England to France - Channel Tunnel > Reviews > Not All its Cracked Up To Be

Author's product rating:   

Frequency of trains	Excellent
Reliability of trains	Mostly on time
Comfort of trains	Very uncomfortable
On-board facilities	Very poor

Advantages:	Quick, easy
Disadvantages:	Claustrophobic, hot, no facilties

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Eurotunnel - it sounded so good, didn't it? Now the majority of opinions on Eurotunnel on this site give it 5 stars - the odd one giving it 3, and then one giving it 2. That guy's opinion didn't get a good reception, mainly because he didn't show enough points for not using Eurotunnel. I'm here today to give you the minus points, because really, all the good points have been covered on this site.

I have used the Channel Tunnel quite a few times now, all of them I hated, but it is a lot worse by Coach than by car. Not that I'm saying it's actually any good by car either.

Now I think the whole Eurostar, London to Paris thing was an excellent idea, and I'm using that on my holiday this year. But the Folkestone-Calais train is a different story.

I remember my first trip on the tunnel, feeling excited. The fact is if your impatient and have to get somewhere quickly, and you don't mind uncomfortable conditions Eurotunnel is for you. If you want to a relax, have a drink, enjoy yourself, and don't mind adding less than an hour more to your holiday, use a ferry. Generally it's cheaper.

Now access to the terminal at Folkestone is easy, and there's plenty of service stations in the vicinity for you to get a drink or magazine for the journey, as well as the shopping area at the actual terminal. Now on this occasion, I was going on a coach, and for a school trip, being cramped in a narrow carriage is not a good thing. But I didn't organise the holiday. Now I knew the journey wasn't going to be exciting. No method of transportation is exciting if you live in this country. But this was bad. I only suffer from claustrophobia occasionally, in the worst conditions. And this was one of those occasions. The gap between the outside of the coach and the 'walls' of the train was about the width of a thin person, no exaggeration. They tell you to have your windows and sunroofs open, but in a coach that is not possible. If you wanted, you could 'stroll' down to one of the few toilets on the train, or read some of those things that come up on the screen along the walls of the train. But I wasn't expecting much to do on the train. The journey is meant to take 35 mins. the train stopped halfway for nearly 20 mins. We went to find out why but there were no staff onboard to be found, and there was no announcement or apology. That's another thing, no customer service. At the terminal you are waved through, no questions asked. I have yet to see a member of staff onboard a train during the crossing.

So in conclusion, Eurotunnel is good in some ways (And yes even I think there are good things on Eurotunnel, although I haven't mentioned them here because they are mentioned repeatedly in other opinions) but here I have listed the bad points. It has practically ruined the ferry system. Oh, I know you can go P&O Ferries and get on a packed fery, but have you ever been on a route like Folkestone-Boulogne? Since Eurotunnel opened in 1995, at least 4 routes have closed in connection with Eurotunnel, and my family knows an ex. P&O employee who lost his job because of this. So in the end, I encourage you to take another method of transport.