A structural engineer who attends my local business networking group in Surrey worked on the Channel Tunnel (as well as HS1 and Heathrow Terminal 5) and has some interesting stories about the construction.
Apparently the tunnels bored from each side of the Channel were just 30cm out of alignment horizontally and 8cm vertically when they met (which was not quite in the middle due to differences in geology).
The TBMs (Tunnel Boring Machines) on the French side were dismantled and removed but the UK one was shunted aside and is still under the Channel, it being too expensive and complicated to remove it!
I worked for the company that designed, built, serviced and operated the UK TBM’s. A wonderful job although it was one that the days got longer each shift, the more we dug, the further one had to travel to the work-face.
the first time we used the tunnel… I was terrified… sure we would die horribly…
silly me… 
A friend asked, in all seriousness, if she would see the fish while travelling though.
I remember my first trip through, the almost imperceptible change as the train began rolling, the amazingly smooth ride. Sadly that’s a thing of the past - the rollingstock now looks 30 years old, and jolts/judders around like an ordinary train, but it was an upgrade on a ferry crossing (and still is).
No, the water is too murky. 
I was ‘exported’ to Paris by my esteemed employer at exactly the same time as the Tunnel opened. Amongst other reasons for shipping me out, it was hoped that there might be a surge of people relocating to/from France as a result of the Tunnel and in need of tax advice. Spoiler alert - apart perhaps from my own relocation, the surge just didn’t happen!
However what did happen was a near continuous flood of distant family, acquaintances and colleagues all desperate to try out the Tunnel for the first time. People I barely knew would call out of the blue saying "they just happen to be popping over to Paris next week, and could they possibly stay for a couple of nights in my (very conveniently located, tiny) flat (just off Avenue Foch; and right by the Bois de Boulogne). The record, I recall, was 14 consecutive nights of different people staying in my flat.
I was working for Taylor Woodrow - one of the joint construction partners - when the tunnel was being built. All the concrete tunnel linings were manufactured in a huge hangar at our Head Office site in Southall, West London, and transported by artic to Folkestone every day - Sundays included. You would have thought it would have been cheaper to make them on site to save transportation but all the test rigs and manufacturing engineers were local and the prototyping had been carried out in the same hangar since 1980 so it made sense (at the time) to keep the status quo. The consortium who built it were called Trans-Manche Link (TML).
Originally, the concept for the tunnel was to just turn up, buy a ticket and drive on. No booking required - much like passing over a toll bridge, but THAT never actually came to fruition. The backers of the tunnel lost a LOT of investment money - the infrastructure loans were never going to be paid off - and, in the end, it was sold, cheap, to the French. When it first opened, the ‘owners’ trumped how it was going to kill off the ferries as they would not be needed any more. Indeed, Sealink (owned by British Rail at the time) stopped all investment in new ships. But Townsend Thoresen (European Ferries Group) could see the bullshit for what it was and commissioned the two largest ferries of the day - Pride of Dover and Pride of Calais - as ‘Chunnel Beaters’ to take on the ‘Drain’. Just as well the ferries companies woke up - the tunnel just cannot cope alone with all the traffic on offer.
For me, I will use the tunnel purely as a convenience - the ferries offer me a far better and more relaxing crossing than sitting in a dull and dingy ‘carriage’ with just a loo and a lightbulb for facilities!
Its expected with the ETIAS coming in 2025 that it will get a lot worse so they are planing bigger car parks both sides as the operators reckon the 1 second it takes to process a vehicle will be more like 7.
I like the Tunnel if I’m going to North-East France, or Belgium - I take your point about relaxing on a ferry but the time saving with the Tunnel can be significant (even more so if you get there a bit early and can sneak on to an earlier crossing).
Not so keen on Eurotunnel’s prices though, which seem to have shot up in recent years.
However most often I am heading towards Western or South-Western France, so a ferry from Newhaven or Portsmouth makes more sense for me most of the time.
Going to Holland the ferry from Harwich to the Hook takes about the same time as via Eurotunnel, and cuts out the horrors of driving around Antwerp!
(Depends where in the UK you are coming from or going to of course).
I was, and still am, a great supporter of the CT. Having worked on an earlier version in 1974, stopped by the UK Gov in 1975, I was lucky enough to be employed by a leading company upon the later and final tunnel many years later. Having always believed in the concept, I was happy enough to invest in 1000 shares when the initial company was set up. Once the trains started running I was contacted by the company, as a Golden Shareholder (within the first 1000 share holders) to be offered the ‘privilege’ of return, first class, journeys for £1. I would travel 5 or 6 times a year on that deal, taking quite a few girlfriends to Paris for the weekend. When that offer eventually ceased, it reverted to, and still is, a simple 30% discount which I still use as and when it is necessary to visit Albion.
I do like the ability to roll up and get across relatively quickly. TBH I find the ferry a bit of a drag with slow unloading, although the 1 hour travel time advantage heading south is nice but doesn’t make up for the extra time overall.
The worse for loading unloading is definitely Newhaven Dieppe. You can cross the channel via the tunel quicker than they can unload
Really? I must have been lucky then! Never had a problem getting on or off in reasonable time, although I am on a motorbike rather than in a car, which probably makes a difference.
Online reviews seem to criticize Brittany ferries via Caen for slowness.
Of course it only takes one person or family lingering in their cabin or in the bar instead of getting in their car, to gum things up for everyone else…
That was me on Sunday, getting off the ferry in Newcastle. We headed down as soon as our deck was announced and still seemed to be the last in our car which, unfortunately for everyone, was second from the front. I can only assume that all the Dutch and Germans went down when the lower deck was announced.
Presumably to get the best sun loungers !
I’ve never understood the loading and uploading process for the Dieppe/Newhaven/Dieppe route, but I don’t use it anymore. BF from Caen is just as confusing 
e
This is absolutely the case. I frequently see the ferry arrive/leave on my bike rides around Dieppe. I reckon on it taking a good hour typically for loading and unloading cars…Bikes, motor bikes, pedestrians etc seem to get get priority, put at the front of the queue. This hour to disembark cars may unfortunately be increased once the EES (the EU’s entry/exit system comes live).
My worst was 50 mins but currently 20-30mins is more usual. Lorries disenbark first (apart M/C’s possibly. My last crossing into Dieppe I was second car of the boat so out onto the road in about 8 mins. But if you are one of the last, take a chill pill and wait 