I recently returned to the UK to collect a bike. I investigated no end of alternatives.

Booking in advance is the way forward. Timing also has an effect.

Booking about 3 weeks ahead, for November, my one way on the ferry inc bike would have been £12 Dover to Calais. On the Tunnel it was £27..

So it is twice as expensive but when that equates to £15 real money, I can live with it.

However, these were crossings around 6 am. Later in the day prices for the tunnel certainly went up.

Ease of embarkation, speed and lack of hassle are all +'s for the tunnel

However, I think about £35-40 would be my limit on a ticket if the ferry were still at £12.... Convenience has a price, too!-

That's been my experience, that the tunnel is twice as expensive as the (cheaper) ferries. Others seem to be able to find cheap tunnel fares but every time I've looked the ferries have always been cheaper.

Booking ahead does work but even then it's some sort of dynamic pricing lottery.

A couple of days ago I was booking a crossing for next Feb and got a quote of £38.00 return (4x4 + family) from one internet site. Checking around came up with £55.00 for the same out and back boats on another site and going back to the original site on a different computer, £76.00. All three of these searches were done at the same time.

The best I could find for the tunnel was nearly £150.00!

With the problems Eurotunnel has had over the last couple of days, with thousands of people statioary inside the tunnel (trains immobilised on the track due to hot air from one side meeting cold air from the other, creating enough condensation to short out the electrics!), with no information telling them what was going on for six hours apparently, and stuck a total of 16 hours underground, the spare water carried on the trains ran out, and zero facilities on the vehicle carraiges other than what your vehicle contains you can be a bit stuck. When its working well the underground bit is usually a tiny and quickly forgotton part of the trip.

Coming back from the Le Mans 24hrs race a few years back the trains did come to a stop due to a convoy of Ferraris, having headed home as fast as (ahem) legally possible, entering the same train at the same time, the fire warning system detected all this hot Italian exotica and decided all the carraiges were on fire! Everything stopped and it took hours for Eurotunnel staff to persuade things to reset having backed the cars out again!

Today Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown asked people not to travel unless it is essential.
He said: "When we resume service it's going to be very busy, we're not going to be able to carry everyone who's booked yesterday, today and during this week."
No services at all today either while they continue to investigate.


I prefer a ferry, it does take a bit longer but is an enjoyable part of the trip even with choppy seas! You have a number of boats available rather than if one train stops the lot stops. You can snooze, or have a last fry-up before entering the Eurozone, or enjoy the breeze hoping for dolphins :)

That wouldn't have helped this weekend though, since on top of the Eurotunnel problems, weather and road conditions in Calais meant they closed the port too. No one in or out, if you were on a boat in the harbour you stayed there! This backed up roads both sides of the channel, delaying things further when they did open up again.

Booking before hand is always cheaper, Eurotunnel in particular can have offers well worth taking, but you need to check their site often. Early morning crossings are usually cheapest, but watching the white cliffs disappear and France creep up out of the horizon in day light is alway nice :)

You can have open returns, and if you miss the one you're booked on you can usually be shunted to the next one for no or minimal charge, but rules vary, depending what you've booked of course. Book with a credit card.

St Malo, Le Harve, Plymouth and Poole are all lovely places to spend a few days, if you have a high mpg vehicle depending on your route, the longer crossings with a cabin can end up being cheaper. You could go via Jersey etc too.

Remember fuel is usually cheaper in France, and heading north toward Calais the last autoroute fuel is a fair distance before the port. Theres a lot of shopping oppertunities just south of Calais, but driving around Calais itself is not well signposted or too worthwhile IMHO. The French police like catching British holiday makers speeding to get their ferry, some days more than others (see above), and I suppose the British plod do the same? In France you just hand over hundreds of Euros though, no licence points yet!

On longer trips ferries are a pleasant way to go, like trains: you have a feeling of travel. For the short dover-france route, I'll still always check the tunnel...

British plod? On the road?

No, no, no.... we have cameras....greasing the cogs of international relations for foreign visitors...

After all, if we had more police about, those poor cameras would be out of a job....:innocent:

Dont confuse Eurostar with Eurotunnel.

Eurostar is a 'foot only' passenger train service between London and places in France and Belgium. It has nothing at all to do with Eurotunnel except for paying a peage/toll to drive through their tunnel.

