P&O FERRIES - The journey home Monday 30.10.8

P&O FERRIES

Ah for the good old days, when you could turn up and drive on. They were happy to fill their ferries; we were happy to get away early. We didn't need to hang around in the terminal amongst the detritus left behind by other travellers, because the companies keep us moving. It goes without saying we have never been so daft as to hop on a ferry on a bank holiday Monday at the end of the summer holidays.

Well we broke with tradition today, as, clearly, have the ferry and port operators.

After decades (I think) of being based in Calais, P&O have no more than a tatty little portacabin, in a car park, as an office! It's cramped and grubby, some might say, SEEDY.  So seedy it brings pre millennium, Greyhound Bus terminals to mind. How sad it feels to be made to feel so SPECIAL by this prestigious, CRUISE LINE company. Shame it's not a positively special experience.  Clearly, we don't matter, they don't need to court us as future customers on some of their more glamorous lines. We are mere scum in their eyes. This much they have successfully signalled to us.

The girl at the desk was straight talking, it would cost an extra 60 euros to catch an earlier ferry. I said it was a rip off. She said, in effect, take it, or leave it. We took pleasure in deciding, slowly, as the queue lengthened and spilled out of the little shack. We paid our money and she printed our tickets. She was grumpy and had clearly chosen the wrong career path for her character. Either that, or her trainer needs training. The previous person in the queue had been asked for 400 quid, ONE WAY, because the ferry was very busy. Implying he'd have trouble getting on at all if he didn't jump now. He booked his party, caravan and car on a later boat for 170 quid – one way.

Look how amazingly crowded the ferry is!! 

It did fill up some more as folks came in from restaurants and stuff, but there were a lot of empty tables and chairs all around us. I've seen much busier ferries. Was she misrepresenting the facts. Is that allowed in France?

Still, back in the car park, we now had only an hour to kill before joining the boat queue, which meant only one thing, coffee.

The coffee lounge/cafe is right at the top of a modern looking building. Things are looking up, I thought; it's not a portacabin; until I went inside. OMG what a dump. The ground floor was devoid of light and life, apart from a few dejected souls wandering about and ferry company desks sailing on unstaffed. What a dismal welcome. Outside the sun shone.

We zipped up stairs to the expansive level with the loos, labelled, and yet, well hidden. I was ok though, because the entire level reeked of farts and stale poo. All we had to do was follow our noses. What a delight.

There was one soap dispenser, in the ladies, that had dispensed with life long ago. The situation is no better in the men's loos. Quietly, I hoped that the staff in the cafe up stairs had their own 'facilities'......

Onward and ever upward, passing filthy tiled walls, we lunged, until 3 or so floors later, we found a very pleasant looking motorway services type of place. The food looked good, even though we only wanted a quick coffee; FRENCH COFFEE, nothing nicer. It was the most disgusting coffee any of us had ever smelled. I changed to tea. I got hot water and frothy hot milk. Off I went to the girl on the counter, she snootily pointed at a couple of tea bags stashed to one side of the till. Dropping one into the cup, it floated, dry and safe on the film of milky water. It would not sink. I took a straw from a generous cupful and undressed it. She who must be obeyed berated me for my lack of 'gentility'. Cheeky thing.

I put my straw, its' wrapper and the 'teabag' (really a bag of flavourless brown dye) back into my cup once I had finished my tea. I could not drink it all as it tasted disgusting, which meant my rubbish was awash in the 'tea'. It gave me a slight fresence of pleasure to think of that misery of a girl having to clean up my mess. Call me vindictive if you must … oh you already did. I feel must agree with you.

Outside, people sat on the tarmac to picnic, and chat. They lounged against car doors, and sat on any bollard they could find, some even stood; unaided. All this to avoid sitting in hot vehicles, or that disgusting building.

Why no picnic tables outside? Why no welcoming foyer in that main building? Why such degradation, stench and filth in the stairwell and loo area? Why the worst tea and coffee I've EVER encountered anywhere in the world? Not that I'm THAT well travelled, I promise to keep looking! And why such miserable staff on the port and P&O side of things?

In the queue for the boat, we had a wait of just over an hour. NO we didn't go anywhere near the cafe or loos in this part of the port. Just because we look mad …..it doesn't make us stupid.

Talking of tea and coffee, the test of rubbishness (yes, that's now a word) is, if whilst wearing a blindfold, you genuinely can't tell what you're drinking then that's a TOPBOTTOMDRINK. 

And this was a

TOPBOTTOMDRINK. 

It can't get any worse than being the absolute worst at what you do …. can it?