Quick & Efficient, when it goes (Euro Tunnel)

Member Name: upton66

Product:	Euro Tunnel
Date:	06/11/01 (1014 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You see no sea, Quick

Disadvantages: None

Having no sea legs at all - I feel queasy at the sight of a boat other than one firmly anchored in a millpond - I am a keen advocate of Le Shuttle. I have made numerous journeys through the tunnel, ever since it opened, for day shopping trips to the north coast of France.

I have also had numerous, queues, delays and cancellations for which I have managed to obtain, fairly trouble-free, compensation.

Experience suggests you should be at the toll booth forty minutes before expected departure time and if you have got this far things should go smoothly. Once you tell them your pre-booking reference number, or pay at the booth, you are given a letter to display in the front windscreen and can then park up outside the terminal building.

There is no tobacco or liquor "duty free" shopping inside the UK terminal anymore, other than a pre-order system run by EuroShop which could be the subject of another opinion. There are WHSmiths, Dixons, Boots, eating places and tourist/gift shops, perfumery etc, all worth a visit once but nothing of great note. There are decent loos, couple of information desks and an AA shop worth a stroll around whilst you wait for your letter to be called. If you do shop and need a trolley to get to the car take care as there are endless, badly thought out, curbs and bumps obviously designed to try and trip you up and overturn the trolley on the way back to car. This used to be real problem when there was a shop selling cheap beer, and provided endless entertainment for onlookers as the Brits staggered back with their trolleys ten high. I guess the curbs are still an annoyance for wheelchair users.

Letters are called, but not always, so keep an eye on the electronic displays, and you can then proceed to your train. Announcements are now much improved, pretty muffled in the terminal building, but usually quite clear in the parking area. You can now even distinguish between B, C, D, E and G, and F and S.
You can then set off and follow the signs to the trains. On part of the road to the trains they have now put under-road video surveillance cameras.

There are two stages to go through: a security check and passport control. Our security checks have included a man with gloves passing his hands over all car surfaces and sticking them in a machine to detect explosives or maybe drugs. Someone with what looks like a worn out washing-up brush passed over the surfaces of all cars in the queue and sticking it in a similar machine. If they got a positive alert, no idea how they would tell which car was contaminated, as they will have cross-contaminated all the cars in the queue. A friendly sniffer dog nuzzling in and around the car. A man with an alarming looking probe poked in and around the car occupants. Someone with a mirror on a trolley looking under the car. I have seen a couple of cars waved into a covered area and the vehicle completely emptied for a thorough hand search. Interestingly never seen any occupants asked to step from their cars for frisking.

The bored looking passport control officers may take a glance at your passports but after this you are almost on your way. Another new area is a "sheep-dip" which you drive through, I suppose the muddy water coming half way up the tyres meets the FMD regulations but is probably of debatable value. The Eurotunnel staff are usually friendly waving you into the right queue for boarding, once you are at this stage there are rarely delays.

Loading onto the trains is again very efficient and I am always impressed by the clever design. Remember to turn off your headlights as you turn into the train, the staff get very excited as apparently they trigger alarms and all sorts. You drive into the trains at a 45 degree angle and into the lower or, up a steep ramp, onto the upper deck of the two level carriages. You then drive down the length of the train. There are usually enough staff to gu
ide you up to within a couple of inches of the car in front. They fit up to half a dozen cars per carriage with just enough clearance for the dividing doors between carriages that, at this stage, are folded into the side walls. With the turn of a key the staff activate the doors to fold and a shutter to drop dividing the train up into more conventional train carriages. There are a couple of security announcements like leaving windows open for security announcements, no smoking, and a sample of the evacuation warning. Incidentally they have thankfully stopped making announcements that include "Ler Shurttell" in the most irritating accent, I would have thought the French would have objected in the very beginning to this gem of Franglais). Soon you will move off.

The journey is fairly smooth and quiet. When boarding the train the air extraction systems are on and it is very noisy but once on the move it is probably quieter than the London Underground. Journey time is about 35 minutes and uneventful, no views from the window other than the first minutes approaching and exiting the tunnel, and not an awful lot of on board entertainment.