Eurotunnel owns and operates the tunnel. It also runs its own 'freight' (driven lorries) and 'tourist' (cars, vans, coaches and motorcycles) services (no foot passengers) through their tunnel, only from one end of the tunnel to the other end. All in competition with the ferry boats. They also get income from other companies trains (Eurostar and goods trains) running through.

Eurostar trains failed, effectively blocking the tunnel. A bit like you breaking down on a narrow toll bridge!

No Eurotunnel trains failed, but were caught up in and restricted by the traffic block. They resumed operating their own trains as soon as the breakdowns were recovered and the track became unobstructed.

Eurostar has suspended all its services pending investigations of why its trains failed.

Sadly one companies bad fortune and PR is often undeservedly attributed to the other in the minds of the public.

TonyP, Many thanks for that concise explanation.

When choosing a ferry, I personally take into consideration my eventual destinations. For me getting to Dover/calais is normally just too far out of my way. Living in France, Roscoff, Caen and Dieppe are all about six hours with St Malo being Four. I usually go to Cornwall or England. Taking a late afternoon sailing Roscoff to Plymouth allows me to get to my Cornish destination in one day. Inevitably I take the overnight sailing from Plymouth to Roscoff which then allows me to arrive in France early morning breakfasted and with a six hour ride/drive to do. Easy. In England we usually are on our way up north so arriving in Portsmouth or Newhaven early morning gives us a leisurely day to get to our destination. This necessitates an overnight sailing again. But the only overnight to Portsmouth is from Le Havre using LD lines, or Caen using Brittany ferries. The return overnight means we have to use LD lines at Newhaven/Dieppe or Brittany ferries Portsmouth to ST Malo. Brittany ferries allow us to travel to and from on a return on two different routes. LD lines charge for two singles. Also the LD lines 'overnight' ferry lands at 3.30 am which is not much of a nights sleep :(
From Cornwall to Dover and From Calais to here is about 14 hours driving.
Only 8 hours using the Plymouth/Roscoff ferry.

If you can get to your eventual destination from the ferry in one day is fine, but if you need to stop overnight, sometimes it can be cheaper to sleep on the ferry.

Personally, I prefer ships to trains. Don't get me wrong, I love travelling by train, too. We once went from Munich to Sofia, Bulgaria, by train, and it was absolutely fantastic. It's just that ships awaken that inner child in me, the one that loves big machines, diesel engines, smoke, etc. I'm sure every guy reading this knows exactly what I'm talking about ;)

If I'll be able to just show up at any port and take the next available ferry from France to the UK and then, few weeks later, from the UK back to France, that'd be great. I hate pre-booking because that would force me to adhere to schedules and pre-planned itineraries, whereas we prefer to simply go and see where the road takes us. The only mandatory stop will be the UK Traveller's Meeting in Ripley, June 24-27. Other than that we'll have four weeks of "oh look, that looks nice, let's go there!"

If we could accurately forecast the future, Mjubgowski, we all would not be doing the job we are doing.:cool4:

The ferries have a very high capacity. If you just arrive unannounced at your departure port, (with a stack of notes) it is unlikely you will find they have no space for a bike, except, perhaps, in school holiday periods.:scooter:

No problem with the boats - once you're actually on them. It's waiting at the ports that's the unpleasant bit. I've lost count of the number of hours I've spent standing around in the rain with nothing to do but wait for the boat to turn up.

Calais is probably the worst with no shelter and only a couple of broken down vending machines to vent your annoyance at. I can understand that the ferry operators want us to spend our money on the ferry where they get it rather than in quayside services where, presumably, the port company gets it but I'd have thought that slightly less minimalist would be better for the "customer experience".

Tony P if I was waiting for 12 hours on Saturday to get through the tunnel, I'm not sure who owned the train blocking the tunnel would be too important at that moment.

My point was if one boat stops that means of channel crossing doesn't!

It depends how much of a rush you are in and the state of the seas.

A trip over to Calais on a boat from Dover is like a mini cruise and a great way to start a trip.

We rode from the UK to Italy in the summer and spent half a day walking on the whhite cliffs before setting off on the boat. If you rush to start with, it is hard to slow the momentum down.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...IMG_6130-1.jpg

Steve