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We are booked on a midday Eurotunnel next Wednesday and our drive from Southampton will take us via M3 & M25. If I leave home at 8am I will hit all of the rush hour traffic on the M3/M25.

So thinking that it might be best to leave home about 5am, get to the tunnel about 7.30am and hoepfully catch an earlier train. I have read on this forum about people getting earlier trains in off-peak but what about hight of the summer? Are we more likely to get onto an 8am train as opposed to 9am or 10am?

Grateful for some advice please. My life will not be worth living if I drag wife and tennage daughter out of bed at 5am only to have to wait at the tunnel until midday!

Thanks

Chris

we arrived 1 day early last year due to a change of circumstances, before I booked onto the local campsite I went to the tunnel check in knowing that the next day (1st sat in aug) would be really busy and they may be glad that I was a day early! sure enough I was on the next train for no extra charge!

However it is up to them, earlier than 2 hrs and they can just turn you away. Worst case you go to the J11 services and sit having a coffee.

I have a workmate who arrived at the French end of the tunnel this May half term, within the 2 hour slot for the train she was booked onto, only to be told the train was  full and they would have to queue for a later train. She pointed out that they had a booking and they werent late but got the gallic shrug. They eventually got onto a train 1.5 hours later than the one they had booked back in October.

My friend said it was very, very busy and it looked like they had just abandoned the booking system or it had broken down and they just seemed to be filling the trains on a first come first served basis. I hope this doesnt happen to us as it will cost us an extra night in the Kennels and cattery for our pets.

Carol

Just echoing all the other comments, we always turn up early and only once in the last 10 years have we not beem allowed to get on early on this side. French side are normally more rigid ( surprisingly). I think May meltdown may have been knock on effect from all the additional traffic caused by the airports closing.

If  they won't let you on and you have along wait - you can always placate female family members by buying some nice perfume in the terminal ( which in my experince is very often cheaper than it is in France - especially when Euro rate is rubbish).

We had the misfortune to break down right outside the Terminal at Christmas, the eurotunnel staff had to tow us into the Terminal because we were a security risk where we were, so we went through and it registered our booking by reading the number plate. We went and spoke to the nice lady at the desk and she gave us a "free pass" so to speak so that once we had got sorted we could get a crossing whenever. We went back boxing day and had expected it to be busy, but they had no problem booking us in. In fact it was the same guy who had helped us when we broke down and he even asked if we were ok!

We've got on earlier trains before but never that much earlier. I agree with the comments about going early and if you get there early see if you can get an early crossing, if not you know you are there and you probably wouldn't have that long to wait to get a crossing within the two hours!

When we came back after Christmas the queues into the Calais terminal were manic, cars changing lanes, pushing in etc etc, we had tried to aim for an earlier train but they were all full, but we did get on our original booked train and surprisingly it did leave on time.