The youngest children can be teased about seeing fish etc, and the odd reflection can be a lost diver. The loos are usually cleanish and the airline style explosive suction offers some entertainment. You can walk the train, upstairs and down from back to front. The very first and last carriages are sometimes full height and when empty quite scary for kids. The doors between carriages are quite fun, pressing the button to release the airlock makes a nice noise. You have to very thin to walk through the single door and you have to step over the squeaky rubber carriage links. You can do this twenty times or more on your walk about. There are few signs to practice your English/French translation as also on the overhead scrolling messageboard. I cannot comment on the exclusive advertised Eurotunnel radio since it h
asn't worked whenever I've tried it, other than the hissing sound of trying to listen to any radio in a tunnel. The regular travellers doze in their cars, the newbies excitedly watch out the windows and read with great interest the safety and emergency evacuation procedures.

So you arrive, the shutters go up and the doors swing back and away you go straight onto the French motorway network. Quicker than you expect, so study the map and make sure you know where you want to go before you arrive on the other side.

The reverse procedure to get home is much the same. Sometimes the French are more or less vigilant on security etc but on the whole they don't want to know and wave you through. Presumably they work on the theory that if you are leaving France all the better, as, if you are up to no good, are an illegal immigrant, gun or drug runner then more fool the English to welcome you. Watching very loaded cars returning home and being waved up the ramp to the upper level of the train can be alarming/entertaining.

The booze and tobacco shop in the French Terminal can be good value. Prices have risen drastically over the last months although they still claim to be offering what would have been duty free prices. Tobacco is still very cheap for those that "need" it. Spirits, unless they are on special offer, are now rarely cheaper than the French supermarkets or even Tesco at home. You need your wits and brain in gear for mental arithmetic though. For price comparisons you need to compare standard bottles against litres and also watch the alcohol content, ie 37.5% spirits against 40% and 43%. Cans of beer you need to compare can sizes, the price of bottles against cans and the number of bottles in a case, again those on special offer can be good value. Remember to use your PointsPlus card, you will receive 1% (1p for every £1 or FF10) back as points on all expenditure in Eurotunnel shops and also at the Carrefour supermar
ket in Cite Europe. After a few shopping trips you will earn enough points to get your next trip free. I digress, this opinion is meant to be about Le Shuttle.

Half term times are usually bad news, though you can be lucky and I have just travelled the other week on half empty trains both ways. You can suffer horrendous delays and they do seem to have an inordinate number of track, train, signalling, overhead gantry, electrical failures, staff shortages, train shortages, wet rails, excess demand, de-railments, and (BR comes to mind) sorts of problems. These eventualities really should by now have been addressed and resolved; they are so common they must be almost predictable and they should perhaps adjust their timetables to allow for them. I have been completely turned away on one occasion and suffered up to four hour delays on a couple of other times. You need to express your discontent at the customer "service" desk and have a moan. They may offer you anything from a voucher for free coffee to a ticket for another day, it depends very much on the staff on the day. This compensation doesn't cover you for the inconvenience and cost of petrol for a wasted journey so ask them to record your complaint and tell them you will write to their head office at Cheriton as well. Write and complain suggesting another complimentary ticket would perhaps be an appropriate gesture of goodwill.

The cost of Eurotunnel is another issue and I am only an experienced day-tripper, but prices seem to vary day to day. It is always worth giving them a ring as opposed to taking their website fares at face value. Price often depends on who you speak to and they will always be able to offer you a special deal of the day, then tell them you will buy it through the website for another £2 discount, and of course don't forget to use the PointPlus card for another 1% discount.

A good value day out for us southerners lucky enough to be within striking d
istance. Overall a well recommended means of travel.

Even for a day trip you may feel it worth considering motoring cover for breakdown abroad. As part of my AA membership this is free, and with an annual unlimited travel insurance policy I am covered on all fronts. You need to check your car insurance but it should offer you minimum third party cover abroad, with an option for comprehensive cover. Take your car insurance certificate and driving licence with you, plus a spare car key in a fellow traveller's purse.

As a Points-Plus member I have managed to earn enough points to make a couple of free trips per year.

So just for the price of petrol, a trip to France with family or friends can be quite a fun cheap day out.

Summary: