Dover

[Suff]

I am on the ferry right now. It left at 04:40.

I spent the day working packing and cleaning the cottage ready to hand it back.

During the day I received a text from Irish ferries telling me to leave extra time as traffic was bad and passport was difficult. They said they would close check-in 1 hr before boarding and if I didn't make it 1hr before, they would try to put me on a later sailing.

I left at 21:40, about 20 minutes earlier than my earliest time.

First issue was that the M11 was shut at J12. So I took the A1. With roadworks and slow traffic this added nearly 40 minutes to the journey.

One of my uncle's had a birthday party last weekend at Ashford and I got chapter and verse about the A20, so I decided to use the A2. I stopped at Tesco at Sturrock for fuel, losing 10 minutes faffing because they have changed the signs.

I got in before 1pm and managed to get put in a fast queue, then I got shunted into another queue because I'm alone in the car. It was dire, one car took fully 10 minutes with sheafs of paper being passed back and forward. God knows why? Covid certs?

The car in front of me passed over 5 passports and the 5 mobiles, one after the other, then each mobile had to be scanned.

Finally I got there, opened the conversation in French, handed over the passport, my mobile with the EU tous anti covid app and my cert ready in border mode. Under a minute, done.

Then I drove to the Irish ferries check-in. There was 1 hr 50 minutes to sailing time. Plenty you might think. I stopped in the lane I was in then realised that the outer lane was about 15 cars shorter and moving faster, so I changed.

Then the wait and hop started. Close to 1 car every 5 minutes. I got there at 04:11 and got my boarding pass. Got to the boarding lane and sat for 15 minutes before boarding.

If I had not changed lanes I would have missed the ferry.

I have been travelling Dover as a passenger and driver for more than 50 years. I have never seen such a Sh1tshow.

They can blame the customs all they like, but the biggest problem was their check-in and that took 3x longer than needed even when all my details were completely in order.

Most of the passport problems seemed to be people not being fully prepared. OK I did the whole conversation in French deliberately, but, still, the process is fairly simple.

Minimum 8 hours home and I woke at 6am and had broken sleep till I got up at 9am.

I guess I'm going to need to stop and sleep somewhere. No chance to crash on the ferry, every seat was taken by bus passengers before I got on.

[Ally]

Take care Stuff.

[JoM]

Have a safe journey Suff, unless necessary I’m not sure I could be doing with the palaver of travelling at the moment, what with your account here and the problems in the airports.

[Suff]

Thanks. I'm at rouen having breakfast.

[JanB]

Enjoy your breakfast Suff.

What a palaver though. No travelling for me just yet.

[jenniren]

Gosh what a palaver Suff, safe journey xx

[Osc]

Sounds awful. I think part of the problem at airport security is people finally getting to the desk then saying “oh gosh, I have to take off my jacket/belt and what are you saying about liquids?” I am still totally amazed and infuriated by people who still do not have their liquids organised even though they have had since 2002 to organise themselves Drive carefully Suff.

[saundra]

Enjoy your breakfast and take it steady

[Suff]

Thanks all.

Osc that one drives me mad constantly. You can imagine with the thousands of flights I've taken, when it comes to holiday time I just want to say "If you don't know what you are doing shut up and get out of the way"

I've been thinking back on this and most of this problem is lack of staff. 3 passport offices in the Easter holidays? Even at 4am it is wildly insufficient with the additional checks that need to be done. Granted people are not helping. I know it is not common knowledge that British people can use the EU tracking app and scan their QR codes, but for gods sake at least have a look at the NHS app and find out what you need to do in order to present the correct certificates in the correct mode. I've seen the NHS app and it is nothing like as simple as the EU one. More powerful and more relevant, but you actually have to engage brain before using it.

Then Irish Ferries. Two check in for cars/vans and two check in for Trucks. They are scanning your passport, it is totally insufficient to meet demand. I was on a early morning ferry that was not full, yet it took nearly 1.5 hours to get through the check in. That is totally unsustainable. If you come in the day you're going to need to arrive 6-8 hours before your ferry as you will be behind the thousands of people who left a reasonable amount of time and wound up missing their ferry. As this stacks up they will have people missing 2 or more ferries.

Whilst people are just turning up and expecting everyone to simply accommodate their lack of knowledge, the ferry companies are also not putting enough staff onto getting the vehicles moving.

There were trucks everywhere. Every layby and available chunk of ground. It must be playing havoc with shipments.

[saundra]

Yesterday on this morning a travel fella
Simon!? Said the passport office has a 10week's delay for for new ones and if you are going to Europe it needs to have a certain number of years left on it plus 4months
Chaos