I can't drive, but want to get to Calais (there's no eurostar free til monday at least), and there's a third person who posted a message yesterday who might be interested in chipping in as well.  Do you have a car or are you sugegsting renting?

Belou

I was thinking of renting. Dont have a car myself. And if we rent, we can then drop it off at Calais and then take the ferry over.

Do you think that ferries still have space for foot passengers?

As for Eurostar -- I checked the website this morning, you can still buy tickets (though expensive), or is that not valid?

Do you want to contact the other person too and let me know. What do you think about renting then? I can leave around 3pm.

Thanks

Sahar

I am also interested too, my flight was meant to be this afternoon,not yet cancelled but im not hopeful. Let me know if you come up with anything as happy to split costs and share driving.

Becky.

I phoned Cornavin to find out about trains to Paris, and they have a recorded message saying that all Eurostar services are fully booked til Monday. There's Caen as well for ferries to Portsmouth. Do you know how much a rental car would cost? And how long it would take? I have a friend in Lausanne who's also thinking of renting a car, and could share costs and driving.

Im happy to share drive and costs, contact me if you want to go ahead.

0786225488 - Becky

Ok, I just checked. We need to get a car soon if we really want to get to the UK tonight as cars are also being booked quickly. EUROPCAR which is NOT the cheapest one is giving a quote of CHF800 for Geneva pick-up and Calais drop-off. It's 4 of us already (including Belou's friend in Lusanne), and there are even 2 more people that I know would want to join if we get a bigger car.

In any case the cost works out around 150-200CHF for each person. The journey time is supposed to be between 6 and 7 hours.

Im ok with both the cost and time. Are you guys too? Also maybe Belou's friend could also check out the prices of rentals from Geneva -- could be even cheaper.

Please let me know soon so we can decide what to do.

078 774 3631

What siza car is this and what times and date did you put in as im searching on various other sites.thanks

Hello! Good organising. I'll get Ben to check car rental prices in Lausanne. Aso, he wants to know:

[11:28:21] Ben Doyle: does that mean the cost for a one way trip or return?
[11:29:07] Ben Doyle: i wonder if that price takes petrol into accounjt

Hi,

Becky -- I just did a general search on EROPCAR -- date today and hours: pick up 3pm and drop off at 9pm. Have you find other quotes elsewhere?

Belou -- Pls let us know what quotes Ben finds in Lusanne. The cost that I checked quickly was for a single trip to Calais. If you want to go all the way to London, then that's an option too. As for petrol, I dont know if the car rentals here take petrol into account or not. But I think generally for this distance, the petrol will be around 300 euros, more or less.

Sahar

Any news guys?

Ben's gone off for lunch - we were checking out cars from Paris so there'd be less driving. We'll get back to you in an hour or so I guess? The ferries aren't looking great - P&O don't have any space, and other ferry sites are just crashing. Plus there's the question of getting into England really late, and not being able to get trains til the next morning.

That sounds good. But one thing: how can we get to Paris? I was at Cornavin in the morning and they said that the trains to Paris are both fully booked AND on strike (!). So the best they could suggest was to come to the station and if the train conductor agrees, then you can get on the train.  Because of the French rail strikes any trains which go to france are now not functioning.

As for the driving, I would have loved to contribute but dont have a license, but I know Becky has also offered to drive.

Keep me posted. Thanks.

Try Hertz or Alamo. The 800 chf is that the deposit you get when returning the car as on average the cars on Hertz or Alamo are around 180.

Hi guys...Ben from Lausanne here.

I'm still looking at options but the situation sounds worse and worse. As far as I understand: Norfolkline ferries from Dunkerque are running to Dover for very reasonable prices (c.70€) IF you take a car. I guess people don't think of Dunkerque. But they don't take foot passengers and neither do Sea France. P&O do take foot passengers but they are very busy - certainly they are not taking any more bookings for foot passengers from Dover-Calais for the next 24 hours. I don't know whether that also applies to Calais-Dover but I assumed yes - someone could call if they have the inclination.

If the train is not an option, Google maps estimates 5.5 hours to drive to Paris from Lausanne but my colleagues say it's more like 7-8 hours. Then it's maybe another 3 or 3.5 to Calais/Dunkerque. So we're looking at 9-12 hours driving to there. Then two hours on the ferry.

So if we want to drive, we probably have to find a car rental provider that would allow us to take the car to England, assuming we can't go as foot passengers. In my view the best bet would be to leave it in England and hope that we can get back to Switzerland on our original flights...but whether that is possible I don't know.

Any suggestions welcome.

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the info. Norfolkline ferries sound good.

As for driving to the port, I think it's better not to go via paris. Basically that's what Ive been told by someone who said had done this trip yesterday. They said that SatNav took them to Calais in just over 6 hours.

If you go to googlemap and click on directions and then put Geneva-Calais it shows you the route.

But I think all in all it will take perhaps 9-10 hours including the ferry.

My gut feeling that once at a port, we can manage to get tickets (or even ask people who have space in their car, if we can get into the ferry with them).

Our main focus now should be on car rental -- from where and how much.

The only one so far that I have seen has available cars is EUROPCAR. Do you want to check it out from Lusanne too? Maybe they have more avilable cars and are cheaper?

Becky -- was 180CHF the quote that you got today from Hertz and Alamo? I doubt it could be that cheap today, and also when the drop off location is different, its always more expensive.

EUROPCAR:

http://www.europcar.com/EBE/module/booking/FirstStep.do

Hertz and Alamo are all sold out now anyway. After car hire, petrol, ferry and toll roads its going to cost quite alot. Im unsure now, if you need more people consult the event on here, drive to the uk.

Belou and I are out. A bridge too far I'm afraid. Too many complications and potential sticking points...plus I don't really fancy 20+ hours driving in a weekend! Best of luck to anyone who does try it.

Ive given up on the idea too, just im leaving geneva for good and i start work in the uk again on thursday so just wanted to see friends before but ill probably end up straight back to work! with any luck flights wil be up again tomorrow :-/

Oh no! I don't think anyone's happy about it, but there doesn't seem to be much we can do... Good luck!

Thanks same to you guys too!