Club Arnage

Have been hearing one or two horror stories in respect of new passport checking changes being imposed.......have heard of one guy spending 11/2 hrs in a queue!   :o

It seems that there will be 3 separate checks - UK border agency, French Customs & the ferry operator - with all biometric passports being scanned. Whether this means they are scanned on 3 separate occasions, I really don't know.

Has anyone else heard similar? I know these aren't due to come into force until after Easter, but I can see the need to allow for a lot of extra time to get through the gates, as I fear that any excuse to hold us all up will be welcomed by our French allies.........  ::)

Yes, the useless bureaucrats and their conniving political masters will bring chaos to the ferries. Exactly what benefit they are trying to achieve for the amount of disruption that will be caused is unclear.....but who cares about the taxpayer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11474312/Drivers-face-five-mile-queues-for-ferries.html

When I booked the Eurotunnel to get to Silverstone, I had to provide all my passport or identity card details afterwards. 
Hope they won't have too many cues at the tunnel on Sunday evening. 



Prepaid for Dartford crossing too, don't want to get a £70 fine for that one.

I don't understand any of this, because they still let everybody in and out, just slower.  And Calais docks are still full strange people gaffer taping themselves to the bottom of lorries

API has been with the airlines a couple of years.  It all seems to be a pointless data capture exercise.

Basically, if you want to be naughty, do it high season when the queues are massive and hide in the crowd. The article feels like it is scaremongering, what additional information will they be checking? We already have to show passports at checkin. So, do we need to arrive 2 hours before now?

Another half baked idea which will not stop illegals or terrorists arriving /leaving the country, and will just inconvenience law abiding citizens.  >:(

The 2hr thing is my fear......according to some reports, there could be 3 separate checks and the Eurotunnel people say all coach parties have to disembark to have their passports individually checked, which will be the case with ferries, too!

It sounds like a real recipe, for a major disaster  ::)

Eurotunnel being very bullish about not having to turn up any earlier.
Ferry operators at Dover less so.
Only 25% being checked at the moment, rising to 50%, then 100% just before LM.   >:(

Am travelling to France by tunnel at the end of the month, will report back.

I could be wrong, but aren't the border agency just doing the same checks as they would normally do when entering the country. It doesn't seem much of a hold-up coming back to Blighty so I don't anticipate it being as bad as people fear.

...but as I said, I could be wrong.

Dover was a PIA coming back anyway, have waited in a queue for 45 minutes just to get through the customs area. That's why I have stopped using it.

I'm flying to Jersey.

There's none of this cr@p and you get duty free  ;D

Eurotunnel say they are enforcing API procedures......... bound to cause more issues with those who a) don't know about it, or b) can't be arsed

http://www.eurotunnel.com/uk/traveller-info/latest/ (http://www.eurotunnel.com/uk/traveller-info/latest/)

Hopefully this is just scaremongering!  :o

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11474312/Drivers-face-five-mile-queues-for-ferries.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11474312/Drivers-face-five-mile-queues-for-ferries.html)

Went back home on Sunday after the race. 
Just had to show my ID-card, and drove straight through.  Literally took me less than 1 minute.

It was at 10pm, so pretty late and not much traffic at the Eurotunnel.  Guess it could be a pain in the *ss when it gets pretty busy down there.

Just out of interest, did you use the dartford crossing and if so what did you do about paying?

Made an online account and prepaid £10.  I have to use Dartford Crossing everytime when we're going to a West Ham game, prepaid is the cheapest option then.

Thanks for the response Dottore. Having a conversation the other day with my sister in law and we were wondering how much effort will be put in by the overseas debt collectors to collect monies from foreign tourists.

Went on channel tunnel yesterday, passports not examined on leaving UK. No delays.
However believe we are in an interim stage at the moment when only 25% or 50% are to be scanned.
This will apparently increase to 100% before LM.

Emailed Brittany ferries last week as they were not asking for API's. Only names and DOB of passengers.
Response was that they will gather the passport information at check in.

I booked my crossing a week or so back and as above Eurotunnel are already doing API via their web site. CJA is probably right, it'll be those who haven't bothered doing it in advance who will cause the holdups.

I remember being bounced once from Eurotunnel, I was well in time but some people who had missed theirs were put to the front of our line and those of us further back got bounced. I think they should have been the ones to wait.

My understanding was if you missed your train then you were put on the next available space, not the next train, bumping people who were booked on it. Wrong attitude by Eurotunnel if they bumped you Smokie.

Well it was quite some years ago so maybe it's changed. It's one reason I've never been that keen on the tunnel - surprising how one bad experience can affect you for much longer than is reasonable eh? :-)

Agreed.
In the early days of the Chunnel we had a very bad trip, and didn't use them for years.
However gave them a second chance and now will not travel by any others means on the eastern channel route.

Went out Eurotunnel around noon on 30th zero delays/ problems at folkestone. Had done API on web. Came back 21h00 Monday,  Calais a complete joke with UK passport control the apparent bottleneck. About 25 mins from completing check-in till clearing passport control.

Had a similar problem at the Chunnel when we came back on Black Sunday last August, that's the last Sunday before the kids go back to school.
Always been a problem at UK passport control coming home on busy days. The changes are on exit only, so any issues we have experienced coming home in the past, could become what we have to go through going out.

We were on a 03:20 Ferry out of Dover on Saturday for Spa, so went through Passport Control at around 02:30.  No one there at all, no UK, and no French (as always).

The trips from Calais have been slow going getting through UK Passport Control for some years now, but it saves having to do it when you get back of course. When coming back on the Western Channel they don't do the UK stuff in France so you get to queue in France to checkin and then again back in the UK for Passport Control, so it's swings and roundabouts, in the end you have to queue somewhere!

Exactly our experience too when making the round trip to Belgium last weekend. No more or less delay than usual, and no 'extra checks' evident.

Newhaven -  Dieppe today, passport checked at entrance to ferry terminal and also when we got of at dieppe. Didn't really take long.

Sounds promising  :)

We're on the Newhaven route on Tuesday, hope it's still the same!

this morning just the normal hand passports and ticket in at the booth then pretty much straight onboard with no further checks.  let's see what happens when we get to Caen.

t

Just checked in at Dover,  it's a "wave it at them" day for us and no prior logging with DFDS.

Bad news is Calais is closed for a couple of hours for WW2 bomb disposal and they are prepping operation stack on the M20. Good news is we are headed to Dunkirk.

absolutely no problems in Caen.   four lanes open.   I've queue long previously.

Did anyone have any problems? It was all very smooth for us.

On the way back at the Pompey check one of our Passports didn't scan correctly but it worked fine second time. The Passport officer apologised for the minimal delay and we were on our way.   Other than that no problems going or comeing.. 

t.

No pre-notified information needed, and no problems for us on the way out or back in at Dover/Calais - I was struggling to see anything being done differently...

MG Mark

No problems in Eurotunnel.

Except they put me upstairs, and the car hardly had the power to get up the ramp... gave the bloke behind a brown trouser moment... (I think it was down to 2 cylinders at times...)

passports not checked outward
portacabin walk through & scanned on way back
min fuss

Newhaven / Dieppe / Newhaven the same as it always is.

No problems, out Pompey St Malo, back via Chunnel.

in and out Guernsey - St Malo. No problems at all checked on the Guernsey side and just showed the cover on the french side. Being from Guernsey we have different passports - sure it says elite somewhere  ;D

>Martini...LB

It's been a while since I did the Newhaven/Dieppe route and getting off the boat at N/haven & through PP control was a pain.

Maybe it was always like that........  :-\

Yes. They can only use the one ramp to discharge at Newhaven - hence it takes an age to get out and away.

Eurotunnel, no delays either way.
Very simple, no noticeable changes to be honest.

Brittany Pirates phoned me at 15.00 on the Saturday (to ask for pre-boarding info, which I gave when I booked...) needless to say I didn't hear the phone ring for some strange reason. All that booing, poor President Hollande!

Thinking about it when I booked Brittany I had to supply Names and Passport info etc  in the same way you do when you fly.

t.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33240475

Glad this was not last week, would have been doubled chaos...

Certainly would have made me wish I'd gone a different route!

MG Mark