Dave landed at Frankfurt airport early on Friday afternoon, and Rio and I picked him up there so we could start driving towards Calais, France right away. The drive was uneventful and we arrived at our little Budget Ibis Hotel around 10:00 pm.
Those of you not accustomed to staying in low cost places in Europe may not be familiar with check in kiosks. Here's David inputting our reservation number, and scanning a credit card (for ID purposes) into the machine:
The kiosk provides you with a printed slip that has the room number and key code to unlock the door. It actually works pretty well. Here is Rio opening the door to our room:
Here are a few shots of the room. This is about the standard size for such hotels (slightly smaller than the one I blogged about that we stayed in in May on our way to Disneyland Paris). When you just need somewhere to sleep and shower before hopping on a ferry the next morning, it is fine. I wouldn't want to spend several days in one though:
Saturday morning we were up and out by 9:00, stopped at McDonald's for caffeine and arriving at the ferry port by 9:45 for our 10:45 time slot (note: prebuying a ferry slot, or chunnel slot, is MUCH less expensive than paying when you show up--and it guarantees you a spot). We have been foot passengers on smaller ferries before, but none of us had taken a car onboard before and we were interested to see how the process would work.
The first step was making it through lines for a passport check with UK border guards. There were many people directing traffic into lanes and keeping things moving very efficiently, in spite of the hundreds of cars, and dozens of motorhomes to work with. In 10 minutes, we were through and splitting off to the lines for P&O lines. We pulled up to a ticket booth and were bit relieved at how easy it was to get printed tickets when simply telling then our reservation number. We were handed a hang tag for the front mirror, which also noted that we had 3 passengers, and were given tickets to the "club lounge" (an upgrade option that we decided to try at a price of 15 pounds round trip).
We were given a lane number to drive through (119) and were happy to see that the lanes were very well labeled and easy to get into.
We were in our lane by a few minutes after 10:00 and able to get out, stretch our legs, use the restrooms, etc while we waited to board.
It was fascinating to watch how quickly the ferry was unloaded, and how many vehicles fit on what looks like a fairly small boat. Large trucks were being loaded on while cars were still coming off--they really have the changeover process down to a science!
By 10:30, we were driving onto the boat (which is just an odd feeling!):
We were quickly, and safely, directed to where to park, and space was fully utilized with some cars even being parked on the ramps. In no time we were leaving the car and heading into the passenger areas. Rio said the ferry looked a lot like an airport, which was a pretty apt description. There were sitting areas, duty free shops and fast food areas, as well as an outdoor deck:
There seems to be plenty to keep people occupied for the hour and a half crossing. We did not dally though and made our way up to deck 9 to the P&O Club Lounge, where we were offered a free welcome glass of champagne as soon as we arrived (Dave asked for his as a mimosa, it was 10:45 after all!) and I declined:
The lounge was spacious, with comfy sofas and many large windows. Soda, juice, coffee, hot chocolate and tea, as well as small snacks (cookies, chips, nuts and fresh fruit) were available at no extra charge throughout the crossing. It was well worth the extra cost to have the calm seating area and drinks and snacks.
There was also a Club only out door deck, which was a great place to view the White Cliffs of Dover as we crossed over. In the second photo you can see how many more people were crowded in public deck below--it felt very Titanic with our "first class deck" lol
It was nice to come in from the water and see the White Cliffs on our approach:
About 5 minutes before we docked, they announced to everyone to please return to cars--and only a a short while after that, we were driving off.
The whole thing went extremely smoothly and easily. David handled driving off and driving on the left hand side of the road for his first time ever, very well too (note: while waiting to board, we had lots of reminders to adjust our headlamps, etc to the opposite side driving settings--which was a good thing, and meant everyone was all set on debarkation).
Dave did not feel at all sea sick on the crossing, but the last couple of minutes, as we rocked a bit attaching gangways while sitting in the car, followed by the disorienting feeling of driving on the "wrong" side of the road meant he felt a little out of sorts, so we took an exit and a parking and view area near the dock:
We headed down through the one way tunnel and then parked for only 50 pence for an hour.
There were clean, free, restrooms, a small snack counter and some nice walking paths out to the sea wall (as you can tell, it was quite windy; actually all of England has been quite windy for our entire trip thus far). It was a pretty are for a break:
In about 30 minutes we were back on the road and heading towards the Harry Potter Studio Tour, which deserves a blog post all of its own.
--Hadley
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