Traffic Chaos hits Cruise.co.uk Christmas Party

Even travel agents have trouble getting to their holidays. On Saturday morning we left Redditch at 9am sharp, knowing that Dover port and the M20 were closed and Balmoral not yet in dock. This photo gives a clue as to how the journey ended but read on to find out more..

After a good journey down, a re-route to the A2 and a coach driver threatening to turn back we hit traffic 7 miles from Dover, just outside of Whitfield. ½ an hour and less than ½ a mile later the more crazy of us made the decision that walking was clearly the only way to make the ship.

After 50 minutes of trudging along the side of the road the traffic cleared a bit and the coach caught us up. Feeling a bit stupid I happily got back on a settled down for the rest of the journey. Just 4 miles to go according to the driver.

40 minutes later and we hadn’t moved at all. It was 3.20pm and 3 hours to the new scheduled departure time of 6.30 and it was time to pick those bags up again. Now or never. Caroline Kyle and myself were first off and boy does she walk fast, but is a great travel companion. At 4.50 we walked up the gangplank. Slightly dishevelled, shaking and aching, but at least we made it. The whole company had got off the coach and made a sterling effort, all 50 of us made it on board with a mixture of blisters and ailments.

Our boss (Andrew) had said we were crazy to walk---‘Stay on the coach, they’ll hold the ship’ Normally I listen to Andrew, I’m glad I didn’t. Balmoral sailed at 7 and was 300 passengers light.

The cruise itself was fabulous..read my separate entry and view the photo's tomorrow