Bergerac to Stansted on July 6th and spent longer in the queue for passports than I had on the 'plane. That's modern travel. Ghastly but there it is. We have à lot of land borders and a finite quantity of people to police them. Maybe they can go and have à holiday somewhere else next time seeing we're so nasty..
I appreciate that you have written something to the Ministry in this regard. But they may not respond to a single appeal, we must create awareness so that the ministry takes this issue seriously.
There's not much point getting on a plane to Bergerac if you want to travel to Burgundy. Also you were leaving, not entering France.
Also people want to get about whilst they are here. Spend money in the shops and markets, go out to lunch and dinner etc. adding to the French economy which I suspect helps to pay for your salary.
I have just been listening to the French head of the Port of Calais who is saying that the delays faced by British travellers are unacceptable and that he will be telephoning the Minister of the Interior to tell him so and to make sure that there adequate staff to man the booths.
Hooray, someone in a place to know and who understands the problem and is trying to help.
My understanding from English clients who spent 17.5 hours in the traffic jams was that it was the British rather than the French authorities who were slowly searching every vehicle and causing chaos.
Flock of sheep, basically, like the French motorists who know the A6, A7 will be jammed solid but still prefer to blindly follow everyone else, or their GPS, into the Tunnel de la Fourvière and the biggest traffic jams of the year. Does anyone have a map these days? Or know how to use it? For example, on the other side of the Rhone to the A7 there's a very nice road largely free of traffic jams (the D86 if memory serves). It's many, many years since we used it but I bet it still has roadside stalls selling local fruit and veg, uncrowded restaurants providing better and cheaper food than the motorway service stations and pleasant hotels/chambres d'hôte. What's been happening in Dover is just a taste of things to come if/when Brexit really happens.
Absolutely, Véronique! Agree that the situation is less than ideal in Dover but travel always brings with it uncertainity and people have a responsibility to make themselves of world events and consider possible consequences / fall out. As has been rightly noted, there are many different ways and routes to travel to France and our family has always taken measures to avoid peak times and routes even if this entails inconvenience and extra expense. An attack on a boat would be a disaster as they would be completely at the mercy of these murderers. Rather a long wait and some annoyance than to be a sad statistic at the bottom of the channel. I sympathise totally with the French authorities at this very difficult time.
Not wishing to offend, but, we had an unplanned return journey to UK. Booked ferry etc., by having my email & mobile linked to reservation I received messages keeping us updated. From this I had notification 2 days before of long queues at Dover upwards of 2 hours. (Ive also had updates Calais side in the past). Therefore forewarned of need to have drinks/snacks. Instead of complaining-prepare yourselves! As to businesses I do sympathise but is it not a worldwide issue not just France?
Maybe off-topic but here we go: during my 30+ years of traveling to UK I have had all sorts of experiences at immigration desk. Even with a Swedish passport, wife and 5 year old kid I never knew what treatment we would get. Several times the experience made me feel like a criminal, how many time can you say ' We are on vacation, we will be here 5 days' , or I have to stay in a hotel at the airport 1 night due to early flight out' without feeling annoyed. Luckily always been treated very nicely by everybody else made me revisit UK. By the way, the best airport in my mind is in Edinburgh. And as somebody else mentioned, you spend more time att immigration than in the flight. But people on flight from commonwealth countries seem to spend even more time there.
I recently travelled back to the UK by coach, due to arrive at London Victoria at 7am, with a connection booked from Euston with a good hour and a half to spare in case the coach was delayed. As it happened the coach was delayed slightly, but what made me miss my connection was not the delay, but the fact that all coaches arriving in Victoria coach station from abroad are now subject to security checks by the police before anybody is allowed off. The coaches are dealt with one at a time, our coach was fourth in line and each coach takes about 20 mins to process. When it's your coach's turn all the passengers get off, put their hand luggage through scanners and have their passports checked, and the coach and all its luggage is checked, before anybody is allowed to leave the coach station. This was about a month ago, apparently it had been going on for a few weeks, I don't know if they're still doing it but I've never seen anything to alert passengers, which is disgraceful because I guess most passengers have onward journeys arranged, hundreds of trains must have been missed because of it. If you knew, you'd plan round it. It's so frustrating sitting there watching your chances of catching your train getting smaller and smaller The police's attitude doesn't help either, they are painfully slow, chatting to each other and wandering around instead of getting on with things, and if you say anything they make smug comments about it being unfortunate that your personal arrangements may have been disrupted but they're doing it all for your own good, it's in everybody's best interests if everybody follows procedures.
Edit - just found this online and still no official announcement, nobody knows why
Not very nice of the French authorities! however last October (off season) we travelled via Hoek of Holland to Harwich and planned to continue to somewhere around Birmingham the same day.
When we arrived in Harwich there was only one booth manned with a not unfriendly officer, who asked us the usual delaying questions as what are you going to the UK for and how long will you stay?
It took for every car app. 3 - 5 minutes to pass into Britain and there are hundreds of cars on a ferry boat when eventually after hours were released into the UK it was dark and we decided to stay the night in a local hotel, delaying us for hours again.
So I say again, not very nice of the French but do know that the British authorities also know what pestering motorists means.
Not very nice of the French authorities! however last October (off season) we travelled via Hoek of Holland to Harwich and planned to continue to somewhere around Birmingham the same day.
When we arrived in Harwich there was only one booth manned with a not unfriendly officer, who asked us the usual delaying questions as what are you going to the UK for and how long will you stay?
It took for every car app. 3 - 5 minutes to pass into Britain and there are hundreds of cars on a ferry boat when eventually after hours were released into the UK it was dark and we decided to stay the night in a local hotel, delaying us for hours again.
So I say again, not very nice of the French but do know that the British authorities also know what pestering motorists means.