Beware P&O ferry from Dover to Calais!

The cross-channel ferries are mostly for goods haulers. Foot pax are incidentals. Nothing unexpected. Hence the standing recommendations to use the Eurostar.

Thanks for reporting what worked and what didn't. In my experience of other ferries, the foot passengers usually disembark first, so I'm guessing that the difficulty with the instructions contributed to this. If you boarded the boat by a different method on the Dover side, you didn't have the benefit of re-tracing your steps, as on some other ferries.

Eurostar sounds a lot better.

The problem is with Calais port facilities or lack of them for foot passengers. Having said that 30 minutes wait is more usual but I daresay the ferry was rather full.

The cheapest foot passenger fare is 50p each way, which may not cover much service element

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Yes - Marco's spot on. It is the Calais facility, but it seems P&O might raise the issue and have it addressed. And we took the ferry because we'd previously found Eurostar to be a glorified subway ride, and we wanted to see those white cliffs and the channel. Sorry to say I find Ed of Pensacola's reply oddly smug: in doing homework for the trip, I saw nowhere that "... cross-channel ferries are mostly for goods haulers..." Having also been on a good number of ferries, I've never seen an issue getting off the boat. Foot passengers getting ONTO this particular ferry had no trouble. Parents with small children and infants suffered most; many grew rather hysterical. P&O could have at least posted a warning.

Thanks, Keith. It was the unexpected weirdness of there being no way to simply walk off the boat. And it was wasted an hour of our vacation time!

There have been frequent comments on this helpline by myself and several others who all have said that P&O are the last and final foot passenger ferries on the short Channel crossings. Years ago virtually all London to Paris and return journeys for foot passengers were by ship ferry and the boats were full of foot passengers. Trains delivered them to the docks at both sides and collected them from the other side.

20 years ago this year the Channel Tunnel opened and things haven't been the same since.

The vast proportion of London/Paris and London/Brussels (and to most Belgian cities) passengers now use the Eurostar. Many of us now use the Tunnel when driving to France and Europe using the Eurotunnel shuttle (I did today, hard to beat: I was scheduled to go at 10:50 from Calais to Folkestone, checked in at about 10:10 for my 10:20 deadline, got combined onto the 10:36 train which left right on time and I was driving off the train before 10:10 British time.) and that is a real piece of cake. Just like going through a toll booth and then parking in a really long well lit wide garage.

Many of the rest of the foot passengers after Eurostar now ride a bus through the Tunnel or a few fly. A tiny tiny proportion now use the ship ferries. There are now no train stations convenient to the ports at either end as demand has fallen through the floor.

Not many years ago thousands of Brits used the ferries for day trips to France - booze cruises as they were called - to get cheap plonk and cigarettes (cheaper than Britain) but now the prices are nearly equivalent and the Euro has strengthened against the Pound, so the booze cruise is dead.

There is no reason for the French to keep up the port. I have written many times on here about how difficult it can be for a foot passenger once they have landed in France.

I'm sorry it was unpleasant for you. Not sure how it was "disgraceful".