FOR ALL EES STUFF, QUESTIONS, CONCERNS, MOANS, JOYS AND ANYTHING ELSE

Anyone been through St Malo lately? We’re heading off tonight for BF from Portsmouth and could do with swiftly getting on the road tomorrow

as you will be on the newest ship in the fleet, one of the electric eflexers, you should be amongst the first off so even if EES is active, you won't be hanging around
 
the latter based on a report on a Fb touring group recently

it stated that some people in cars were being routed to EES booths but the bikes had the normal passport thing

my theory is that it might vary depending on where you sail from. If you are on an eflexer boat from Portsmouth bikes are often first off and they might check a few people to get a quota in. If you are on the Pont Aven from Plymouth when 200 bikes suddenly emerge from the dungeon then they will wave you through normal passport control as they want to get you cleared out of the way to start checking in the people going back to Plymouth.

Supposedly they have leeway to manage the queues this way until October when they are supposed to do biometric scans for 100% of passengers.

There's a lot of advocacy to modify the system from travel operators. This was on the BBC yesterday morning:

"Ferry operator Brittany Ferries has also raised concerns about the impact of the new checks, saying the rollout has been poorly timed ahead of the busy summer season. Chief executive Christophe Mathieu told BBC Radio 4 that the system was already increasing journey times significantly. He said the company had suggested carrying out biometric checks onboard ferries to ease pressure at ports, but the proposal had yet to be adopted."

I guess in the autumn we will get a breakdown of the figures about how many people went to Tunisia, Turkey and Montenegro instead of the Schengen shitshow. It will only be an economic impact on tourism, and potential loss of votes, that will get politicians to force the bureaucrats to change things.
I guess I will find out for certain on Monday
 
Ferry docked at 8.45 local, small delay disembarking but we were through border control and on the road by 9.30

No EES, they looked at our passports but didn’t stamp them.

Now it’s 22c and raining.
 
Rotterdam return yesterday
Just passport check
Took us 45 minutes as big queue
Off at Hull this morning
About 30 minutes
4 lanes open
 
I went Folkstone to Calais on the 19th June. Got there with an hour and a half in hand to find the place rammed. People everywhere and the information boards scrolling through the listings and showing each one as ‘rescheduled to……’ The estimated delays were 60-90 minutes. I asked one of the staff what was going on and was slightly surprised when he didn’t toe the party line. He told me that the French side had, without warning, implemented EES checks that were causing a backlog. He said they did it whenever they fancied, and would then stop doing them again after three or four hours. Not the most comfortable wait given the heat.

Coming back the French passport control took so long that we, and a number of cars behind us actually missed the train and got put on the next one, waiting an hour in the heat. The woman doing the checks was going through every detail. She even asked me what time on the 19th I entered the Schengen Area. I nearly asked if she was having a fucking laugh, but decided against.

Not a good tunnel experience all round.
 
It’s secure borders… the very thing that was demanded on these pages and was promised to the exceedingly gullible.

Enjoy it, it’s here to stay.

The EES system will get better and, despite what’s spouted on these pages, it was not created out of spite for the English; it applies to all non-EU passport holders. We opted to step away from the freedom of movement and were never any part of the Schengen Agreement in the first place, having opted out, just as we did vis-a-vis the euro.
 
It’s not secure borders, though, is it? It’s inconvenience for legitimate travellers and a free pass for anyone that pitches up with no papers. Stop being an EU apologist. It’s a spiteful system designed solely to stop British pensioners staying 2 days over the allotted limit.
 
Me? I think it’s a pain in the arse, queuing for two hours like a third world peasant at Arlanda airport, behind a wide bodied jet from Air China, whilst an EU peasant from Greece or fucking Lithuania waltzes in, without a care in the world.

For those that voted to cut us off from the freedoms of Europe, I wish them every inconvenience God can throw at them. Even more so if they are praying to be first off the fucking boat and not delayed when it docks in order to start their holiday as they (uniquely) need to be off and away.
 
For those that voted to cut us off from the freedoms of Europe, I wish them every inconvenience God can throw at them. Even more so if they are praying to be first off the fucking boat and not delayed when it docks in order to start their holiday as they (uniquely) need to be off and away.
Succinctly and wonderfully put.
I could not agree more.
 
The Tunnel was an arse today …. Took me over an hour to get through passport control….

No ess … just look, scan hand back

Missed my tunnel, was put on the next one without fuss… very busy, queues everywhere… but our train was pretty much empty…
 
The Tunnel was an arse today …. Took me over an hour to get through passport control….

No ess … just look, scan hand back

Missed my tunnel, was put on the next one without fuss… very busy, queues everywhere… but our train was pretty much empty…
Something afoot with eurotunnel. Last week coming home(and the same going out the week before)they were saying "due to capacity issues " there would be delays.We were delayed for 2 hours both ways.I have applied for a voucher due to the delay(any delay over an hour qualifies for a voucher in way of compensation)
 
The Tunnel was an arse today …. Took me over an hour to get through passport control….

No ess … just look, scan hand back

Missed my tunnel, was put on the next one without fuss… very busy, queues everywhere… but our train was pretty much empty…
You're never at home you!
 


Something afoot with eurotunnel.

The Chunnel is becoming old and sees a lot of traffic. You only need to look at the somewhat shoddy condition of many of the train carriages, held together on a wing and a prayer.

One delay and the thing backs up, especially at times of peak demand.

They maybe need to do what TfL learned, that it’s better to shut the entire line for a month and more (as they did with the very busy Central Line) than to try to mend things piecemeal. That though doesn’t address the carriages / trains.

Instead of squandering billions on the white elephant of HS2, UK plc might have done considerably better by investing in all the Channel crossings in general.
 


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